Ocean Man First Nation is celebrating Aboriginal Day, and community togetherness, with their parade hosted by the Town of Stoughton tomorrow.
Ocean Man Health and Wellness Coordinator, and event organizer, Arnold Akachuk, says they originally set out to celebrate Aboriginal Day, but it quickly became more than that.
“The whole purpose behind this parade or this unity is coming together. Because Aboriginal Day is Saturday, and we were going to focus on that, but we decided to focus on the neighbors, like being neighborly. We're neighbors with Stoughton, and Stoughton's neighbors with us.”
CAO for the town of Stoughton, Danielle Hoffman, explains they were approached by Akachuk, inviting them to participate, and they were happy to be a part of it.
“Stoughton's just really happy to participate. We're glad that they came to us and said, ‘hey, we would like to do this in your community, what do you think?’. It's nice that we can support them that way and help bring a little bit of their heritage and their culture into our community.”
The teepee will be set up early in the morning, around 7:30 to 8 a.m. with the parade departing from Stoughton Central School at 10 a.m. and concludes on Main Street. Akachuck says there will be an emcee explaining the purpose of the event, as well as the dances performed. There will also be an area called Bannock Sharing.
“We know and we understand that Bannock really isn't our staple food, but we adopted it and we're kind of known across Turtle Island here related to Bannock making.”
The event will finish off with a unity round dance, with an emcee describing how the people here have come together and work together.
Hoffman echos the sentiment, explaining that collaboration is important to their community.
“We want to make sure that we remain open to the communities around us because we encourage them to come to our community to do business, to use our recreation facilities, to use our library, spend time in our parks. So, it's just important to make sure that we have a welcoming, opening attitude about us.”
Akachuk says he looks forward to sharing their talents with the community of Stoughton, including their ways of dancing, singing, and general way of life. He thanks the town for their contributions to the celebration.
“We just want to say thank you to the town of Stoughton for contributing what they could and allowing us this time of sharing with them. They were open to it, and we didn't expect the response that we got from the town of Stoughton. That's one thing that we really appreciate, the town of Stoughton opening up to us.”
