COMMUNITY-SUSTAINED BRIGHT YOUNG FUTURES:

MONTREAL LAKE CREE NATION AND SPIRIT NORTH CHART A NEW PATH

There’s a lot of excited energy in Montreal Lake Cree Nation these days as the central Saskatchewan community in Treaty 6 territory and Spirit North came together to begin charting a new path - one driven by community need and rooted in its ability to empower youth and generate truly sustainable community capacity.

Montreal Lake is at a crossroads of new beginnings and for the first time in their history the community has a female chief and a young vice-chief who called upon long time Montreal Lake resident and Spirit North board member, Sean Lessard to support the community in their path forward.

Although Lessard now calls Edmonton home, he was drawn to the call from his roots to share his expertise and passion. An associate professor at the University of Alberta, Lessard’s work focuses on Indigenous youth empowerment and leadership through wellness and intergenerational wellness. He has a passion for supporting young people in acquiring physical literacy and leadership skills so that they can take an active role in developing health and wellness for themselves and their communities.

After a successful season of Spirit North after-school programming in 2019 the community wanted more! To envision what “more” looked like and in keeping with Spirit North’s co-creation model, Lessard created a shared space for young Montreal Lake students to “Imagine a Place” through two-day leadership workshops where students enthusiastically shared their vision and desires for future programming and identified the necessary foundations.

Lessard said of the process: “It is really important to sit alongside kids when you want to see the future. There is incredible energy when sitting together and dreaming.” One outcome of the shared space included students saying that they absolutely wanted year-round programming.

Community leaders and Spirit North heard and responded and are generating exciting year-round program opportunities for the community. Having the right people is critical for success and, according to Lessard, is often a barrier for remote Montreal Lake. Attracting the right people, inadequate local housing and access to transportation are all barriers that the community and Spirit North have overcome in some innovative ways that both support sport and play opportunities and simultaneously build community capacity.

The relationship between Spirit North and Montreal Lake is truly one of reciprocity and intended to create experiences for wellness and physical activity where young people can acquire new skills, have opportunities to lead their peers and share their traditional practices. Spirit North is navigating community needs and providing programming expertise while the community invests in supports and local capacity wherever it can – a true recipe for sustainability.

For the Woodland people of Montreal Lake who have not traditionally had many opportunities, Lessard says the Spirit North partnership is “creating a new future for the community’s young people.” Lessard likens this new future to building and grooming trails. Trails allow for exploring and experiencing the unknown, they also become familiar and reliable over time and can be shared with others. An exciting new path is forming in Montreal Lake, one lit in the light of empowered young spirits who see bright futures ahead.