Vinson seizes opportunity to educate

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The opening performance of this year's Heritage Festival in William Hawrelak Park on Aug. 2 featured Metis singer Laura Vinson and her group Free Spirit.

The audience of about 200 people, who came to sample the culture and traditions of more than 50 ethnic groups that make up the Edmonton community, sang along or danced throughout Vinson's concert.

Free Spirit includes Vinson and four other members: Vinson's husband David Martineau, his brother Paul, Maria Dunn and Dale Ladouceur.

Ladouceur sang two songs ("Rainy Spring" and "Cry to Eve") from her new album Brimstone and Clover. Ladouceur wrote Rainy Spring on the way to a festival in British Columbia where she said, "they are far more vulgar with their clear-cutting, and I mean they'll take huge swaths. It's an environmental song, and actually "Cry to Eve" is too."

Some of the dancers that performed over the weekend on the Aboriginal stage at the festival performed alongside Vinson at the opening. Reyna White Thunder, 10, and Kelsey Wolver, 16, danced fancy shawl and hoops. Grassdancer Jason Skani and traditional dancer Rocky Dumais pleased the audience with their stunning performances.

Vinson's last song was dedicated to all the Native people who died as a result of contact with Europeans. She said at least 10 million Natives died from small pox, starvation or warfare.

Vinson's heritage is Cree and Cherokee, mixed with French and English. Like many Metis, she has unpleasant memories of how her people were treated in Canada.

"For a long time, Metis people were like really nothing. We were really the lowest: We weren't the Indians and we weren't white people .... [now] I think we are better able to cope in both worlds in some ways and I see Metis people being really strong and doing some really fabulous things these days."

She talked about generational grief, the sadness that comes from the historical mistreatment of Native people.

"You have this sadness, and you don't know why. And because so many of us don't know our history, it drives people to drink, it really does, and do drugs and things that are really destructive."

She suggested that a day of recognition of this mistreatment be held and "mourning for the people that we've lost, so the people can heal, and get on and understand that."