Tsuut'ina Nation celebrates culture with powwow, rodeo and other festivities at Redwood Meadows

The Tsuut’ina Nation is hosting a powwow that keeps getting bigger and better this weekend.

This year’s event drew over 600 dancers, Tsuut’ina Nation Chief Roy Whitney said in an interview with CTV News Saturday – and that was just one part of a multi-event festive weekend that includes a sanctioned rodeo, a golf tournament, slow-pitch softball, and hand games. 

This weekend also featured a number of young artists from the Alberta University for the Arts, who convocated.

“It’s a celebration,” Whitney said. “Not just of who we are, but as a way of demonstrating and welcoming our neighbours and friends to participate in our traditions.”

Event director Wendy Twoguns said the Nation spends over $1 million on the powwow.

Visitors

Rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, powwow dancers, drummers and others from across Canada and the U.S. have made the trek to Redwood Meadows to participate and watch, Whitney said.

“We have cowboys from the (United) States who will come up because it’s a sanctioned rodeo to the Indian National Finals,” he said. “These points will go towards their opportunity to win or enter the finals.”

It’s also a big event for Tsuut’ina’s own pow wow dancers. Whitney said he guessed that 50 to 60 local dancers are participating.

“It’s gonna be a good powwow,” he said.

The event, Whitney said, has been around for over 60 years.

This is the first year, however, having young artists convocate. Whitney said it was meaningful to have post-secondary students and to celebrate them, particularly given the traumas of the past inflicted by the residential school system on Indigenous families.

“It has a lot of meaning to it,” he said. “It’s our way of recognizing a dark history in our lives and what occurred (at residential schools). But now we’re bringing them home. We want to keep them safe in our communities so it’s another way of recognizing our people.”

The event continues Sunday. For more information, go here.

With files from Tyler Barrow