The Gathering is a wrap

Today is the last day of the gathering and things are slowly winding down. Since the Youth Conference is all done, I had time to check out some workshops today at the Cree Cultural Interpretive Centre.

Click on each photo to enlarge

Eddie and Caroline Trapper did a workshop in Snowshoe Making, here they are preparing sinew using a cutting instrument and some moosehide.

They gave the youth some hands on experience cutting sinew. This was a very popular workshop, a lot of people checked it out.

This morning right after community breakfast, Jocelyn Cheechoo spoke about her job in San Franciso at The Rainforest Action Network, http://www.ran.org/.

Later on that morning, Jocelyn presented a workshop on Global Environment Issues. This gave our people a better understanding of what's going on globally and how these changes will effect our people.

Here are two young people that I really admire, Jocelyn Cheechoo and Catherine Cheechoo. Catherine is the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation (NAN) Decade for Youth (http://www.nandecade.ca)coordinator/, she has been working with NAN youth for many years and is just finishing her first year in that position. There are so many Moose Cree People that are working all across North America, it is such an honour to apart of that special group of people.

My Father, Norm Wesley, presented a workshop on Traditional Cree Life Cycle. This was an excellent presentation, it gave the participants knowledge on our local First Nation Culture. All to often our people tend to adopt other traditional activities as our own, therefore neglecting our own unique culture. The Mushkegowuk People are unique, and our culture is unlike any other culture on the planet. I'm very happy that the people of Moose Factory are getting more organized to preserve and revive our regional traditional knowledge and practices via The Moose Factory Historical Society.

This is a pic of the Chisasibi youth, Phoebe Sutherland and I before they jumped on their bus to fly home.

This year's gathering theme is "Honouring our Youth and Geese." I think this theme is quite unique, and it shows how much we value our young people as well as our geese. As Mushkegowuk Cree, the goose is the sacred animal, our lifestyle revolves around them.

I had the pleasure of getting to meet Gerald McComb III at some training I did this spring here in Moose Factory. This young man lives an alcohol and drug free lifestyle, definately something I admire. As a person who has lived my entire life alcohol and drug free, I know how hard it can be sometimes. Take it from Gerald and I, it's possible to live a life without Alcohol and Drugs.