Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Silvia Senna

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY

Kamloops community celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day Friday

Jun 21, 2024 | 1:45 PM

KAMLOOPS — Friday (June 21) is National Indigenous Peoples Day and the local Kamloops community was invited to take in and celebrate Indigenous culture at Riverside Park.

Community leaders and local organizations hosted the event on Friday afternoon to commemorate the rich heritage, diverse traditions and invaluable contributions of Indigenous peoples across Canada.

“We show everyone and we share with everyone our way of living,” said Margaret Anderson, President of the Kamloops Aboriginal Friendship Society. “We have fun. We step back and we look what’s in our heart. We think of the things that mean a lot to us — our culture, our language and the way we live. And we share that with everyone that’s living in our community.”

Most importantly, organizers say they hope attendees get the chance to learn first hand about Indigenous communities.

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“We don’t know what they don’t know about us. A lot of times people learn by non-Indigenous people who we are,” Anderson explained. “We really want them to know that we are people too, our kids are people too and our elders — our most strong people in our society — we can learn from them.”

The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc is also hosting an event for Indigenous People’s Day at the Powwow Arbour, from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. followed immediately by a state-of-the-art drone light show above the arbour.