The view at the Spruce River Folk Festival. Photo courtesy spruceriverfolkfest.com
This weekend will see Mennonites, Lutherans and First Nations people come together on a farm near Spruce Home.
It’s the eighth annual Spruce River Folk Festival, created to highlight injustice endured by the Young Chippewyan people when they were displaced from the Laird region in the late 1800s. This, despite the land being created as reserve for their people 21 years prior during Treaty 6 signing.
The federal government gave the land to Mennonite settlers, and ever since the Young Chippeweyan have been landless.
Ray Funk hosts the festival on his Spruce River Farm to show good will between settlers and First Nations people and to increase public awareness of landless bands. This all stems from a 2006 memorandum of understanding signed by Mennonite, Lutheran, and the Young Chippeweyan to “work in cooperation and in harmony to see that justice is done” as far as compensation from the government goes, Funk said.
“It became obvious that if we were going to wait for the government we were going to wait forever and it really is an issue between our communities as well and we wanted to work cooperatively to do that. There’s a lot of talk about reconciliation but I think there are practical steps we can take. In this case we’re raising money for the Young Chippeweyan to do the genealogical and legal work that needs doing.”
The event gets underway on Saturday with a pipe ceremony at 10 a.m., an educational discussion at 11:30 a.m., and live music between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Admission is $10 per person or $10 per family.
There’s a fish fry and Mennonite sausage on bannock, live entertainment and a screening of a documentary the captures the history of the reserve.
For more information, you can check out the event’s website here.