It’s a week of celebrations at Kehewin Cree Nation.

Since Tuesday, the band has had official grand openings for three key facilities which have been completed in the past two years, including the new Kehewin School, Water Treatment Facility, and Waste Transfer Station.

The activities culminate into an important day on Friday. The Kehewin School Powwow is happening from 10:00am to 3:00pm, which is the anniversary of the signing from Chief Kehewin of Treaty Six.

“We knew we had the school grand opening. We had the other two grand openings, and we also had the we’re going to have the while we’re doing the career fair right now,” Director of Operations Willie John told Lakeland Connect, explaining the decision to have everything run together this week, instead of Victoria Day long weekend. 

“The significance of having the powwow tomorrow is September 9. September 9 is the anniversary of the actual Treaty Six signing in 1876…it kind of is appropriate that we’re doing all of this this week. So tomorrow, kids will be reminded, Treaty Six was signed September 9, 1876. And we’re gonna celebrate with a nice powwow and we’re hoping we’ll have a lot of participants and a lot of visitors for that as well.” 

The activities continued with a trade show and job fair at the school on Thursday.

Elder Irvin Kehewin and Chief Trevor John at the Waste Transfer Station ribbon cutting. Image submitted.

Left to right: Elder Irvin Kehewin, Counsellor Charlene Gadwa, Chief Trevor John, Jamie Brown (Indigenous Services Canada), and Counsellor Craig Gladue at the Water Treatment Plant opening. Image submitted.

Industry partners have kept up dialogue with band council in the past year and it seemed natural to hold a job fair to expose students to potential career opportunities in the area with local companies.

“Imperial Oil is here. Imperial Oil happens to be within what we call our traditional territory. And we hope to have our members employed with Imperial. We partially own a company called Pimee. Pimee has been doing a lot of work with Imperial for the last probably 30 year,” said John.

“And all the other subsidiary companies that are here basically are here as a result of meetings that took place, expressions of interests, working together, memorandums of understanding, we do have some what are called Impact Benefit Agreements with various companies. 

“What we said was, why don’t we invite representatives from all these companies, bring them here into our new facility, open it up to our junior and senior high students, and get everybody exposed to the types of work that occurs out there.” 

One of the four traditional feasts also happened this week at the school, as a way to reconnect with spiritual beliefs.

John said feasts are typically held to bring blessings and in this case, for the new school, students, and staff members.  

The view of Kehewin School built by Genmec ACL.