Culture camp allows community to reconnect
- Tiffany Head | September 16, 2016
Every year the Shoal Lake Cree Nation have their annual family camp a week or two before school starts.
The families set up camp in their traditional hunting and trapping lands known as “WildCat,” 20 minutes away from their community.
Elder Harry Young said the camp teaches the children how to work together and everything is done collectively as a family and as a community.
“I like that we still show the young people, to help each other, to have fun together,” he said.
Related: Shoal Lake teen reviving lost tradition of trapping
Harry’s wife Dora Young said that when they were really young, they never really knew school. “We camped, fished and trapped, that was our school, before everything changed.”
Dora said the families camped differently now than how they did it back then, but that they do teach the younger generations some of how the old methods were done.
“Long ago, our people would dig a hole in the ground and use wood around it, to make an underground fridge to keep their meat cool, they made it really good and they covered it,” said Dora.
In a conversation/interview with elementary school teachers Ida Cook and Theresa Whitecap, they said that during camp everybody gets back into their sleeping routines.
“It gives us that routine to go back to school and the students are calmer when they return to school,” said Cook.
Whitecap said that the camp teaches the children, “how to live in the wilderness, instead of relying on technology to be able to cook from an open fire.”
Cook and Whitecap have also noticed over the years that not everyone visits each other anymore in the community, not even close family members.
“I think that’s what they said at the general assembly we’ve lost contact with family members, technology has taken over our lives and we don’t want to leave our houses,” said Whitecap.
They said that the camp also gives everyone a chance to reconnect again before the school year starts as well as giving the teachers something to ask the students to write about in their journals.
“What did you go do at family camp? This is usually the main topic, or how was your summer? It is usually that or the fair that the students write about,” said Cook.
Grade 10 student Keyna Whitecap said that being at camp teaches her responsibility, going to sleep early and waking up early. She said that it also gives her family time to visit and tell each other stories around the fire instead of being on her phone. “We sometimes wait for the fire to get low and sometimes play cards, have tea and visit,” said Keyna. She said that at home she would usually have seven hours or so of screen time on her phone or television.
The family camp gives everyone a chance to reset their clocks after a busy summer of staying up late and having too much screen time on their gadgets as well as learn how to live without technology.