Continuing with a longstanding tradition, Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen: the Centre for Indigenous Education and Community Connections (CIECC) will be hosting its annual Welcome Feast for all new and returning Indigenous Camosun students this month. CIECC director Janice Simcoe started the event over 25 years ago, according to Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen events coordinator Sandee Mitchell.
“When Janice became the chair of Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen, she decided to go out and connect with communities,” explains Mitchell. “She wanted the local First Nations to be welcoming students and she wanted to create this feast.”
This led Simcoe to begin working with Songhees Nation Elder Skip Dick and his family, who are still involved with the event to this day.
“They host us in their community,” says Mitchell. “And we’ve been putting on this feast for 27 years, where we welcome new Aboriginal students to the college, and also to have the local First Nations be welcoming them into their traditional territory. So it’s really a way of acknowledging whose territory we’re on.”
While the Welcome Feast is a tradition 27 years in the making, there is a new addition to the festivities this time around.
“We have had a partnership with a university in New Zealand [Ara Institute of Canterbury], and the students from that program are coming here and are going to be at the feast this year,” says Mitchell. “It’s just an acknowledgement of them being here at the college for two weeks on an exchange.”
Mitchell says that Camosun sent students from the Indigenous Studies program over to New Zealand last year; this year, the students visiting Camosun are from the exchange university’s Indigenous Studies program. The invitation to Camosun’s Welcome Feast will allow them the opportunity to experience local Indigenous culture. The event is open to all new and returning Indigenous students and is a welcoming celebration of the new school year.
“All Indigenous students attending Camosun College, whether it’s upgrading, college prep, any of the programs [are welcome],” says Mitchell. “And we usually invite faculty who teach in the specific programs—not all programs—but in Family Support, Indigenous Studies, in College Prep, we try and invite the faculty to come as well.”
The Welcome Feast event will start at 5:30 pm, with welcoming words from an MC.
“[The] MC—which is a member of the Dick family—welcomes people to the territory, acknowledges why we are all gathered, and it’s just as a welcoming for all the new students coming in and an opportunity for them to get to recognize whose territory they’re on, and meet key people within the college that they need to know,” says Mitchell. “All the advisors will be there, and faculty and staff from Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen.”
After the welcome, there will be a feast—a massive undertaking for Mitchell and Simcoe, who work together to purchase and make the food for the event.
“We cook for about 300 people,” says Mitchell. “We have everything from smoked salmon and bannock to salads and turkey with all the dressings, coffee, tea, and desserts, and it’s a huge, huge feast.”
Mitchell says that after the dinner, the Lkwungen dancers will also perform for the guests.
“The whole concept of this is for students to recognize whose traditional territory they’re in,” says Mitchell. “It’s considered our New Year’s. It’s a new year that’s starting, and we want students to be welcomed to the traditional territory by the local people.”
Camosun College Welcome Feast
5:30 pm Thursday, September 20
Songhees Wellness Centre (1100 Admirals Road)
camosun.ca