Jigging and tipi-raising just part of the fun.

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The St. Mary's and Fort Vermilion public schools organized a wonderful display of Native culture for National Aboriginal Day in this tiny northern community.

The day started off with a sweetgrass ceremony as well as a tipi-raising held at the Fort Vermilion Community Complex grounds. After getting rained out, the rest of the events moved to St. Mary's school gymnasium.

St. Mary's principal, Dean Wheeler, was instrumental in making this day a success for his students. The Grade 2 students put on a spectacular display of jigging and square dancing, to the tunes played by local fiddler Sheldon Lizotte.

The little guys and gals dressed in Metis attire gave it their all as they entertained the crowd of about 100 people, many of whom were standing and clapping to the beat of the fiddle music.

Their instructor, Audrey Randle, said she worked six months to get them to this stage of their performance, making them look like professionals.

There was a lot of talent at this performance, with three bands entertaining the crowd: Rising Nation, Just Jammin' and Running Wild.

The master of ceremonies was Cameron Cardinal, who is also the Aboriginal Junior Forest Rangers (AJFR) leader back again for another year.

The Aboriginal Junior Forest Rangers are comprised of Native teens selected to be a part of group training in the field of forestry for the summer months of July and August.

There are many forest ranger groups throughout the province, and they meet every year at the end of their training at Nojack near Hinton to compete in a competition called the Bull of the Woods, where they see who is the better at basic survival skills. Fire building, putting up tipis and lean-tos, chopping logs, log sawing and handgames are some of the skills they are judged on.

Cardinal proudly introduced his AJFR crew for this year, which includes returning dedicated member Troy Cardinal. This young fellow is bestowed with the honor of being chosen to represent Alberta in the Smithsonian Folklife Fesitval in Washington, D.C. The festival runs from June 30 to July 13. Troy will be putting on a handgames demonstration. Troy said he is very excited to go and represent the province of Alberta.