Peggy Revell
Covered by bush less than a year ago, an area of Manitou Rapids will have been completely transformed into a new pow-wow grounds for Rainy River First Nations by this summer.
“It’s actually a fairly big structure,” said Rainy River First Nations’ education counsellor Marcel Horton, who also is the project co-ordinator.
“From the discussion that’s taken place with other First Nation communities, this is pretty well going to be the colosseum of pow-wows, and we’re pretty proud of that,” he added.
Located at the junction of Highways 11 and 71, the facility’s seating capacity will be just under 1,500 while the centre arbour will have room for roughly 50 drums, noted Horton.
There also will be amenities like showers, washrooms, change rooms, camping grounds, and space for concession booths.
All the lumber being used has come from Manitou Rapids’ own sawmill.
Construction began last May, when elders were brought to the site and traditional offerings made for a good, successful build, Horton explained.
Areas of the site were cleared out, where the grandstand and arbours were to be located was built up, and gravel was trucked in for the parking area as well as for the service road that’s been built all around the outside of the structure.
It’s estimated the structure will be finished by this May, with only some landscaping left to be completed after that.
“I’ve actually been waiting to go on Google Earth to see what this structure looks like, an aerial shot,” enthused Horton. “Because from what we’ve been told by the architects and the people who designed this [that] this may be one of the only few seven-sided structures that there are in Ontario or Canada.”
Horton said the reason why they chose a seven-sided structure is because Rainy River First Nations, after a 30-year court battle, settled its land claim with the federal and provincial governments in 2005 that dated back to 1914 or 1915.
“What a lot of people don’t realize, and a lot of our young people don’t realize, is that Rainy River First Nations is pluralistic for a reason,” he remarked. “It’s because the six other reserves that comprise Rainy River First Nations along the Rainy River, six of those reserves were forcibly removed and all moved here to Manitou.”
So each side of the structure will be named after, and stand in commemoration to, these original reserves, Horton said.
Within the grandstand area, there will be seven rows of seating. There also are plans for an honour guard of seven poles.
“That’s the reason why we picked seven because you’re honouring those old reserves,” Horton stressed. “And yet in a holistic way, you’re all coming together as one to say “We are Rainy River First Nations. This is who we are.”
Horton called the project the silver lining following the incident last year where an online video surfaced of non-native members of the Muskie girls’ hockey team dancing to the sounds of a pow-wow while holding what appeared to be liquor bottles.
“When that video had come out, we had a lot of our young people go to the parents, go to the schools, principals, teachers, and a lot of the young people who were offended by what’s happening in the video,” Horton explained. “[But] they actually admitted, ‘We don’t know what it means to be First Nation. We have no clue.’
“That’s our young people talking.
“And so when that video had come out, we started to look back at ourselves and say, ‘Who are we? Who are we as First Nations people?’
“If you don’t know who you are, then what are you doing?” Horton stressed.
Horton explained the Rainy River First Nations’ chief and council (of which he is a member) started to look at previous pow-wow committees and found that elders wanted a new facility built as far back as 30 years ago.
They decided that now was the time to make it happen.
“I mean, you’re talking about my uncle and the friendly giant, [the] late Harold McGinnis,” said Horton. “They’ve all passed on, and when we first discussed this, it’s with those guys’ memories and those guys’ spirit with what we’re building here.”
The new pow-wow grounds
coincide with other initiatives for the youth and community to regain a sense of who they are and to re-instill a pride in their First Nations’ culture, Horton explained.
“We’re also getting our young people into drumming . . . they’re now putting together pow-wow regalia and they’re getting themselves ready to enter that circle, which is phenomenal,” he enthused.
“Hopefully one day, my daughter’s grandchildren will dance here also. And that’s what we’re hoping to do.
“It’s really taken on a life of its own, this place,” Horton continued. “Because so many people who really had no interest in pow-wows, in the culture, in the ways of the old people, this is actually creating fire under a lot of our behinds because you’re remembering that you have to get back to who you are in here.”
In the end, the new grounds will have cost roughly half-a-million dollars to build, Horton noted, all of which has been raised within the community.
“We had originally set up for more of a proposal driven project, but considering that the Canadian government and everything else between this fall and this winter, the proposals were either set aside or outright denied or whatever,” Horton said.
“So, basically, it came down to good governance from our chief and council, and also very sound financial management. Those two things have actually created this.”
The pow-wow grounds are expected to be completed by early summer, with an opening pow-wow planned for the third week of June, Horton said.
“We feel the pow-wow grounds we have built honours the guidance our elders, both present and those that have passed on, have provided us,” said Dean Wilson, manager of administration for the Rainy River First Nations.
“And this June, we welcome all to come and celebrate with us.”
“We’re just starting to put together our posters and distribute it among Treaty #3, northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas,” said Horton, adding everyone is welcome.
“Whoever wants to come here and celebrate, please come. Please, please come,” he stressed. “Because that video last year, it hurt a lot of people, but at the same time, look with what we’re building.
“This is a beautiful facility.”
