Barbara Latkowski
Caledonia Courier
Heritage Week is set to take place on Jan 23 – 27 at Nak’albun Elementary School in Fort St. James.
And the school community is thrilled to host the event again with the rest of the Fort St. James community and beyond.
“Heritage Week is an event that showcases the customs and traditions of the Nak’azdli Whuten First Nation,” said school Principal, Terry Espejo.
“Participants and visitors will experience various displays from arts and crafts, traditional foods, medicines and other topics of interest.”
Sara Sam, teacher and organizer of Heritage Week at Nak’albun Elementary School says that the event is also very much about bringing communities together.
“This is an opportunity for us to share the importance of our culture and language and to share this with others,” Sam said.
Sam’s sister Florence Sam began organizing the event in 1994 and with each year, it keeps growing.
“We are always trying to include new people and get them involved too,” Sam said.
Other school communities including David Hoy Elementary School in Fort St. James have been invited as well as schools from Burns Lake and Prince George.
The week will be fun filled with various activities including: ice fishing, trapping demonstrations, drumming, medicine stations, a feast day and storytelling.
“It’s also all about keeping the oral history alive In years past, people relied on storytelling and having these stories passed down from generation to generation is so important,” Sam said.
And the event is also very much about teaching traditional survival skills including how medicines are made and what healing effects they produce.
All in all, the week is geared to bring everyone out into the great outdoors, to have fun, and to share history, language and culture together.