Canada Day Celebrations

Canada Day Celebrations

July 1, 2018

The children go in to Salmon Arm where there is a Kid’s Fair: 10 am to 3 pm.  The forecast is for rain so while the rain is still being held in the clouds they leave the house to get there as the gates open.  There are free t-shirts, rides for 50 cents, a man who blows the biggest bubbles ever, games to play, and a free ticket for every child who comes, and a bonus ticket if they wear red.  Since the day stays nice, the whole family stays for a long time since there is fun to be had in every corner of the fair ground.  Betty comes home with a rainbow spray painted across the back of her hair, and Alice gets the picture of a cat.

For my part, I stay at home, getting stories ready to tell, Indigenous ones from the Secwepemc Lands and Resources: Law Research Project.  Canada Day is not the only day that we read these stories.  But today, being that celebration, we read three of the stories.

1.    Coyote and Wolf – two animals who decided not to share

2.    Old One and the Sweat-House – how the sweat house came to be

3.    The Story of Hu’pken – a lazy boy makes good

I spent a long time in the book, figuring out which are ½ page, 1 page, 2 page and 4 page stories.  Sometimes I need a quick one to tell.  And Michael is interested in the more complicated stories about Sea Monsters or how Coyote travels around the land.  I can’t always remember what I have read and what I haven’t, but Alice is good at telling me which story we left off with.  An easy thing to remember, if the last image has been one of coyote taking his eyeball out, tossing it in the air and letting it drop back in the socket as a game.  I might have remembered that when I was younger as well.