Stories from the road: Sheguiandah

Hi all! Alyssa here,

This weekend Gillian, Sabrina and I visited the Sheguiandah pow wow on Manitoulin Island, a beautiful place about two hours north of Sudbury. This car ride is quite the doozy, all the way from Kingston. It’s at least nine hours without stops, but took us ten due to some slow downs on the road.

That was all worth it, though. We showed up to our hotel in Little Current, and it was gorgeous. We stayed at the Manitoulin Hotel and Conference Centre, and its lobby was constructed in the design of a teepee. Its walls featured local Aboriginal artists’ works, and the rooms were nice and big. It faced Lake Huron and was near the swing bridge, which is the only bridge of its kind in Canada.

The pow wow was great. It was also on the water, and the grounds were nice and big. Everyone was so friendly and helpful to us, and we saw lots of kids, parents, and educators on both days.

Saturday, we had lots of people coming by and talking to us about the program, and a lot of grandparents taking colouring books in their language so their grandchildren could learn.

It was also really hot Saturday, so we managed to explore the island for a little bit. There was an ice cream store by our hotel called 3 Cows and a Cone that sold Farquhar’s, which is ice cream made only on Manitoulin. There was a little cow statue outside, and we decided to be goofs and take pictures riding it.

We also managed to visit the beach, and walk along the boardwalk by the lighthouse. The downtown in Little Current was lovely!

On Sunday, we had a good number of kids crowd around our booth all day. We did lots of activities with them, including our story telling activity where we tell the story of Nanabush crossing the river, and asked the kids to construct paper bridges for him to do it safely. We had some very interesting and unique designs. Many of the kids were wearing our engineering hats while designing some pretty sweet shapes with our magnets, and constructing Inukshuks.

That’s all for this week! See you next weekend at Kettle and Stoney Point and Kahnawake!