By Bryan Eneas

Sask. Polytechnic hosts Indigenous relay

Sep 21, 2017 | 11:29 PM

Students at the Saskatchewan Polytechnic campus stepped back in time for a few hours on Thursday afternoon.

The school hosted an Indigenous relay, which consisted of running, a loop of the exhibition grounds on a bicycle, canoeing across the river, pack carrying, log cutting, fire starting and water boiling. Eight teams of students raced against their peers and one team of Polytechnic staff.

“It’s basically skills people needed to survive in Saskatchewan,” Shelley Belhumeur, an Indigenous student advisor at the Polytechnic campus said.

Belhumeur, an organizer of the relay, said the race has taken place for the last 15 years, and is part of Sask. Polytechnic’s ongoing shift towards reconciliation. She explained Sask. Poly was going though an “Indigenization,” and the relay was part of this.

Belhumeur said there’s often friendly competition between students on the Aboriginal police preparation and the corrections teams, as both fall under the justice studies umbrella. The competition isn’t just amongst the students however.

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“The staff are really competitive, last year they brought a motor for the canoe,” Belhumeur said with a laugh. “Actually, it’s very friendly… there’s a little bit of rivalry happening… it’s all friendly competition.”

Angelica Waditaka, a food and beverage student, acted as a canoeist. It was her first time participating in any kind of Indigenous relay.

“It’s really fun,” Waditaka said. “Since I’m aboriginal myself, it’s really interesting seeing all of this.”

She said her favourite events of the day were the log cutting and the fire making.

“People think they need muscle to cut this log, right? You don’t, you need slow and easy,” she said. “You get all of these big guys and they’re all forcing it.”

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas