'Gratitude for life': Indigenous group marks winter solstice with traditional ceremony in Regina

Dozens of people gathered on the sacred space outside Saskatchewan’s legislative building to honour the winter solstice on Wednesday.

The winter solstice marks the first day of winter and shortest day of the year in terms of daylight, but in First Nations culture it is also a time of prayer, healing and reflection on the past year.

“Gratitude is a big one. Gratitude for life and for all of us being able to be here,” matriarch Tracy Desjarlais said.

Thirteen matriarchs led 13 pipe ceremonies in 13 different tipis on the grounds. The number coincides with the 13 moons in a one-year cycle, according to Nina Wilson.

“Our ceremonies are all dictated by the sun and the moon and stars,” Wilson said.

“We can’t have them if we don’t understand constellations if we don’t understand how we are just minuscule in the grand scheme of things.”

The matriarchs lead the solstice ceremony and raise the pipes inside the tipis. Historically, they were also the ones to erect the tipis, according to Wilson.

“Our duty is to protect the children and the future. Our duty is to protect the land, protect the environment, to protect the men,” she said.

The men also play a role in the traditional ceremony and support the matriarchs. Nowadays, they are the ones who build the tipis and take care of thelabour-intensive duties, according to one of the organizers Rod Belanger.

“We set up the camp, we set up all the tipis, we make sure all the fire pits are here, we make sure all the wood is stacked in the tipis and the fires are started before they got here this morning,” Belanger said.

“We started a sacred fire and that fire burns the whole time. All the fires that you see that are coming from these tipis were lit from that one fire.”

Belanger said this was a “normal way of life” for his people prior to colonization and the signing of treaties.

He said anyone is welcome to participate in the winter solstice ceremony, and he hopes people educate themselves on traditional ceremonies.

“There are things that happen in a year that are significant to this ceremony,” he said.

“There’s snow on the ground for a reason. We were taught that when the snow falls it covers Mother Earth. It covers all the medicines and they sleep.”

Mother Earth has an important role in the winter solstice ceremony and it is not lost on the group that extremely cold temperatures were at play on Wednesday.

“We need this cold. It takes care of a lot of sickness on the land. It helps slow people down,” Wilson said.

“You can’t go out in elements like this and fool around. You have to be careful. You have to respect it. So the cold is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. It just makes it a little tougher.”

The ceremony began around 10 a.m. and is expected to finish Wednesday afternoon.