Conne River 15th anual Pow Wow 2010

Welcome friends new and old to our blog. This is a place where you can come and see what we are up to, past and present. I will do my best to photograph and update you on all of our events, outings and just general happenings here at the St. John’s Native Friendship Centre.

This past week ( Friday July 2^nd till Sunday July 4^th ), a few of our Youth, womens and men’s drum groups and most of us at the centre drove ( or bussed ) to Conne River for their 15^th annual Pow Wow.

For those of you who don’t know about this yearly event here’s a link to the Conne River – Pow Wow website.

http://www.mfngov.ca/powwow.html

For most of us our day started on Friday 6 am meeting here at the centre and loading all of our supplies onto the bus we rented.

( This is us after arriving at Conne River. I'm still trying to figure out how us and all of our stuff fit on the back that bus!)

The drive to Conne River was about 7 hours. 554 Km.

Here's pretty much the route we took

For most of us I think we slept most of the way there, and so the ride didn’t seem very long at all. I was pretty excited to get there, since this was my first Pow Wow.

( Mary Sewing some of the finishing touches on her Regalia - The bus ride there )

We arrived at the Pow Wow grounds just before one, and after unloading all of our stuff from the bus some of the girls hurried to get their hair braided and regalia’s on to dance in the Grand Entry ( 1 PM ).

(Here’s Chris Braiding Becca’s hair, while she braids Michelle’s hair)

( The girls in their regalia's)

While the rest of us started to unpack and put up tents and the tipi we brought ( Which our Youth Coordinator and Shelter van driver slept in )

(Here you can see some of our youth and Robin setting up the poles for the Tipi)

(Our camp grounds, The tipi set up along with some of our other tents. )

Finally time to go to the Pow Wow grounds and take some photos !

( Our Inuit Drum group performing – Sophie reading out ‘The Man in the Moon”, and Inuit story about hunting seal’s )

( Our Inuit drum group - kilautiup Songuninga (Strength of the Drum) performing as Sophie reads out “ The man in the moon” )

( Chris and Robin fixing one of the Inuit Drums )

(Robin Benoit , Fancy Shawl Dancer)

(Henry Augustine)

( Our drum group and the MC for the pow wow dancing )

(Jerry Evans, Traditional Dancer)

Although most of the day the weather was beautiful. clear skies with warm sunshine, it wouldnt be Newfoundland without a sudden change in weather. For about a half hour we had a down pour of rain mixed with wind. However in the end we did get this beautiful rainbow. Im not sure you can see it but there were two, the second one you can see faintly in the upper left hand corner of the photo as it disapears.

It being my first time to the Pow Wow as well as Conne River, Myself and two student who just completed a work term in our Youth centre ( Charlene and Cindy ) walked down to the beach.

We found a trail and decided to follow it. Maybe not the best idea for three people who have never been there before. However it ended up taking us up to the lookout. The long way, but it was still an amazing hike.

Almost there ...

Cindy Walking up the final few steps to the look out




Looking down on the Pow Wow grounds from the look out


Later that night, Chris and I walked up to the lookout as well to take photos from the lookout as the sun was setting.

Day Two - Saturday July 3rd 2010




View from our camp grounds of the mountains. The scenary in Connoe River is absolutly beautiful ! Saturday morning I woke up around 7 am. Although earlier that morning the grounds were covered in a thich fog, it rolled out ( as you can see here ) and left us with another beautiful, yet sometimes rainy and windy day. We made a giant breakfast and started our day.

Chris braiding Becca's hair



Robin getting the fire and grill's ready to cook some moose and hamburgers ( and my veggie sausages) on the fire

(kilautiup Songuninga performing the four directions song)

( Round Dance )

( Round Dance - David our executive director is the one with the white hat on )

Later that day all of us went down to the beach to have a swim and take a ride on a floating device attached to the back of a SeaDoo. I have never laughed and had so much fun!

(Robin and Ben coming in after their ride.)

(A rabbit that I saw on a hike later on Saturday. I couldnt believe how close it let me get to him before scampering away into the woods.)

After a dinner of caribou and ground beef pasta we all came back over to the pow wow grounds to watch the Mi'kmaq Talent show. We even had a few of us from the centre enter. Below you can see Adrian House singing a traditional Newfounland song ( he's also playing a hand drum which you can see )

Ben won second place !!

We also had two of our youth Becca and Goergie perform. I didnt get to see Goergie as I was cleaning up from dinner however Becca sang two songs ( she made it to round 2 ) and Stacy another one of our Youth workers played guitar. They were fenominal !!! Everyone loved them !
Unfortunatly I dont have any quality photo's of them ( camera troubles ! ) but as soon as I get a hold of some i'll post them.

Day 3- Sunday July 4th

Sunday was mostly spent packing everything up and putting out tents away. it was unbelieveanly windy which made most of our tents into giant parachutes. There were times when I really thought Iwould be lifted off the ground !
The bus ride home was nice, again we slept for a large part of it.

We finally arrived around 10 PM at the centre and slowly unpacked our stuff from the bus and went our seperate ways home.

It was an amazing weekend ! and I hope i can make it back next year !

( Adrian took out his guitar and we all had a few sing alongs on the way home )

Paula and I are heading to another Pow Wow ( Flat Bay ) on Tuesday ( July 13th ) so I will be sure to post photo's and writtings about our trip there.

Anyone interested in going, here's the info


As well a few of our youth and board members areleaving / have left for this years National Association of Friendship Centres AGM in Hinton, Alberta and so I will post some photos from there as well. ( have fun guys !! )

Again anyone interested in know mpre about this here is the NAFC website


Until then I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful weather today !! Have a wonderful weekend !!

-Thea