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Humboldt diversity on display at Culture Days

It was a busy weekend for members of the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery, the Reid-Thompson Public Library, and the Humboldt Regional Newcomers Centre. Together they hosted cultural events for the national Culture Days celebration on Sept.
Culture Days
The Multicultural Evening at the Humboldt and District Gallery capped off the 2017 Culture Days. The event put on in partnership with the Humboldt Regional Newcomer Centre and the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery featured Humboldt and area residents presenting on their culture and food, including presenters from Fiji, El Salvador, Mexico, and Ghana. Pictured (L to R): Turagacati and Naomi Calaklak and their son, James, Araba Quaye, and Angelica Valencia. Missing: Julio Serrano and Fuegos De Serrano, and their children Genesis, Damaris, and Milton Mateo.

It was a busy weekend for members of the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery, the Reid-Thompson Public Library, and the Humboldt Regional Newcomers Centre.

Together they hosted cultural events for the national Culture Days celebration on Sept. 29-30.

Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery supervisor, Jean Price, says the events and activities had good turnouts.

The goal of Culture Days is to have people engage with the arts and culture, it is not meant to be a passive sit back and watch kind of event.

“We want to invite people into our spaces and invite them to come in and create, and participate, and learn from their neighbours rather than simply view a show.”

All events allowed the audience to engage with the artists and presenters, says Price, with culturally centred crafts like banner making at the Humboldt and District Gallery and creative writing at the Humboldt and District Museum throughout the two days.

Many school groups were also involved with classes coming down to take part during their school days and people from the community steadily coming in throughout the two days, says Price.

The Reid-Thompson Public Library hosted an evening reading by poet Dave Margoshes.

Literature and stories are the heart of culture, says Margoshes, so he was more than happy to share his poetry with his Humboldt crowd.

While he writes about himself and his family and the things he has seen and done, Margoshes also writes about things he imagines.

“I tell stories about ordinary people and ordinary lives while on the other hand I tell fantastic stories about fantastic things.”

Throughout the Saturday, Music on Main Street featured musicians, Trevor Ross and Ernie Kurz, playing in front of the museum, thanks to gorgeous fall weather.

The Museum and Gallery also partnered with the Newcomer Centre to bring a Multicultural Evening in the Humboldt and District Gallery with members of the community from Fiji, El Salvador, Mexico, and Ghana.

Elvircia Natlazo with the Humboldt Regional Newcomers Centre says the event gives Newcomer Centre clients a way to get out into the community.

“They love to share their stories,” she says but some are quite shy about how to do that.

With this year’s event, Natlazo says they were looking to focus on people whose cultures may be lesser known in the community.

“This year was a totally different group of people and were excited to share about their country and where they are from.”

Turagacati Calaklak works in local hog barns after coming to Canada from Fiji.

Calaklak also brought his wife and son to present about his home country which included Fijian food dishes as well.

Calaklak loves it in Canada, even with the cold winters, and he wanted to share Fiji with his community.

Angelica Valencia, dressed in a traditional Mexican dress of a female soldier, told the story of the Mexican revolution of 1910. Many women went to fight in the revolution but were never recognized as soldiers and did not receive pay or a pension.

Valencia wanted to commemorate their story in her dress and her presentation.

With the help she has received from the Humboldt Newcomer Centre, she has been living and working in Canada for two years. She also wanted to give her presentation as a thank you to all the hard workers in the Newcomer office.  

Price says Culture Days would not have been such a success without Saskatchewan Culture who provides the majority of the Culture Days funding, the City of Humboldt Department of Cultural Services, the Writer’s Union of Canada who sponsored Margoshes’ poetry reading, and the local partner organizations for all the work they put in.