The following is a sidebar to my previous post about Metisfest. I threw in the Youtube tune so you can listen to a nice Metis march while you read.
Copote: Traditional outerwear made from a Hudson Bay blanket, secured with a woven sash.
Infinity flag: The Métis national flag, featuring a white infinity symbol usually on a blue field.
Metchif: Métis language spoken widely by North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain tribe. “Our verbs are Cree, our nouns are French,” says Goodon.
Pemmican: Meat (buffalo, deer, elk) dried with berries. Made and sold by Métis to other Voyageurs and explorers, Pemmican was portable and prevented scurvy.
Red River cart: Wooden ox or horse cart used by early Métis to haul trade goods.
Voyageur: French for traveler, voyageurs were fur traders who traveled by canoe.
[This article appeared originally in the August 2011 issue of Prairie Independent]
North Dakota has several well-known festivals observing our cultural heritage–like the United Tribes Pow Wow or the Norsk Høstfest. But there’s one annual event you may not have heard of, and it’s already drawing more than 10,000 each August to the International Peace Garden near Dunseith.
Now in its third year, the International Métisfest celebrates the region’s Métis people–descendents of Europeans and Native Americans.
“We’re the children of the fur traders,” says Dan Goodon, Métisfest organizer. The first Métis were born to French, Scottish, or English fathers and Cree, Ojibwa, or Assinboine mothers in the 18th century. Today, Canada’s National Statistics Agency reports about 400,000 Métis can be found throughout that country, while closer to home, Goodon estimates 90% of North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain tribe are descended from Métis.
Here’s a video snatched off Youtube from the 2009 gathering…
The festival highlights the fiddle and step dance of the culture on three stages throughout the weekend. A rendezvous village, voyageur games, and music contests will also take place.
Cultural workshops will explore traditional Metchif language, sash weaving, Red River carts, dance, and beading.
Goodon says the festival, though only a couple years old, has already become important to local communities. He tells stories of long-separated cousins from across the border finding one another at the event and says the weekend feels like a family reunion for many.
At the same time, he encourages people of any background to attend. “This is all about preserving and sharing our culture,” he says.
Of course, the best cultural experiences start with food. Ask Goodon whether Métis have good cuisine, and he’ll tell you: “You betcha, and you’ll get some of it if you come up here.”
Métisfest is held August 26-28, 2011 at the International Peace Garden on the U.S.-Canada border near Dunseith, ND. Tickets are $10 for the three-day weekend and include admission to events, trading post, games, rendezvous village, and workshops.
Tickets for nightly concerts featuring fiddler Ryan Keplin (Friday) and country singer Patricia Conroy (Saturday) are sold separately. Camping is available at the Peace Garden. To enter the Peace Garden, no passport is necessary; however, some form of photo identification is required to re-enter the United States.
Preston Schmidt, a Mandan native and fiddle player, has returned from Nashville this week and is playing at various sites around Bismarck with his friends. On Thursday he played at the Baptist Home for his grandmother:
You can see Schmidt play free Sunday Dec. 26, 7-9 p.m. at Cappuccino on Collins, 105 Collins Ave, Mandan. The coffee shop is small, so you’ll want to get there early for a table.
[I'm assistant director at the Mandan Art Association Gallery. Below is my accounting of our first art opening since I came on board.]
Carrie Fisher once wrote that the saddest two words in the English language are “what party?”
If you missed the Jescia Hoffman reception on November 12 at the Mandan Art Association Gallery, you well should be mouthing those very words this morning. It was great fun: live music, fresh baked goods, cool people, interesting banter, and fantastic art. Allow me to rub it in:
Live music: The Three Amigos (Buck, John, and Tabitha) kept the guitar, fiddle, mando music going all evening. Tabitha at just 15 is already a blossoming singer, songwriter, and musician. Think Nora Jones, but with a fiddle.
Three Amigos. One of several photos. Talented, capable, but unable to photograph with all eyes open.
Fresh baked goods: Typically, art opening food is cheese, crackers, vegetables, dip. Wholesome and healthy. But for this event, Jescia’s mother brought several trays of cookies, breads, baklava, brownies, and bars. As you might imagine, we have lots of left over celery today.
Baked goods. One of several trays.
Cool people: Association member Rena Mehlhoff was there. She happened to mention that she has just joined a local roller derby team. She said she’s doing it for the exercise. Yes, her mother knows. In fact, her mother tells me Rena is trying to recruit her sister into the rink with her.
Melhoff wins my most surprising conversation of the party award.
No. This isn't Rena. This is Mary Quintus, MAA president. She's recently brought several new paintings to the gallery.
Interesting banter and fantastic art: Besides roller derby talk, I had a pretty good convo about mythology with Jescia. She gets the humor in Ovid, and it often shows in her works.
