For the next three days, storytellers from across Turtle Island will gather in Regina for a Winter Gathering for Indigenous Storytellers Month.
The All Nations Hope Network (ANHN) is hosting the “Sākitowin: Stories from a Place of Love” Winter Conference at the Regina Atlas Hotel, which will highlight the abundant programming within the ANHN organization.
“Indigenous storytellers from across the land coming here to talk about some of our teachings, our natural laws, our Indigenous ways of knowing and doing our medicines, our songs, our stories that have been handed down from generation to generation that will bring commerce and life to the people,” said ANHN director, Margaret Kisikaw Piyesis.
“We have to instill in our Indigenous ways of knowing and doing solutions for what we face here today on this land.”
The ANHN will also be hosting an MMIWG2S+ Vigil on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Atlas hotel which will be open to the public.
Kisikaw Piyesis hopes attendees for the three-day event take away knowledge on the intent of Indigenous stories and the morals they have.
“We’re wanting to wake up the people in terms of knowing that the way forward lies deeply rooted in our ways of Indigenous ways of knowing and doing,” she said.
“When we’re talking about ceremonies, teachings, the laws, the natural laws on this land, and also looking at the plants and the animals and our relationship to everything we’ll go through in relationship to everything, kinship to everything. And so that’s important as we move forward.“
Some of the Indigenous storytellers will be Willie Ermine, Elder Betty McKenna, Jerry Saddleback, Jo-Ann Saddleback and Albert McLeod, who will all share stories on the way of knowing and understanding life’s lessons.