Working together

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With more involvement by Aboriginal people in the direction and operation of the Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage, the annual trek to the healing waters in central Alberta, located near the rural community of Alberta Beach, has been reshaped to accommodate the ever increasing number of Native visitors.

With more than 40,000 people attending the pilgrimage annually, this year the event, held from July 22 through to July 27, celebrated a new partnership between the Aboriginal people and the Missionary Oblates of Grandin Province.

Last January, a committee comprised of members from First Nations and Metis organizations and the Oblates was formed to initiate the new arrangement.

"The content for Native participation has increased and it will probably continue to increase as the committee will take more control of the pilgrimage and the site itself," said chairman Charles Wood.

Since the Oblates founded a mission at Lac Ste. Anne in 1889, the pilgrimage has been an important Christian tradition. But even before then, Aboriginal people had a powerful connection to the waters.

Oblate minister Camille Piche has served the pilgrimage for the last five years and feels the new partnership is necessary.

"This is a very important site to the Aboriginal people and with the diminishing manpower of the Oblates, the partnership will maintain the pilgrimage," said Piche.

Visitors attend the event to bath in the lake where apparitions of Ste. Anne walking on the water have been seen.

"A part of the history that is not known is that years before even the Europeans came into the territory various tribes of the area used to come to the site for healing and considered it a sacred place," said Wood. "It is not publicized that the Europeans came into the area, because they heard of this sacred gathering place of the Aboriginal people. Our people had seen apparitions and visions there before the Europeans came."

Wood feels it is appropriate that the Aboriginal people have more control of the site because of the deep history it has to the Native people and he is pleased to see more First Nations taking an active involvement in the pilgrimage.

"We had Hobbema, Stoney, Enoch, Ojibway, Cree, Dene, Dogrib, Blackfoot First Nations and the Metis nations and communities host services and masses this year," said Wood.