(Photo credit: CFJC Today).

By Stephanie Swensrude

KAMLOOPA POWWOW

Dancing in Kamloopa Powwow healing, empowering for young Indigenous people

Aug 2, 2022 | 11:13 AM

TK’EMLUPS TE SECWEPEMC — Thousands of people, both Indigenous and not, travelled from across Turtle Island for the 41^st annual Kamloopa Powwow on the August long weekend (July 29 to Aug.1).

Dancers in the hundreds donned exquisite regalia in the high-30s heat for the supportive crowd.

Ryan Hunter is a Nakota Sioux powwow dancer and drummer. He’s from Morley, Alta., on Treaty 7 territory. For him and many others, doing the powwow circuit each year is like a fulltime job.

“It’s lots of effort. Time away from home, time away from work. Sometimes you run into whatever, but you still manage to pull through and keep a good positive attitude. Tell everybody safe travels because everybody travels,” Hunter says.

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Honey Pasqua is a young Ojibwe/Sioux dancer from Edmonton, Alta., on Treaty 6 territory. She has been dancing since she was two and comes from a family full of powwow dancers.

“I dance fancy, junior fancy, and special junior girls’ jingle,” Pasqua says.

“We do a lot of travelling, every year we go travel all over Turtle Island. We love going to gathering nations and specifically this powwow because her sister is [the former] Miss Kamloopa,” Callisa Burr, Pasqua’s mom says. “She has her older sisters as role models.”

Joely Paul from the Lhtako Dene nation near Quesnel, B.C., says she dances for her family members.

“I’m thinking of the people who were here before me. All of my relatives back at home, all my little siblings who are watching me and looking up to me,” Paul says. “It makes me feel happy. It’s a feeling of pure joy.”