Montreal’s First Peoples Festival once again delivered an impressive array of Indigenous films, live concerts, theatre and visual arts after going mostly virtual last year. The festival, which ran August 3-11, included a “daily occupation” of the Place des Festivals for five memorable evenings.
This year’s Miss Eeyou Eenou Iskwaau – Mistissini’s Geraldine Trapper – is using the crown won at last April’s pageant to spread an empowering message of acceptance for the Cree Nation’s non-binary, gender-fluid and LGBTQA2S+ community.
After a hybrid program of pop-up shows and online events last year, Montreal’s International First Peoples Festival is preparing larger shows for its 31st edition August 3-11 while planning for a big comeback in 2022.
A new book chronicles a young man’s first impressions of Waswanipi in 1963, two years before the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post closed and people dispersed from the community’s former location. Award-winning author Jean-Yves Soucy’s Waswanipi, posthumously published by Baraka Books, provides a vivid account of traditional Cree life with witty, touching prose.
Ojibway artist Patrick Hunter decided to mark this year’s Indigenous History Month by releasing a collection of four artisan canoe paddles done in the Woodland Art style made famous by renowned painter Norval Morrisseau.
Police arresting Elders. Native women drumming outside in the cold Minnesota winter. The long, winding Mississippi River. Forests being chopped down as a pipeline is installed.
Although it happened three decades ago, the Oka Crisis remains a powerful reminder of an Indigenous struggle to protect sacred land. The 78-day standoff between the Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawks) of Kanesatake against the Surêté du Québec and Canadian military is the subject of Beans, a compelling new film by director Tracey Deer.
The Cree Nation is celebrating the permanent return of a 170-year-old traditional beaded hood from the Lachine Museum, where it had resided for over 70 years.
Cree singer/songwriter Angel Baribeau is back with a second single and video from the hit EP, For Those I Love(d). “Wish We Were Older” has already reached number one on the Indigenous Music Countdown and its music video amassed over 33,000 views in less than two weeks.
Quebec’s only publishing house dedicated to First Nations literature is launching the province’s first literary contest for Indigenous writers, organized in partnership with the Ministry of Education.
