A crowd gathered on Friday morning in Victoria Park, along Saskatoon’s riverbank and through the downtown for Rock Your Roots.
A massive crowd gathered on a sunny Friday morning in Victoria Park, along Saskatoon’s riverbank and through the downtown to take part in Rock Your Roots: Walk for Reconciliation. Here are five things to know about the event …
1 — Rock Your Roots coincides with National Indigenous Peoples Day. The walk brings people together to recognize and remember those who attended residential schools and to demonstrate a commitment to reconciliation.
2 — National Indigenous Peoples Day was created in 1996, and was then known as National Aboriginal Day. It was the culmination of work done by several Indigenous groups. In 1982, the National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations) urged the creation of National Aboriginal Solidarity Day. In 1995, the Sacred Assembly called for a national holiday to celebrate the contributions of Indigenous Peoples. That same year, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended the designation of a National First Peoples Day.
In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced plans to rename the occasion National Indigenous Peoples Day.
3 — Rock Your Roots started in Saskatoon in 2016 as part of Indigenous Peoples Day. In 2022 and 2023, Rock Your Roots was held on Sept. 30 — the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. After last year’s event, however, residential school survivors noted how much they missed young students being bused to the event and taking part. (Schools are closed on Sept. 30 for the statutory holiday.)
“I had a dream of walking for residential school survivors that didn’t have a voice,” said residential school survivor Jamie Fiddler, calling Rock Your Roots “a covenant of truth or ‘tapwewin’ and reconciliation or ‘miyo-wahkohtowin.’ As we are one family, we walk and heal together, going into the future.”
4 — Reconciliation Saskatoon prepares lesson plans and engagement activities for classrooms leading up to the event to help educate young students. Hundreds of students from across Saskatoon schools were in Victoria Park on Friday to participate in the celebrations.
5 — Knowledge keepers began the day with a pipe ceremony, while singers, dancers and musicians performed along the Walk for Reconciliation route. There were also activities in the park, lunch and a grand entry.
“Rock Your Roots is a day we honour our residential school survivors by coming out and showing community support,” Central Urban Métis Federation Inc. (CUMFI) president Shirley Isbister said.
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