Sixties Scoop survivors reclaim their heritage with Pow Wow 101

For participants of the Pow Wow 101 program, eight months of work and practice all culminated on May 25, when they attended the Odawa Native Friendship Centre's 45th annual powwow.

On this overcast Saturday, they danced for a cheering crowd,showing off colourful personalized regalia with broad smiles.

They all joined Pow Wow 101 becausetheir families never got a chance to pass down their culture to them.

Many were separated from their birth families and their traditions at a young age by Canadian child welfare authorities, and the children were largelyadopted into white families. It'sa period known today as the Sixties Scoop.

The Pow Wow 101 Program at Odawa Native Friendship Centreaimed to gently reintroduce those "scooped" children to the Indigenous community.

Through teachings from elders and by learning to dance, sing, drumand make regalia, survivors of the Sixties Scoop and their descendents could reclaim their heritage.

'Around them, but not with them'

The Sixties Scooprefers to the period from 1960 to 1990, when up to 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families. Many of these children were adopted inside Canada and the U.S., but some were sent overseas.

Carol Gauthierwas one of those children taken from her family. She was adopted by French Canadian parents and becamedisconnectedfrom her Ojibway community,theBatchewana First Nation in northern Ontario.

"I grew up around them, but not with them," she remembered.

Colleen Hele-Cardinal is another Sixties Scoop survivor who, like Gauthier, described watching the Indigenous community from the outside.

"I've always wanted to powwow dance, but I didn't know how to learn," she said.

Gauthier and Hele-Cardinal both joined the Pow Wow 101 programalongside their children and grandchildren.

A 'gentle' reintroduction

The first class involved "a lot of tears, a lot of disconnection," said the organizer, Jennifer Kohoko. "People had been adopted out and weren't connected to their community."

Kohoko is healing and wellness co-ordinator for theOdawa Native Friendship Centre. She applied to the Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation for funding to develop the program, which lasted from October 2023 to last month.

She wanted it tobe a "gentle" way to reintroduce survivors to the Indigenous community thatthey may otherwise have never known.

Gauthier's sonNicholas Choquetteintroduced his mother (and his own children) to the program, but said this wasn't his first effort to reconnect with his Indigenous heritage.Gauthiersaid he had started to "go back to the culture" on his own.

When the potential unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C. was discovered, sparking public outrage across the nation, Choquette said he was"jolted" into action.

Choquette said he wanted toensure that "there won't be another generation that doesn't know where they're from."

"I wanted my sons to know where they were from," Choquette said. "Because I didn't grow up knowing where I was from."

The start of something new

Hele-Cardinal said now that she's learned more about powwows, her experience attending one is much different. Before, she felt like an observerand was uncomfortable going up to talk to the dancers.

Now, "I feel special," she said. "I feel like I belong."

Like Choquette, Hele-Cardinal was also reflecting on the next generation.

"They'll always remember this," she said of her grandkids. "It's like a core memory with them, right? So their introduction into this life is important."

And when it was over, the feeling was bittersweet.

"It's a bit sad for me, because it's like an ending, but it's also like a beginning," she reflected.

Kohokodoes plan to take advantage of the momentum she's built up in the program, making this the beginning to something more "hardcore." She said her deadline to submit the new proposal is June 10.

"This time it's a little bit different," she said. "We're going deeper. This is just surface stuff."

Monthly ceremonies, sweat lodge visits, star teachingsand naming ceremonies are all part of her plan.

She wants to be able to give Sixties Scoop survivors the "bundle" that Indigenous people can beborn with, but they "did not have access to." That includes their spirit name, clan, colours, knowledge of medicineand language.

As for the group she just worked with?

"It's the beginning of their journey in the powwow circle," Kohoko said. "It's a different life now."

Ottawa Morning10:11Pow Wow 101

A course offered by the Odawa Native Friendship Centre taught survivors of the Sixties Scoop and their descendents the basics of participating in a powwow. Giacomo Panico was there for their first dance at a powwow.