Asihawak Music and Culture Camp held at Great Canadian Barn Dance

Roxy DeBroux, Contributor

The Métis Nation of Alberta Association Local Council Chinook 1880 and the Great Canadian Barn Dance held the Asihâwak Music and Culture Camp from July 29 to August 1.

Success was measured with 45 music students and a lot of enthusiastic participants in the culture events.  Musicians honed their talents on instruments like the fiddle, banjo, guitar, keyboards/accordion and mandolin.

Those not taking lessons tried their hand at bannock making, beading a medicine bag, making finger weave sash bracelets, creating medicine wheel ornaments, using a beading loom, Métis jigging, sewing a blanket coat known as a Capote and learning how to harness a horse.  The most popular cultural activities however were learning to paddle in a voyageur canoe and taking a ride on the red river cart.

Many local businesses donated to make the event successful.  Back Country Butchering provided sausage for breakfast and the Pincher Creek Co-op gave the ingredients to make the bannock.  Other donors include Parkway Motel and European Loges, the Pincher Creek swimming pool, Pincher Office supplies, Pincher veterinary clinic, High Country Western Wear, Cody Goulding Avon, Rylan Kunkel Starbucks, The Old Dairy Ice Cream Shoppe, Turtle Mountain Pharmacy, Shell Canada Waterton Complex, Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village, Celestial Sweets, Bea Spina, Debroux Family, Metis Nation of Alberta, Rita Graham-Mazur-graphic artist, Martins Autobody, ArtCraft, McDonalds, Marilyn Halton; Monika Schneider; Town and Country Liquor Store, and Rhonda Kunkel.  A special thanks to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for their sponsorship for making this event possible.