COLD LAKE – On June 11, the Treaty Six Contemporary Art Festival will be taking over the Cold Lake Energy Centre and its grounds to bring attendees a wide variety of Indigenous visual and performing arts.
The event lineup includes Indigenous drag queens, country singers, DJs, a tattoos artist, 17 emerging and established visual artists, a burlesque performance and so much more.
Musical performances by Fawn Wood, headliner DJ Kookum, and many others will take to the mainstage.
Not only are all the performers of Indigenous ancestry, but so too are the behind-the-scenes crews, from production to sound technicians, event organizers and even the Land and People Protectors filling the role of crowd control.
There will also be Indigenous artisans and vendors who will be selling their work and food.
For those who may be concerned that their kookums and mushums won’t appreciate all the modern art, they have no need to worry, says Gabrielle Whiskeyjack.
There will also be traditional hoop dancing, music and art folded into the lineup, as well as a special area for elders, which will include some catering, she notes.
Whiskeyjack is one of the event organizers with the Treaty 6 Contemporary Art Collective, which is the group putting on the festival.
The collective had initially planned the event for 2021, but it was cancelled due to the pandemic and public health restrictions at the time.
However, this year the event is set to have an even bigger lineup than what had been planned for last year. Organizers hope to draw up to 2,000 festival goers for the full-day event.
And while the purpose of the contemporary arts festival is to showcase various expressions of Indigenous art, everyone is welcome to attend, emphasizes Whiskeyjack.
The festival will run from noon until 11 p.m. on Saturday.
“We (will) have the large Indigenous art gallery in the Reid Field House, with the mainstage events outside on the North field,” she adds.
Cold Lake chosen to host event
The reason the City of Cold Lake has been chosen to host the Treaty 6 festival is simple, Whiskeyjack says.
“It is a very beautiful city, and there is a lot to offer here, and the Energy Centre just has everything that we need.”
The city also falls within Treaty 6 territory, which spans across the Plains through Central Alberta and Saskatchewan and is home to the artists performing at the festival.
Everything about the festival has been organized by The Treaty 6 Contemporary Art Collective with careful detail.
Instead of artists getting ready in green rooms such as trailers, performers will be getting ready in teepees set up as operational green rooms, explains Whiskeyjack.
“One of the aspects of being an Indigenous person is just following the proper protocol and knowing that everything is being honoured.”
Drums will welcome performers on stage and gifts of tobacco will be offered to honorary guests. It’s the difference of performing in Indigenous settings compared to non-Indigenous settings, she says.
“I think this needed to happen and to happen locally,” says Whiskeyjack. “Nothing was going on for Indigenous art and music. Nobody else is doing anything like that on this scale. Nobody else is doing anything around the area.”
Tickets for the festival are $30 and can be purchased online.
“The ticket sales are for the mainstage performances, but all the money is going to go back into the collective and the artists... and the people volunteering, some of them will be receiving an honorarium for their organizations, like Bear Clan Beaver Hills (House). The rest is going to go back into next year's event,” explains Whiskeyjack.
“It's just another way of giving back to our people.”
There will also be at musical tribute to the late Jimmy Herman, a well-known community member from Cold Lake First Nations.
Volunteers wanted
The festival’s organizers are still looking for roughly 35 more volunteers to help with the event.
Anyone interested in volunteering can email [email protected] or contact Whiskeyjack at 587-201-6770
**This article has been updated to include that DJ Kookum will be headlining the event. The original article had incorrectly stated that The Halluci Nation would be performing.
