By Lucy

The pow wow did not start well.

I got to the Lakehead Athletics building around ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, at 5. I went into the gym and sat in the bleachers.

Behind us, on the balcony around the gym, there was some guy was arguing with security. The organizers stopped and looked up at the commotion. I rolled my eyes – the meeting was going to be delayed cuz some smug college kid was giving security attitude.

It changed in an instant. The guard calmly asked the kid to take his hands out of his pockets. The kid screamed “Don’t shoot me, I didn’t do anything!”

Do security guards at Canadian universities pack heat like an LA cop? I sincerely doubt it. I would be surprised if the guard even had a taser or pepper spray. The guy was just trying to invoke that mob mentality. It didn’t work. I think the guard gestured to the organizers, who yelled at us “Can I get all the pow wow volunteers to exit the gym!” We calmly stood as a mass and went towards the proffered exit. We couldn’t mill around the small entryway, so we kept going outside the building.

That’s when two cop cars screamed around the corner, lights and sirens blaring.

After several more minutes, it was clear that the gym wasn’t going to be available to us. The organizers sent us home with instructions to be in an hour early the next day. By that time, the number of cops cars clustered around was 5.

I went home and flopped into bed. My head spun. Was I in shock? The situation had escalated so rapidly, from smart-mouthed kid to cop cars. We couldn’t see anything, both facing away from where they were and the solid railing on the balcony. Did he have a knife in his pocket, or a gun, hence the refusal to show his hands? If the guard hadn’t come by, could one of us have been hurt? I went to Tim Hortons and got a Boston cream bagel and a hot chocolate, and laid in bed feeling cold for a long time.

I got to the school around between 9:30 and 10 AM the next day. I ended up chatting to someone wearing a Metis sash, and we got sent to put up posters with sponsors on them.

That’s also when I discovered, the union was sponsoring the event! Actually, our name sticks out as being one of the few non-indigenous/ official sponsors, which makes me have so many questions. Why are we sponsoring? Do we have a bunch of indigenous members? But more importantly, I need to recruit more companies to sponsor it!

After that, we went back into the gym and sat down with everyone else for a meeting. The guy who’d been emailing us since we signed up, Jordan, introduced himself as the guy we would report to, also as firekeeper. We walked around and he pointed out where we might be stationed. The cliff notes version is, the athletics building is an absolute mess of hallways and there’s no single entrance to direct people to. We were supposed to try and keep miscreants from wandering the halls, which was slightly hopeless because the athletics building was still being used as an athletics building. Including some sort of junior football league and a publicly accessible yoga class.

They gave us purple shirts that said volunteer on the back. There was also a few extra security guards hired for the event, with orange shirts, and a cleaning crew who were running around with buckets and broom cleaning up spills, wearing light blue shirts.

I got paired with three other people and sent to the front hallway to direct people into the gym. One of the females immediately peaced out and we never saw her again – I think she just flopped on one of the couches in the hallway and played on her phone the whole time. I also noticed the front bathroom is labelled “all genders”, which I love. I still hesitated for a moment whenever I entered the bathroom and a guy was walking out. It’s a much more welcoming place when it’s just for hygiene and not politics.

The alcove was a decoration choice. Weird yellow laminate, yellow tiles walls, and also that you have to take an elevator down half a floor instead of the ramp simply extending from the first floor like what makes sense.

Eventually I went rogue, because no one was really keeping us on task and the amount of foot traffic we had was not enough for four people. I noticed a fair number of people with their arms full of stuff (eagle feather bustles are a handful, and so are drums) struggling to open the doors. There are four doors in a row, but only the farthest one had a button to open it and it blended into the grey tiled wall… which is bad accessibility design. So I went down to the landing to grab the door for people with their arms full, or elders.

I stayed there for four hours, until it was time for Grand Entry (and I was technically assigned a break then anyway). You’re not allowed to film or take pictures of Grand Entry. Not that it stops some people, but I observed the rules. I took some pictures before and after.

Grand Entry is when the flag bearers and the dancers who want to be in Grand Entry enter the circle for the first dance. Depending on the pow wow, they might call the grass dancers back to the circle. Culturally, grass dancers are supposed to be the first dance because, when pow wows are outside, they stamp down the grass to make a dance floor for everyone. Then the MC introduces himself, the drums, any esteemed guests in attendance, and the flag bearers. Flag bearers can be anything – a flag for a certain reservation, or a certain cultural zeitgeist. There is usually a flag for the missing and murdered indigenous women. One of the elders will give a speech about the theme of this pow wow. They also said a prayer for the man who interrupted the meeting, because he is obviously in pain and needs guidance.

