Yesterday, The Wellness Almanac gave an award to the parade float that best exemplified the theme of reconciliation and weaving together the fabric of community. We recognised the Chamber of Commerce’s float.

There is a part of me that wondered if this was the right thing for “The Wellness Almanac” to do. Perhaps we should have taken a vocal stance advocating for the cancellation of Canada Day.

There are so many approaches and responses to this day – all of which are legitimate responses. The question I have been returning to, often, in the face of these braiding paths and my unsureness of which route to pick, is (hat tip to Tanya Richman), what do I want to strengthen here?

If I want to strengthen my expression of solidarity with First Peoples, maybe boycotting Canada Day and making a social media post about that, is the way. Or spending the day at the Sk̲wx̲wú7mesh Lil̓wat7úl Cultural Centre. Or registering for an Etiquette Course for Allies with Nahanee Creative Inc.

If I choose to do a big swerve around the whole thing and act like it was just another day, what am I strengthening? (Maybe a practice of avoidance of awkward feelings and hard conversations?)

I know of people who responded to the invitation with a hard-no-I-do-not-celebrate-that-day. I know of others who responded with an “I’m not sure if this is appropriate so I’m going to sit this one out.”

I cast no shade on any of the pathways people chose. There’s no playbook for the terrain we find ourselves in.

Some folk accepted the invitation to come together, and explore what Canada Day 2023 might look like. I know that it took courage from people in this community to hold a parade. Or to enter a float. From the sea of orange shirts, I sensed a degree of mindfulness and carefulness. And I know from a few conversations I had, that there was also an undercurrent of “oh what a joy it is to come together.”

And from the number of kids there, I thought: of course, this isn’t about us, why do I keep forgetting that the heart of it all is the children. It’s about what we are passing on to them – truth and reconciliation, or trauma and denial.

I think the question that drove my contribution and participation was: how do we strengthen our ability to grapple with truth and reconciliation and with living and benefiting from living on unceded land? I think it has happen in community, not in isolation. In messy awkward vulnerable experimental conversations. And so I wanted to support the baby steps that we’re taking to do better. To expanding the story we tell ourselves about who we are. To walking through the hard stuff, not skirting around it.

To our region’s good fortune, Natalie Langmann, as executive director of the Pemberton & District Chamber of Commerce, was tasked with organising the parade, something the Chamber has done for decades, led for years and years by the indefatigable Shirley Henry.

I have heard a story about Shirley baking such a huge cake for the celebrations, that she ingeniously used a sheet of plywood as the tray, only realising belatedly that she couldn’t get a plywood-wide-cake out her front door. So she had her husband remove the house window, so they could get the cake to the people, in tact. I have also heard that Maxine Bruce, who has often walked, alone, or with family, at the front of the parade, had to sneak her way into the parade, because recognizing that we are on Lil’wat territory was not part of the formal agenda in Pemberton in the 80s or 90s or 2000s. But here we are, in 2023, knowing that this land and the deep relationship with the land was never forfeited, sold, or given up by the St’at’imc people; knowing that we stand on the shoulders of community-builders who came before us AND we need to redefine community and integrate some pretty shitty history if we’re going to be good ancestors and not just dump all the hard work on our kids’ shoulders.

How do we know how to weave a reconciled, just, trauma-informed, healed, community, out of what we are now?

Who has a road map for this?

Like the poet says, the path is made by walking.

Natalie explained the path she found, in a Facebook post on June 30 (what Lil’wat musician Russell Wallace brilliantly calls the day he will celebrate, “Before Canada Day.”)

“If you are wondering what this photo is all about, let me start by saying this photo is me honoured to be standing amongst two legends – two women that have given so much back to their communities and helped shape them into what they are today. The far left is Shirley Henry (RIP) of Pemberton and on the right is Dr. Lorna Williams of the Líl̓wat Nation.

As the Executive Director of the Pemberton & District Chamber of Commerce, the Village of Pemberton (VOP) came to me and asked if I would organize Pemberton’s Canada Day Parade. I have mixed feelings about celebrating Canada Day due to our Indigenous history of colonialism and residential school, but something inside of me said to myself, “Well, maybe there is a way to make this happen and move forward in an inclusive way. Maybe there is a way I can try and connect people in the surrounding communities, and perhaps I can use this opportunity to help people learn more about the land of the Líl̓wat people.” “

Natalie reached out to dozens of people to help create the float – I think it’s her vulnerabiity, her willingness to ask for help, and the literal way she wove so many people into that float, that shows us the way forward.

When I took in the parade on Saturday, I thought it cast an interesting snapshot of what this community is about: so much complexity to integrate – two beautiful Lil’wat women in their regalia, an RCMP officer in his; the brilliant e-powered cargo bikes designed by local Jared Sartee juxtaposing with the Lizzie Bay loaded logging truck and a Pemberton concrete truck; the Canadian flag, the pride flag, Every Child Matters flag, and Fleurdelisé.

We are all of this. How do we square it all?

By walking together. Eating together. Talking together.

Mostly, what I saw, was a critical mass of people who go out of their way to help each other. Volunteers, doctors, search and rescuers, firefighters, coaches, teachers.

I guess we tend to see what we want to see. But I felt pretty overwhelmed to see how many people here go out of their way to help others. And that feels like a pretty wonderful foundation for moving towards a truly reconciled community.

Immense appreciation to Lhpatq Maxine Bruce and Mámaya7 Lois Joseph for leading the parade and offering a welcome to their territory, to William Ritchie for leading crafts, the talented Austin Ross, and to the fantastic team from the Pemberton & District Community Centre.

There is a phrase in Ucwalmicwts that I think provides a hint for how to proceed: Nuk’wan’twal wi ku st’akmen: to help one another to find the way.

As Molli Reynolds noted to me afterwards, we reversed the direction of the parade this year from what has been done historically : “we LITERALLY walked in the opposite direction to previous years. I think that’s a good thing and that we can work with that.”