PRESERVING CULTURE A KEY TO SUCCESS
SHALYN WARD’S DEDICATION TO HER CULTURE AND COMMUNITY IS SOMETHING FEW 17-YEAR-OLDS POSSESS. A POWWOW DANCER, WARD’S SUMMER WEEKENDS ARE SPENT TRAVELING THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES, PERFORMING JINGLE AND FANCY SHAWL DANCES.
Although she started dancing when she was young, Ward took a few years off after turning eight.
But at age 15, the Eel Ground (Natoaganeg) First Nation in New Brunswick resident returned to powwow dancing as a way to stay “spiritually connected to her culture” and as a motivator to stay away from drugs and alcohol, two things she saw some people in her community struggling with.
Ward has started teaching dance to other young girls in her community and is a regular fixture at the Natoaganeg Community Food Centre – a community run food bank and community kitchen – where she has been volunteering since it opened in 2016.
Currently, Ward is the youth culture programming coordinator and said her years in Girl Guides (which she still attends and is a Ranger) helped her learn the importance of giving back and community involvement.
The Miramichi Valley High School student is heading into her last year of school and hopes to attend university to study social work when she finishes, using her cultural and post-secondary education to continue to help
Indigenous people in need.
INNU ELDER ELIZABETH PENASHUE HAS BEEN THE VOICE OF HER PEOPLE FOR DECADES AND ADVANCED MANY CONCERNS WITH ONE FUNDAMENTAL MOTIVATION.
“I never give up even when it is very hard,” said Penashue in a phone interview from her Sheshatshiu, Labrador home.
“I want to show government how much we respect the land and our culture, to teach the young children.”
From the effects of military low-level flights out of Goose-Bay on the lands decades ago through to present day and future concerns about the environmental impact of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project and many issues in between, Penashue remains committed.
For more than 20 years, she has led an annual walk — this year she had to cut it short close to the Mealy Mountains due the deep snow and the effect on her knees. But, accompanied by family members, she did complete 10 days of the journey, which started off in Goose Bay.
“I was very happy and even if I didn’t finish, I show my people and the young children not to give up,” she said.
Her work to highlight the concerns of the Innu has been the subject of a book ±— Marie Wadden's “Nitassinan” and a film, the National Film Board's “Hunters and Bombers.” In 2006, the nationally and internationally respected elder received a honorary doctor of laws degree at Memorial
University.