Annual Elders Gathering

About the Annual Elders Gathering

Several generations ago, the Indigenous people of northern Saskatchewan used to interact and re-connect with each other via trails or river ways.  The struggle to survive on the land was mutual and it produces a sharing culture.  The Hudson Bay Fur Trade was enabled inter-marriages and a mixing of the various cultures.  As an example, the Churchill River was a primary route for nomadic travellers – using canoes and traversing over portages all along the river.

Generally speaking, the community of IIe-a-la-Crosse is the old Indigenous community in north-west Saskatchewan.  Quite a few Indigenous families travelled up the Churchill River and settled at Souri River area which is about 30 km north of Pinehouse.  The Beaver River flows into Churchill River and so some additional families had the opportunity to interact.  Pinehouse, Beauval, Canoe Lake, Patuanak, Buffalo Narrows and IIe-a-la-Crosse have a lot of relations in terms of the last names.  On the east-side, it is the same with La Ronge, Stanley Mission, and Grandmothers Bay.  There is genealogical evidence that several Pinehouse families are related to the McKenzie’s.