Traditional skills, Indigenous teachings and intergenerational knowledge will take centre stage this month as Wabasca hosts its fifth annual Cultural Days.

The week-long event will run Sept. 16 to 22 at the Bigstone Cree Nation Festival Grounds, bringing together youth, Elders, Knowledge Keepers and community members for hands-on activities focused on culture, learning and connection.

The event is being organized by the M.D. of Opportunity and its Family and Community Support Services (FCSS).

“Cultural Days is [about] bringing community together and connecting youth to the elders, the knowledge keepers, and those who know about our cultural heritage,” said FCSS staff member Janice Auger.

“[It’s about] trying to revive and retain that knowledge that heritage that they have.”

Participants will have opportunities throughout the week to learn and practise a wide range of traditional skills and cultural activities.

Among the scheduled activities are moose hide tanning, dry meat making, fish filleting, fire making, plant identification, birch bark canoeing and slingshot making. There will also be a traditional tea station, fry bread making, bannock on a stick, a trappers tent, Cree language games, treaty teachings, kinship ties and rites of passage.

Creative activities will include fish scale art, mini tipi making, lanyard making, orange shirt keychain making, birch bark moose caller making and an art therapy station where participants can paint, sketch and create.

An Elders tipi and Métis District tent will also be part of the event, providing opportunities for participants to connect with knowledge keepers and learn about different aspects of the region’s Indigenous cultures.

The event’s focus on learning through participation has been a central part of Cultural Days since its early years.
The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund lists Wabasca’s 2023 “Reconnecting Our Spirit Cultural Days” among its reconciliation initiatives, noting that the event focused on preserving and revitalizing Indigenous cultures.

More than 3,500 people attended that gathering, which featured visual arts, traditional crafts, music and 14 planned stations.

The fourth annual Cultural Days was held in 2025 and similarly featured hands-on activities including beading, fish scale art, meat cutting and smoking, and medicinal tea making, with Elders and Knowledge Keepers sharing traditional skills and teachings.

For one Saddle Lake Indigenous Knowledge Keeper who participated in Cultural Days, the experience offered a connection to land and traditional ways of life that was difficult to find in his everyday work.

“My day job is working at a computer, in an office in the city, and when I go home I’m a little bit stressed and I’ll chop some wood and have a bonfire,” he said.

At Cultural Days, however, he said he felt connected to the land, people and traditional ways in a way that he could not replicate sitting in an office hundreds of kilometres away.

“And honestly, I miss your Cultural Days when I’m out splitting my own wood,” he said.

The 2026 event will also include opportunities for celebration alongside the educational and hands-on stations. A special Cree skit performance by the Keekenow Senior Facility is planned, while the week will conclude Sept. 22 with a youth round dance featuring the Saddle Lake Singers.

Another highlight will be the Biggest Auntie Earrings Contest on Sept. 21 at 4 p.m., sponsored by Strike Group Inc.

First place will receive $250, second place $150 and third place $100. Registration for the contest will be open from Sept. 16 to 20 at 6 p.m. The event is open to the community, and organizers are encouraging people to attend, participate and learn directly from those passing traditional knowledge to the next generation.

The M.D. of Opportunity’s event listing confirms the festival will take place Sept. 16 to 22 at the Bigstone Cree Nation Festival Grounds in Wabasca.

“Culture isn’t just something we learn about — it’s something we experience,” organizers wrote in an Aug. 28 event announcement.
Those with questions about Cultural Days can contact FCSS staff Janice Auger or Jodi Decoine at 780-891-3778, extensions 405 or 403.

William Hetherington
Lakeside Leader