Jescia at her reception. Both works in this photo sold last night.
Now a word for the “what party” crowd:
You’re too late for the party and some of Hoffman’s work has already sold. But the good news is that the gallery will still have her work on display and for sale until Nov. 26.
The other good news is that the Amigos agreed to return and Jescia’s mom has promised another batch of baked goods for the Dec. 10 Wine and Cheese Tasting event.
The State Historical Society of North Dakota now has an exhibit detailing the history of the 100-year-old statue out front of its Heritage Center. The statue is of the Indian woman who helped Lewis & Clark.
There are two things about the exhibit that stand out for me:
First, there is the story of Mink, the granddaughter of Sakakawea, who modeled for the statue. I think this is Mink in this photo. Clearly the artist confused Mink with the Land O’ Lakes Indian girl. That’s nice, but I think Mink would have made for a more artistic and interesting beauty had the sculpture been a little truer to the actual model.
Second, there is, as always, a long discussion of the proper way to pronounce Sakakawea’s name. Several spellings exist in the L&C journals. Clark just called her Janie–no help at all there.
I prefer the name the children of North Dakota give her as they crowd in the Heritage Center for the penny-crushing machine. In fact I can’t even look at her any more and not hear the local kids’ Madonna-like name for her. To them, she’s not Sakagawea or Sakajawea. She’s just: ”That lady with a baby.”
In North Dakota, they call the Larsen Brothers, Lowell and Paul, treasures. Now in their 60s, the two have been harmonizing together for more than 50 years. So, you’d think with that kind of fame and history, they’d be all over the internet.
They’re not. Can’t find their records. Can’t find a video. Best you can do is find a listing for a gathering where they might be playing. Then maybe you can pick up a CD there.
That’s why I uploaded this telephone-quality clip here. Best I could do. But listen for those beloved harmonies:
I just discovered the hands down best thing about Bismarck, ND. Band Parade.
I used to always go to parades, and always for the bands. But I stopped when my son was small, and I was living in Fort Collins. You can pick from a whole list of reasons:
Crowds of mommies whose control issues spilled all over the curb
But in Bismarck, they’ve fixed all that. For the past 40 years, they’ve thrown a band parade where high school bands, large and small, come from all over the state to march from our Capitol to the Civic Center.
Dozens and dozens of bands, with just enough Shriners and candy-throwing politicians in between to keep the bands from drowning each other out.
My favorite, last night, was the Southwest Marching Band. Kids from the smallest towns, who generally march as little rag tag bands, unite for this one. They learn the same song in bands of as few as 4 students, then meet for the first time on the afternoon of the parade, to march, for once, as the biggest band of the day:
I’m not much into exotic art. But take something exotic and add a local element, and I’m there. In fact, I was the only one there yesterday –in the Great Hall at the State Capitol where Paul Maloney has just started a bean mural.
Inspired by the sand Mandala’s of Buddhist Monks, Maloney creates temporary murals from North Dakota farm products–beans and some grains. He’s creating a field scene with a rising sun and a woman spreading seeds…well, here, here’s the sketch:
The biggest problem with creating this thing? It’s not getting permission to camp out on the floor of the State Capitol. The State Treasury Secretary and North Dakota Right to Life sponsored the project–which means they secured permission and insurance.
“North Dakota is probably the only state where I could get away with doing something like this in the state capitol,” says Maloney who lives just across the river in Mandan, ND.
Rather, the biggest problem in creating the mural is finding blue. Maloney says he needs blue flint corn for the sky, and you can’t find any right now in North Dakota. So, he’ll have to adjust his pallette to make it work.
He expects to be done with the mural on Wednesday and will sweep it away on April 9th.
Then he’s got the problem of disposal. Buddhist Monks put the sand from their Mandala’s into a river. It’s an important part of the ritual. When Maloney did a similar project 4 years ago, he checked with some Monks and they said it would be okay if he donated the beans to a charity to be used for soup.
Last week, we had a couple shocking domestic violence incidents in one day. First, a woman was beaten to death by her husband in a trailer home. The man then drove to his parents house 20 miles away and called the police. He left her 3-year-old son alone with the dead woman to wait for police.
My friend Mary Jane (who lives in Maine) says a long winter in a trailer does things like that to people.
But it doesn’t explain why a state legislator was arrested the same day for punching his wife in the face. It was the second time he’d been arrested for doing that. The governor says the guy should step down if he’s convicted on this second count, sending the message to all of North Dakota that you get one wife beating for free here (says Prairie blog author Jim Fuglie).
And, now we have a theme song from Kris Kitko…
On a related note: On April 30, the Abused Adult Resource Center will host a Concert for Courage at the Pier in Southport. So far, it’ll star
Amy Forde (who comes to the jams and sings the most beautiful sad songs–always makes me cry.)
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