City of Airdrie officials, Elders from the Stoney Nakoda First Nation, and other Indigenous representatives celebrated the collaboration of community and the spirit of reconciliation at a pipe ceremony on March 21 in front of City Hall.
According to Mayor Peter Brown, the ceremony was spearheaded by collaboration between the City of Airdrie's community development team and Métis Elder Pamela Lashmore, who grew up in Airdrie but now lives in Water Valley.
Lashmore, who came up with the idea to hold the ritual in her hometown after being contacted by the City's community development team, said she was taught growing up that everything “follows the pipe.”
“If you want something to be done in a traditional, cultural and honourable way, everything follows the pipe, so I said we needed to have a pipe ceremony,” she said. "It opens the door, first of all, for positive relationships with our Indigenous communities. From there, that good and positive energy is going to come back to Airdrie.”
The ceremony consisted of the passing of four pipes between each other, interspersed with moments of prayer, singing, and dancing.
Brown said it was an educational and moving experience to participate in the ceremony. While he has been inside many teepees before, he noted this was the first time he assisted in the assembly of one.
“The tradition is to pass the pipe around to everyone who wanted to say a prayer, a smoke of the pipe – most people chose to hold it to their heart," he said.
“They went around the entire room and then they sang a number of generational songs, all of which were from their grandparents. It’s something I’ll remember for a long time.”
Lashmore, who noted Airdrie has a large population of Métis residents, called the pipe ceremony an act of reconciliation and inter-cultural understanding.
“When we’re talking about truth and reconciliation, we really need to understand reconciliation,” she explained. “Reconciliation means 'to work with.' It’s not 'on behalf of”' the Indigenous Peoples, but to 'work with' Indigenous communities. That’s how we will reconcile everything that needs to be reconciled.
“It’s important we understand one another,” she added. “For so long, the Indigenous people have been doing their thing in their community and we’ve been doing our thing in our community. I can see that changing. We’re starting to come together to work with each other, honour one another and learn from one another. It’s important we do that. Then we have knowledge. And when we have knowledge, we’re not judgmental, and we have respect for one another.”
Brown added the pipe ceremony was only the most recent in a series of events the City of Airdrie intends to hold this year that focus on reconciliation with the Indigenous community.
“I would say there are definitely more in the planning stage but nothing I’d be able to share at this time,” he said. “We obviously have National Indigenous day coming up in Canada, so we’re certainly going to experience many more events that day in the community. This is one of many to come – I’d say it’s just the beginning.”
