Uchucklesaht Tribe hosted an Aboriginal Day of Wellness event at Maht Mahs Gym on June 19.
Organizer Charlotte Rampanen said the focus was on health, with a focus on First Nations traditional knowledge.
“I applied for a grant through the First Nations Health Authority,” she explained. “Every year they provide a grant for an Aboriginal Day event. The requirement is that you put on health-related information.”
Rampanen said the decision was made to host an open event. At the Uchucklesaht Tribe Government table, visitors could check out drawings of the new cultural centre now under construction on the site of the old Somass Hotel.
“It’s also to let people know what’s happening with Uchucklesaht,” Rampanen said, adding, “We’re a small tribe that’s going places.”
Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council health promotion worker Matilda Atleo brought a traditional foods display with a major focus on seafood. Visitors were invited to try several varieties of smoked salmon and other traditional delicacies, with a side order of seaweed.
“It’s important for people to look at what’s in their back yard,” Atleo said. “We have all this seafood, these traditional berries, in our back yard, that are extremely nutritious compared to the processed foods a lot of us are consuming.”
John Rampanen’s display featured many of those traditional foods gathered in both local forests and local waters. On his table, jars of deer meat and bone broth jostled with fish head soup and halibut bone broth, as well as numerous salves and ointments.
Dried botanicals included kickanninick, red clover and huckleberry. One intriguing jar nearby contained “fir tip jelly.”
Indigenous people had to fulfill their nutritional needs from what was available at hand, Rampanen said. That included Vitamin C.
“My wife does most of the preserves and salves and the balms,” he said. “We have a huge assortment of different teas that have medicinal properties. Most of them are immune-boosting types of teas that keep you from getting sick in the first place.”
Huckleberry is good for maintaining or reducing blood sugar levels, while that fir-tip jelly is extremely high in Vitamin C. That’s important in a region without citrus-type fruits, Rampanen explained.
“In some of our remote communities, access to produce is a bit of an issue. There is a tendency for people to forget that we still have a lot of our own foods out there that are wonderful supplements. So we don’t have to go to the grocery store for Vitamin C.”
Displays included the Quit Now booth, manned by health promoter Karen Alden.
“It’s a free support service offered by the BC Lung Association,” Alden said.
The BC Smoking Cessation Program offers help with nicotine replacement products and prescriptions at its quitnow.ca website or toll-free help line at 1-877-455-2233.
NTC support programs such as Quu’asa, Nuu-chah-nulth Employment and Training Program and the Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation were also on hand, and throughout the day a series of traditional performers took centre stage, and vendors included “Ha-Shilth-Sa Bob” Soderlund, with his colourful clothing booth.
The event also featured bouncy tents for children, as well as crafting for all ages.
With Deb Masso giving instruction and encouragement, traditional medicine woman Naomi Horbatch created a traditional hide drum in miniature scale.
“I’m doing this for the first time, and I’m so excited,” she said. “Usually at these events, I offer massage, as a practitioner, so I never ever get to leave, because everybody needs a massage.”
Horbatch, a member of Ahousaht First Nation, said she was making the drum as a wedding gift, “Because I’m getting married in three weeks.”
On July 11, Horbatch and fiancée Ed Nicholson, of Tseshaht First Nation, will tie the knot in a traditional ceremony at the Tseshaht Longhouse.
