With funding in place through the Department of Culture and Heritage, elders gatherings at the Kenojuak Cultural Centre will once again take place in the coming weeks.
Perhaps nobody is more elated than Louisa Parr, the cultural centre’s manager, who submitted the funding application.
“I’m really excited for it to start up again,” Parr said. “I cannot wait to see all those elders in here again.”
Several gatherings were held last year so senior guests could socialize, drink tea, eat seal meat and enjoy the ambience of the community’s new arts building. The largest get-together took place just before Christmas when 40 people showed up and feasted on geese and bannock, Parr noted.
“I really enjoy being around them… they all have different stories,” she said, adding that she’s planning to record their recollections and will share them with the school so elementary and high school students can listen to them in the years ahead. “(We can learn) the proper, traditional ways even through their stories.”
Parr said she’ll make announcements in the community once the date is set for the next elders gathering.