We had eleven drums in attendance, which is the most drums I’ve ever seen at a pow wow, and the host drum was Rolling Thunder.

I also noticed they had 6 cedars trees in bags of topsoil around the circle, and clippings scattered around the floor. I never got to ask why.

I stayed there for the better part of an hour, before my stomach started growling. I went down to the breakroom and waited almost another hour before pizza showed up. I was technically half an hour late for going back, but the only way I was going back before someone gave me food was if they wanted me to pass out. No one commented anyway – more than one college kid just flaked out in the breakroom. I know volunteer hours can be a chore, but I was annoyed by the extent some kids couldn’t even pretend to try.

After pizza was served, I ended up milling around the head table because no one could think of anything for me to do. I finally got tasked to help with the candy dance. A candy dance is basically musical chairs but with candy. You scatter candy (and bags of chips) around the dance circle, and the kids have to dance around it, and then when the music stops they can grab some nearby candy. Repeat until all the candy is gone. It’s a clever way to get the kids involved.

After the candy dance, we had to go round up all the volunteers to help with the feast. We moved the tables towards the middle and got out the little trays with the butane burners and the desserts and then we had to wait half an hour cuz the food was late.

The meal ended up being penne in tomato sauce, with optional meatballs and grated cheese (presumably parmesan, but I didn’t have any). There was garlic bread and a regular Caesar salad (to which we all started joking ‘traditional food, right?’). They also had – my heart leapt – moose meat chili, and moose meat stew (separately). There was cheese bannock and raisin bannock, which was surprisingly fluffy and soft, it isn’t usually leavened. Dessert was just a variety of cakes cut into squares, like carrot cake, or Nanaimo bars. We also had three different kinds of fruit juice in non-descript jugs.

Before anyone else can be served, they have to make a plate to offer to the sacred fire. Then the elders go up. We were supposed to filter into the line and grab plates for elders with mobility issues, and bring the plates to them. The first person I served was a woman who was wheelchair-bound, like Stephen Hawking. I walked alongside the buffet with her and, since she couldn’t speak above a whisper, relayed what she wanted. I was really glad to see her there, many times people came up to her to chat during the rest of the event and it was heart-warming to see the inclusion.

In the other gym there was a craft show-like set-up – people selling regalia-making supplies, or moccasins or dream-catchers. I’m not sure if we still call it a craft show for pow wow? We also made plates up for them and walked them over. I noticed basically everyone was getting cheese on every plate, so I made a point of making cheese-less plates and asking around if anyone was lactose-intolerant.

What I wanted more than anything was the moose chili. Since they had fed us pizza, we were only going to get what was left after everyone else had been served. At one point I said to someone next to me, “I could fill up a bowl for myself and no one would know”. He smugly replied “the Creator will know”. Yes, but why would the Creator deny me moose chili?! I watched the chili dwindle until finally it was out, and my heart fell. Is my conscience really clear when I wanted to break the rules? When we finally cleared away the leftovers and the tables and could sit down, I grabbed some cheese bannock and some desserts and found myself a corner to sulk in.

Then he came back over. “You know, there’s still some moose stew. No bowls though.”

People were spooning the chunks onto plates, but we had lots of cups leftover. I poured myself a cup of moose stew and went back to my corner. It was absolutely the most delicious thing and I wish I could make some at home (but also, I still want moose chili).

I was talking with Jordan and another guy in the main hallway (he confirmed the guy who was arrested broke in with a knife) when the elevator broke down. We had two people in wheelchairs stuck at the bottom. Fortunately no one was in it. Front desk called the repair guy, but I had a bad feeling and asked Jordan to show me another way out. The only other way for people in wheelchairs to get out was to go around the back of the building to what they call ‘the hanger’, which has a ramp access but no buttons for the doors.

Half an hour later, it was decided – the elevator was dead. I spent the rest of the night escorting people in wheelchairs out through the back door, or back in. The people in the main hallway had to help lift strollers up the stairs.

We packed up around 9 and I was home by 10… a twelve hour day. My feet were humming from running back and forth to the hanger, although nothing compared to being trapped because you are disabled, I know. It took me a while to wind down for bed.

