Wing, community marks ‘sacred experience” September 30
From the mist of the early September 30 morning, hundreds of 14 Wing Greenwood Defence Team members, family and community friends emerged to share a walk and “sacred experience” together, marking National Truth and Reconciliation Day together.
The wing’s Defence Indigenous Advisory Group organized the reflective walk, gathering people to the Greenwood civic field for remarks, First Nations’ drumming and dancing, and time to “remember those who did not survive” residential schools; and “those who did, but their minds are still in those schools, and they’ve passed it on to us,” said Michael Denny, a member of the guest Stoney Bear Singers.
“My father was a residential school survivor from 1948 to 1959,” he said. “We continue on fighting the good fight, signing our songs, practicing our culture and teaching our youngsters.”
Denny spoke as his young daughter stood close by, her fingers hooked into his pants’ back pocket. Friends and relatives then surrounded him at the drum, most of whom have been in those same seats with him since he was 14 years old, in 2002.
“I’ve spent most of my life sitting around this drum. We move forward, celebrating in the best way we know how to honour our parents, our uncles and aunts, our grandparents.”
The Stoney Bear Singers provided a tobacco gift to the drum, opened their playing with The Honour Song, and then introduced and drummed for several dancers, each presenting a different style of dancing. In the end, they invited anyone interested to join them in the dancing circle to share in the legacy of resilience, reconciliation and sharing.
“Through song, dance and storytelling, we talk about all the bad things that happened across the country, but also the good things our people continue to do as they strive to be more.”
DIAG champion Lieutenant-Colonel Lara Jennings welcomed the community to the day’s events, acknowledging “a big swath of this crowd was alive” as the last residential school in Canada closed in 1996 in Saskatchewan: “not just the distant past.
“There are painful truths, and we continue to forge a path of healing and understanding as we confront our history and learn from it. Today is an opportunity to share in history, as a step towards reconciliation.”
