WEBEQUIE — Bringing multiple generations together continues to be at the heart of a longstanding annual summer celebration in Webequie.
The remote First Nation, located about 540 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, holds its Neebin Odaminowin summer festival every year during the last week of July. This year, they celebrated its 50th anniversary.
“It's always good to have a summer festival, people come out and enjoy themselves,” said Coun. Eric Shewaybick, who is also one of the festival coordinators. “It's almost like a homecoming event.” This year’s week-long celebrations were held from July 28 to August 2.
Coun. Harry Wabasse has seen every one of them. He said the concept started with treaty annuity payments came in (the First Nation’s Treaty Day is still the first day of festival) and when people generally came back to the community. It also was a way to give thanks for what the year was bringing and to celebrate the summer.
“It evolved to the way it is now,” he said.
“I think it's a way for the community to to gather and be happy together and celebrate the summer,” said Chief Cornelius Wabasse. “And what the summer brings to the community, and that's how we keep that family unity in our community where we get together and enjoy time.”
The festival is a week-long event, with packed schedules every day, including evening and nightly dances, concerts and entertainment (Big Wreck performed this year, along with tribute bands to AC/DC, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard), daily games and activities, bingos, a youth talent show, a relay race and many other activities. The evening festivities last well into the night, Shewaybick said.
“That's how it is every summer festival, you could hear the music and the dance music vibrating through your walls in your home — ‘boom boom boom boom boom.’”
Each of the First Nation’s departments, like health, education, administration and others, are responsible for hosting a day and fundraising for it, he said, adding that putting everything together is a lot of work. “Most of us, we've been getting at least three to four hours sleep,” he added.
Overall, the festival is a chance for multiple generations — and communities — to come together. Shewaybick said there were over 30 flights that came in during the week.
“In the beginning, we had it as a community event but then we started to spread out because some of our community members had moved away due to relationships and all that — marrying into other communities — so they started to to come back to be with their family during that time,” Wabasse said.
“It kind of attracted others from our surrounding communities as well, as we grew to be a big festival, so it has brought friendship and also being a community as a whole.”
Shewaybick, who has been involved in the coordination of the festival for years (aside from his band councillor role, he has also worked at the community’s school teaching Anishininimowin or Oji-Cree and as an employment coordinator for Ontario Works), said it’s really important that multiple generations get to come together, adding that the community provides accessible transportation for elders and those with mobility issues, so that’s not a barrier.
“We gather at this particular time, because as a community we've been going through a lot of losses recently and to have this kind of event, it usually uplifts people,” he said. “The whole purpose of this festival is just to motivate people to come on out.”
“I've been living here for all my life, and as long as I remember, the summer festivals have been really successful,” Shewaybick added. “The happy faces, people having fun, socializing with some of the people that they haven't seen.”
Wabasse said the First Nation comes together to ensure everyone has a place to say, adding that “each of our households make room for those people that come to our community.”
“For instance, my house … it's full, we have people sleeping in the in the living room,” he said, laughing.
