Festival celebration attracts thousands

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The 10th annual Canadian Aboriginal Festival was staged Nov. 28 to 30 in Toronto at SkyDome, and was arguably the best to date.

The festival is considered North America's largest Aboriginal multi-disciplined arts event, with a powwow featuring about 1,000 dancers in the grand entry alone. About 35,000 people attending the three-day event.

Festival co-ordinator Ron Robert was especially pleased with the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards held on Nov. 28 in conjunction with the festival. This marked the fifth year of the awards show, but for the first time it was staged at the 1,300-seat John Bassett Theatre within the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

"From a presentation point of view, we raised the bar," Robert said of the music awards show. "Now we have to get over that [bar]." And plans are underway to improve on the already improved year-end celebration of Aboriginal heritage and culture.

"We just try and make things bigger and better every year," Robert said. "And I think we succeeded rather well in that this year."

A noteworthy touch was that this year's powwow was dedicated to the Aboriginal peacekeepers, the Canadian peacekeeping unit and all other peacekeeping forces throughout the world.

"I can't think of a better group of warriors to honor," Robert said. "They're under such stress these days. I can't imagine a worse job."

As in previous years, the festival was kicked off on the Friday with an education day. About 7,000 elementary school children from the Toronto area converged on the SkyDome. The youngsters had an opportunity to visit several venues where they learned about Native history, the traditional dwellings of Aboriginal people, their different dances and the importance of the drum. There were also storytelling and craft-making activities available.

The rest of the public were able to visit the festival on Saturday and Sunday. Robert said about two-thirds of those that attended the event showed up on the Saturday.

"Now we have to try and get some sort of event to bring people in on the Sunday," he added.

Robert was hoping even more people would have shown up for this year's festival, but there were a couple of obstacles to overcome.

For starters, Robert believes some people are still hesitant to travel to Toronto because of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreaks the city experienced earlier in the year.

And then, during the week of the festival, there were news reports of a nasty flu that was circulating, not only in Toronto, but various parts of North America.

"Every time I picked up a newspaper or turned on the television they were talking about this big flu epidemic, like everybody here in Toronto was going to die," Robert said. "I think the medical people tend to get a bit panicky at times."

There's no way to estimate how many people stayed away from the festival for fear of endangering their health. Those who did skip the event, however, missed a spectacular event.

As in previous years, the festival included music and fashion shows, a youth lacrosse skills competition and various traditional teachings.