Third annual Youth Teepee Summit had ‘a little bit of everything’

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – The First Nations Health Consortium (FNHC) hosted its third annual Youth Teepee Summit from July 29 to 31 in Edmonton, with this year’s themes focusing on recreation and sports, entrepreneurship, storytelling and culture. 

“We really aim to inspire youth, to empower them, to give them the confidence for them to take back to their communities and teach them there,” Lannie Houle, FNHC’s community and corporate lead, told Alberta Native News. 

The FNHC assists youth across Alberta with applying Jordan’s Principle, which states that when there’s a jurisdictional dispute about which government is responsible for funding Indigenous children’s services, the priority must be to first disperse the funds. 

The consortium also hosts a variety of sports and recreation programs, including ball hockey, curling, volleyball and soccer, and promotes early literacy through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which provides free monthly children’s books for kids aged zero to five years old. 

The Youth Teepee Summit fits well into this broad mandate, Houle said. 

“We had a little bit of everything, really,” she told this newspaper. “We had culture, tradition, sports and rec, [and] education.” 

While the summit is oriented towards teenagers, people of all ages are welcome to attend. 

Over three days at the Northeast River Valley Event Centre, there were 300 attendees, 20 speakers and 30 vendors, said Houle.

“It was a great weekend. I think I was inspired just as much as the kids were inspired,” she said. 

“It was a very full circle moment for me. Last year, I was actually speaking at the Teepee Summit and now this year, I’m working with the consortium.”

The summit opened with a grand entry and round dancing, as well as a session “on why we smudge, how we smudge and protocols” for smudging, Houle said. 

“Those are really important, especially for Indigenous kids who grew up in the city [and] are not surrounded by that culture,” she noted. “Now they know the proper protocols on how to approach Elders and do it in a respectful, traditional way.”

Houle said it was exciting to host recreational ball hockey at the summit, because the FNHC only started offering it about a week earlier. 

The consortium announced official partnerships with Soccer Canada and Volleyball Canada, as well. 

With the Paris Olympics underway, the consortium was fortunate to have two Olympians in attendance — Kerri Buchberger, who played women’s volleyball for Team Canada at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and Liam Gill, who represented Canada in half-pipe snowboarding at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. 

“We had them there playing with the kids, speaking, telling their stories and really inspiring them,” said Houle. 

Gill, a member of the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation in the Northwest Territories, was the only male First Nations athlete representing Canada at the 2022 games. 

Geena Jackson of the Bears’ Lair — an Indigenous version of business reality TV shows Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank — spoke to attendees about acquiring life skills and starting a business.

“It started with the basics, how to introduce yourself, and then all the way to what you could do as a business,” explained Houle. 

Jackson told the story of a kid who got a popcorn maker as a present from his mother and was able to make $60,000 in a year selling popcorn at various events in the Vancouver area.  

For storytelling, the summit hosted an Elder who told attendees his people’s traditional stories and how to set up a teepee pole, with the youth given the opportunity to paint a miniature teepee. 

“Hopefully one day, [the kids] know that they have everything that they need to pursue any of the dreams that they have,” said Houle.