Young adults from the Lac La Ronge Indian Band will have the opportunity to be immersed in traditional language and culture as part of a new camp this summer.
The Adult Cree Immersion Camp runs for five days in late August at Youth Haven on Big Stone Lake.
LLRIB Cree Language and Culture Coordinator Edie Venne says traditional language retention is a big focus of the camp.
“Our Cree language, Woodland Cree, is declining,” she says. “Like, the speakers are declining. I did a short survey in May and it showed a lot of the young people not speaking or understanding. They understand a little bit, but they are not speaking.”
For this reason, Venne says organizers understand some English will be spoken, but participants will be urged to speak in Cree as much as possible.
“We were just talking about that and we were thinking that the resource people would be speaking as much Cree as possible and if you speak English you have to pay 25 cents.”
The camp will include beadwork, scavenger hunts and medicine walks as some of its activities.
It is open to young people aged 16 to 21 and is free of charge.
The Adult Cree Immersion Camp will officially run from Aug. 20-24.
(PHOTO: LLRIB logo. Photo courtesy of llrib.com)