Ride to create awareness of First Nations addictions

During the hot days of summer, band members of the Red Pheasant and Mosquito First Nations plan to trek across the Saskatchewan plains on horse and wagon to bring awareness to addictions and promote cultural teachings and healthy lifestyles in their communities.
"It's going to take five days of riding wagons to reach the destination point and we're hoping to get not only youth involved but people themselves who are struggling with addictions," said organizer Ryan Bugler, who is an addictions counselor at the Red Pheasant First Nation.
"We're really encouraging them to attend the ride and participate fully and stay sober for the four or five days that they're on the ride. Because the reality is that a lot of people they haven't stayed sober that long, four or five days. So if they can do that, that's an accomplishment," he added.
Buglar is organizing the ride along with Mosquito band counselor, Elbert Pahsaknuk, which will occur on July 26 to 30.
"We're expecting ten wagons and riders that are already registered. It's usually a couple of riders per wagon, however many they bring," Buglar said.
The day that the unity ride begins, those involved will hold a sweat lodge ceremony for the purpose of helping the ride to go well for those people taking part.
"The reason we're doing this is just to create an awareness of addictions on both reserves," explained Buglar. "And along the way we're trying to initiate cultural teachings about the traditional lifestyle of horses and how they were used for healing and how they can still be used for healing."
Buglar said addictions ­ especially cocaine use ­ have become a huge problem in his own reserve during recent years. And they want to especially reach the younger community members. To educate them and let them know that there's people in the community who are trying to do something about the problem.
Buglar said when he discussed the unity ride with Pahsaknuk they realized Elder support was really needed, so they consulted with Elders who agreed to help. Furthermore, non-Native people who farm the land where the unity ride will progress, have offered their support as well.
"We hold a cultural camp every year at Red Pheasant on this TLE land along the river so we're camping along the river and traveling along an old wagon trail that's been used for a lot of years for traveling across western Canada and it takes us right to Saskatoon," said Buglar. "We pre-scouted the map, we visited the land owners, we stopped and had coffee at some of the farmers houses and they really enjoyed the idea and we had some of them say that they would have burgers ready and drinks, they wanted to know roughly when we would be coming through there."
Buglar said non-Native people have also been inquiring about whether they can participate and he told them they could also join in during the ride.
"It's open to everybody, anyone who wants to participate. It's definitely open to other people," he said.