The Westerner for February 6, 2012
Meeting: chair, Sherry; music, Jerome; grace, Darryll White
Attendance/Guests: 40 including Interactors Lindsey Lam, Catherine Turcotte, Erin Sobat, and Flory Sasloosky of Centennial Interact of Ross Shepard High; Nadine Fulmer, Rotary Club of Edmonton Northeast; Todd Anderson, guest of Jerome; former club member Lewis Cardinal, guest speaker
Interact Fundraiser: Lorne discussed the Centennial Interact annual fundraiser, to be held April 13, cost $50 each; he then introduced Erin Sobat who gave more details; see Ron for tickets; funds raised help support the interact projects in Belise - this is the year they travel to Belise to perform hands on reconstruction of schools, etc.
Rotary Day: celebrate with all the Edmonton based Rotary clubs on February 24. Get tickets from http://serviceaboveself.rotary-day/edmonton-area/. The clubs will be donating to cover the cost of a large newspaper ad to promote Rotary to the public
Front Desk: Rob Dunseith discussed getting volunteers to establish a schedule for staffing the front desk now that Bill Macdonald has retired from the club - call Rob if you can help - if enough volunteer, the job should come up only once per 2 months per volunteer
Gift Cards: order from Brian, support funding of club projects
German Canadian Club Dinner: phone Bob Lamoureux if you want to attend on February 17
50/50: Jim Rowand and Jerome shared $165, congratulations. Congratulations to Jim for recovering from his medical problem
Finemaster: Al Sanderson raised funds with questions on Alberta election propaganda and discretions regarding some virtually unknown NFL football game
Guest Speaker: John introduced Lewis Cardinal, former member of our Rotary club, who has his own communications firm. Lewis has been awarded many honours including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Public Service and a similar award from Grant MacEwan University. He is also on many service organizations' board of directors.
Lewis advised that the North Saskatchewan River if very important to aboriginal people. Connecting the river to the aboriginal community, which around Edmonton at 80,000 people is the largest in the country, is very important. Thus, Lewis is spearheading "Spirit of Edmonton", a plan to develop aboriginal cultural venues at Fort Edmonton Heritage Park and to reclaim native significance to important areas of Edmonton, like Rossdale Flats. In the Cree language, pehonan means waiting place. Monto means the creator. Lots of native history originates in Edmonton. Rossdale Flats was a pehonan as natives used to wait there to trade medicines and other goods. The medical essence of that place radiates into the University of Alberta which has developed one of the best medical schools in the world. Aboriginals need to recreate a pehonan at Rossdale Flats as well as a corresponding venue at Fort Edmonton. This will honour the native history and why the people came here. Spirit of pehonan will become part of Fort Edmonton in honouring the native nations.
Additional aspects to this large project is a performance space to be used by various aboriginal groups during the year. They will display aboriginal food, art and dance. The building will be similar to one at the Smithonian Institute.
Kihciy Askiy means sacred earth. Aboriginals do not have access to a sacred space in Edmonton to honour their religion and culture. They need to create such a space and will try to do that at Fort Edmonton. The elders need to expose indigenous youth to their culture, religion, history. The Indigenous Centre for Art & Knowledge will celebrate the historic past through artistic representation of aboriginal knowledge. This will be 130,000 square feet.
Lousie Umphreville was the mother of Fort Edmonton and the first lady of the fort. Her mother was a Wood Cree and she married the fort's factor, John Rowand. She managed the great house in the fort which has evolved into today's centre for Alberta government. To honour her memory, the Spirit of Edmonton plan to develop the Umphreville Fountain. They also plan to petiton to have the new Walterdale Bridge named after her. To complement this, they want the High Level Bridge renamed John Rowand Bridge to honour her husband, the first factor of the Fort.
Other components of the Spirit of Edmonton will be to develop Sun and Moon Visionaries at Donald Ross School; an art, cultural, sacred fire showcase at the Shaw Conference Centre (international visitors will have a place to practice their religion and other ceremonies). To link everything, there will be an Indigenous Cultures and Natural History Trail from Fort Edmonton to Rossdale Flats. Monto is tied to Edmonton as monto is incorporated in the name = edMONTOn.
Lewis was thanked by Mike Ryan.