I barely crawled out of bed in the morning. Daylight savings time had taken an hour sleep away from all of us. It took even longer for people to filter in on Sunday – a full half, if not two thirds, of the volunteers just didn’t show up. Grand Entry was supposed to be at noon, but by 11:30 only one drum had shown up, the MC had just arrived, and there wasn’t a lot of dancers. They pushed Grand Entry and registration back to 1. I started out where I was the day before, greeting people and opening the door, but Jordan quickly stuck his head out and asked if I could help with registration because the girls who had done it yesterday hadn’t shown up.

If you haven’t been to pow wow, the reason they need to register is because the dancers get paid. They have it divided by age, in this instance 2-12, 12-20, and adult. The three and four year olds who dance are the most adorable things, with their little bustles and such. The ten-ish year olds who dance are terrifying, cuz they have a hunger to dance/ get paid and they will get up in your face.

I had a problem quickly – the girls from the day before hadn’t actually asked people for their ages, so some 14 year olds were on the adults list, some ten year olds were on the ‘youth’ list, etc. It’s rude to assume someone’s age, but I also believe they get paid differently based on age (I don’t know that for a fact, I didn’t ask).

Fortunately, Trevor came over to help me. Trevor is like me – a defector from decadence who is passionate about indigenous culture, and the environment. We had a long talk about our mutual discomfort, with being white people who want to help without telling indigenous people what to do, the idea of the “white savior” in real life and in fiction. It is a thin line to tread sometimes. Since he’s older than me, he explained some of the guidelines he developed for himself to make sure he isn’t inserting himself into a situation where he doesn’t belong.

After registration closed and Grand Entry finished, I grabbed some of the popcorn they had by the door. There wasn’t much to do for a while, except let people who asked know that registration was closed, and restock the table of free water bottles.

A little bit after 1, K came by to visit me. It was kinda funny, he did a pass by the table with a shy little wave before wandering off into the crowd. I sent him a message that I wasn’t busy and he could come over to talk, so we hung around talking for about an hour. He noticed that I had quickly demolished the popcorn and offered to buy me lunch. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and there wasn’t any food in my future until I got home (also it was good popcorn). He bought me a hotdog from the concession stand upstairs.

Around 2, Trevor asked if we could go to the sacred fire and get Jordan. His instructions were to cross the football field, follow a “logging road” down and down until we found a cleared area with the fire. So I took K with me and we wandered across the field, found a dirt track and followed it to the left. It opened into a clearing that was clearly marked for pow wows, with a seated area for a fire, and medicine wheel colours, but no fire. So we kept walking until we found the McIntyre river.

Well then. We walked back up the path, ducking down a side path but finding nothing interesting. We kept following the road up until we hit Oliver road (which I always call John Oliver road, because it starts as John st and then turns into Oliver road for some reason). No idea. We’d killed about half an hour at this point and Trevor had probably found Jordan some other way, so we headed back. I never found out where the fire was, but the cleared area was where Trevor had meant to send us.

At 3:30 we pulled all the volunteers for gifts, and K headed out. Gifts is just what it sounds like – they have a bunch of stuff, like jewelry or housewares, scattered on a blanket. It’s smudged, and then it depends on the organizer. In this instance, they wanted us to grab an armful of stuff and distribute it. It’s to thank people for coming, based on back in the day when travelling to another village for pow wow meant travelling for a couple of days. We started with the drummers, then the elders, then anyone else was allowed to be offered the gifts that were left.

After the gifts were handed out, they started winding down and calling people up to the registration table for their money, in groups. We weren’t allowed to handle the cash, so we just tried to wrangle everyone into an orderly line. Once most people had their cash, they bounced, so the group of dancers and the audience dwindled a lot by the time we closed everything down. They called all the volunteers into the dance circle as well (because what I really want to do after I’ve been on my feet all day is be forced to dance) and we followed the flag bearers out of the circle. Everyone was giving each other high fives in the back like we had scored at a game.

I got home a few minutes before six and flopped in bed, utterly exhausted but also thrilled to have been involved. Pow wow is always a treat, and it was my first time helping and not just attending. I look forward to the days when I can tell people I’ve been volunteering at Lakehead for years. I look forward to getting a new elder and finding out my spirit name. This new beginning has been everything I hoped for and more!