LWIC Winter Gathering

By: Dylan Kensick on January 27/2020

Taylor Galvin and I travelled to Pinaymootang First Nation for Lake Winnipeg Indigenous Collective’s Winter Gathering on January 20-21/2020. It was a great gathering with lots of people from different communities across Manitoba. There was food (excellent desserts!), juice, coffee, and tea provided throughout the whole event.

Both days had activities for the people to participate in, elders from across Manitoba, local students, and other attendees worked in groups to share knowledge and ideas and to discuss different topics. There were snowshoe races, water testing and different speakers including Aimee Craft.

The Kis Kin Ha Ma Ki Win team focused mainly on testing the local supplies of water including the raw water from the river. Lots of students were excited and enthusiastic about the mobile labs that we used. We tested for Chlorine, pH, Nitrites, Nitrates, Lead, Arsenic, and bacterium which all showed safe levels for drinking. There were no bacteria in the samples that we collected so the people were happy to hear the results. Taylor made a presentation about the camps that we do and lots of people enjoyed that too and were very much interested.

Overall it was an awesome event it was good to interact and meet new people. I can’t wait to attend more in the future.