On September 17, the 24th annual McGill Powwow kicked off Indigenous Awareness Week. Hundreds of Indigenous people and allies from around the Montreal area and beyond gathered upon Macdonald campus’ field to celebrate Indigenous culture and resilience in the face of hundreds of years of persistent discrimination.
Combining forces with John Abbott College, the Powwow was moved off of McGill’s downtown campus for the first time. Situated on Watson Field at McGill’s Macdonald campus, a monstrous white tent sheltered hundreds of people clustered around the center stage, enraptured by colorful regalia and thundering drums. Toddlers, teenagers, and adults alike took to the stage in small groups, competing for prize money in various traditional dances. Vendor tents dotted the field surrounding the tent, selling Indigenous artwork, jewelry, and promoting services for the Indigenous community in the greater Montreal area. The change of venue took the event out of the Tomlinson Fieldhouse and helped smooth its transition from an exhibitionary format with no prizes, towards a traditional powwow in which the dancers compete for prize money and bragging rights.
“It’s easier for the dancers and the vendors coming with equipment and setups, parking … there’s not as much construction,” comments Kim Tekakwitha Martin, Dean of Indigenous Education at John Abbott College. “But also, it’s being able to utilize this wonderful space that we have our shared campuses on.”
Martin worked alongside McGill’s Indigenous Initiatives Office to provide the opportunity for students to engage in this cultural experience on campus. Not only was it her first time being able to attend the McGill Powwow, but the new venue extended the opportunity to other John Abbott and Macdonald campus students, and various communities closer to the West Island that might have typically been too far to attend the powwow before. “It’s the 24th annual McGill Powwow but this is the first annual McGill x John Abbott Powwow … I think that it will be something that will continue because it really has been a wonderful experience.”
While the two schools sharing a campus have the occasional collaboration, such as the weekly Mac Market publicized at John Abbott, and other programs, this is a stride towards organizing larger events together.
Martin remarked that powwows typically come out of harsh times within an Indigenous community. Kahnawake, where she is from, began hosting the annual Echoes of a Proud Nation powwow after the 1990 Oka Crisis.
In Martin’s words, the event serves to celebrate Indigenous resilience: “That was to signify the community coming together, and what we had done, and that we are a proud nation.”
Al Harrington, of the Ojibwe people of northwestern Ontario, competed in the men’s 18+ traditional dance. Taken from his culture and home during the Sixties Scoop, he was unable to connect and learn his roots until he turned 18. In 2009, he began to organize his own powwows, including facilitating the annual springtime Montreal Powwow until 2020. Working to break the cycle of Indigenous disenfranchisement, Harrington runs cultural workshops in the Montreal area and has his children enrolled in a Mohawk immersion school in Kahnawake. His children have been raised speaking Mohawk, Ojibwe, English, and French. “They know their culture,” he said, with an air of determination.