Indigenous dancer taking part in a previous Northern Prairie Indigenous Peoples Collective's event. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Nick Nielsen

Northern Prairie Indigenous People Collective Inc

Cultural event aims to celebrate and inform about missing and murder Indigenous women

Aug 15, 2025 | 5:35 PM

For the last two years, the Northern Prairie Indigenous People Collective Inc. (NPIPCI) has been hosting an event around the beginning of summer celebration event to raise awareness around missing and murdered Indigenous women, but this year they’ve delayed the event. They’re now set to start on Monday, August 18, with an event at the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre from 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., and then more festivities the following day from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.

Janice Henry is the NPIPCI President, and she said that the main point of this year’s time change was to bring in more kids ahead of the school year.

“We thought, ‘let’s change the date, there’s so much is going on in June, we’ll go with August’, and we’ll have a summary celebration, but incorporated in that we decided to also have a murdered and missing Indigenous women round dance which we are having on Monday at 4:00.”

The poster for the event showcasing all the different workshops available. (Photo submitted/Janice Henry)

While the event does have a heavy hearted topic at its core, the event is intended to be a more fun and culturally educational event that includes a bunch of different activities like medicine wheel teachings, pow wow dancing classes, and Métis jigging classes just to name a few. Henry said that a lot of planning went into making the event fun and culturally sensitive at the same time.

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“We scheduled and looked at our planning in terms of how to better meet the needs of the community as a whole, and so we’re looking at having a more holistic aspect of encompassing our cultural education, and so that’s how we determined our workshops.”

The event is in honour of all the different missing and murdered Indigenous women, but they have also chosen to specifically honour Shannon Standingready, who passed away in police custody while pregnant. While there are many stories out there that have had tragic ends, Henry said that the (NPIPCI) event is one that is intended to bring these stories to light in a way that the person can be celebrated.

“We thought we would honour her as well as it’s, and men and boys as well, because there’s so many men and boys, as you see in the news and whatnot, that are missing as well. So we just want to honour everybody who has a story like this. Everybody who has died tragically like this and just celebrate their life and heal together.”

For people who are not Indigenous, Henry encourages them to come as well.

“We are all valuable members of this community and we all have something great to offer. Come to this event because we are a community that together can be so strong and we can learn from each other, and the whole concept of this event is kinship, acceptance, inclusion, and so come to this event and you will be part of us and we will have a wonderful time.”