The Back to Batoche Days Festival opened Thursday to four days of fiddling, square dancing and jigging.
One of the highlights of this year’s festival is a special youth run from Saskatoon to Batoche in honour of Métis war veterans which takes place Friday morning.
A monument in honour of the war veterans will also be unveiled at the Batoche festivities on Saturday morning.
Festival co-chair Shirley Isbister says that after more than 40 years, the event is as strong as ever.
“I was here when we went from a sea of army tents where we would issue rations to each camper to, as you can see, a sea of motor homes,” she says.
She adds Back to Batoche is all about providing an opportunity for Métis people to showcase their culture to both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities.
“Because this is our land and it is a way of coming home. Métis people are very social people and so we welcome everyone, it doesn’t matter what culture they’re from.”
Isbister says the annual festival now attracts people from all over North America.
Another highlight of this year’s Back to Batoche Days is the return of the historic Bell of Batoche which will take place as part of a special mass on Sunday morning.
Some of the musical guests include J. J. Lavallee, The Outlaws and Ryan Keplin.
Also as part of Thursday’s festivities, the official launch of a new $1.3 million partnership agreement to monitor cancer rates within Saskatchewan Aboriginal communities took place.
Partners in the project include the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and Saskatchewan Cancer Agency.
MNS health director Sandra Youngchief says cancer is afflicting a number of Métis communities and it is important that the organization do a better job of monitoring these rates.
“Many of our families are passing away from cancer or going through the cancer journey right now and so we have no way to collect these statistics right now,” she says. “We don’t know, we can say that lots of people have it but what we want to do is prove and we want the stats to go along with it.”
As part of the project, Youngchief says artist Pat Adams has designed a special pink blue ribbon Métis sash to help people in sharing their cancer stories.
One of the sashes was presented Thursday to MNS Senator Nora Cummings for her work in promoting cancer awareness.
She says she hopes the project encourages more Aboriginal people to seek proper medical attention and receive cancer testing on a regular basis.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding about cancer,” she says. “Some people suffer through their cancer not knowing the help that is out there.”
The agreement, which is for the duration of three years, is funded by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.