Stories from the road: Kahnawake

Hi everyone, its Gill here from the AAE summer outreach team!

This weekend Melanie and I went to the Kahnawake pow wow in Montreal. We had an absolute blast! The first night we checked into our hotel, it was called the Hôtel Brossard. We had a large room with two queen beds. So nice! On Friday night we took the Metro from Brossard into the old port in downtown Montreal. We had dinner in a very nice restaurant and walked around and soaked up the scenes. Then we took the subway to St. Catherine Street to do some shopping and more walking!

The first day of the pow wow was very hot, but we talked to hundreds of people about our program and met some amazing individuals. I had a great conversation with a veteran from the United States, he stressed the importance of giving back to our individual communities. He was a very inspiring man to talk to. He spent his whole career working for others in underprivileged countries such as Nicaragua. He was able to deliver a truck to a small village that allowed them access to get clean water. Without the truck many people were getting sick and passing away because of the contaminated water. He fought for Indigenous people’s rights all over the world! Melanie and I were so thankful we had the chance to talk to him. 

The second day at the pow wow was very rainy. We stayed as long as we could without all of our books and activities getting completely soaked. It was a good thing we did because we met the Labrador Aboriginal Youth Abroad group. They were all getting on a plane to go to Tanzania, a country in East Africa. The youth from this program are going to bring the What Engineers Do activity books with them to Africa to bring to all the children they meet on their journey. They also picked up the cooling scarves for the children in Tanzania. We look forward to seeing the pictures of children from another part of the world learning about what engineers do!

The funniest thing that happened on our trip was on the first day at the very end of the day. I was talking to a family about our comic books. I was explaining that at the back of the book there is a bio of the two Queen’s engineering students that kids can read. Instead of saying Haven and Oak, I said Hoak and Aven. Needless to say it was a long but very rewarding day!

Nya:wen kowa to all the people who shared their stories with us!