On an unseasonably mild Jan. 1, Canupawakpa Dakota Nation welcomed 2024 with an Omaka Teca Wacipi – a traditional one-day pow wow – in the Oyate Community Complex on the reserve south of Virden.
The colourful showcase of Dakota culture opened with a traditional dance to bid adieu to 2023 and greet the new year, which included special guests Premier Wab Kinew and his wife Lisa.
“I want to thank Chief Thunderchild and councillors from here in Canupawakpa for welcoming us into your beautiful community,” Kinew said. “I want to give thanks for a wonderful 2023 and acknowledge all the people we said “See you again” to this past year, and I pray in a good way that everybody can have an awesome 2024.”
“We’ve been doing this for years,” said Chief Lola Thunderchild of the special dance. “It has become one of our customs to represent the year passed. It’s the heaviness of the year. We greet the new year without everybody beside us. We’ve lost many along the way. The dance kind of represents that mourning and those memories…sadness…grief. The new year coming in is a fresh start. It’s a new year’s song that they sing that’s been passed down from generation to generation. I thought it would be appropriate for Premier Kinew to ring in the new year. I was quite honoured when he agreed to do that for us.”
Following the grand entry, four drum ensembles, including the host Dakota Travels and visiting Dakota Hotain, provided music in rotation as competitors showcased their talents throughout the afternoon and early evening in the teens, men’s, women’s, junior and golden age classes.
Thunderchild said this was the first event of its kind in the community complex, which opened in 2022 after the previous structure was destroyed by fire.
