Coming Home: What Île-à-la-Crosse's 250th Anniversary Means to Me

This weekend, I came home.

Not just to a place on the map, but to the community that helped shape who I am.

Growing up in Île-à-la-Crosse, I don't think I fully understood the history that surrounded me every day. As a kid, it was just home. It was family. Water. Laughter. Visiting grandparents. Fishing. Community events. Seeing familiar faces everywhere you went.

Now, standing here during its 250th anniversary celebration, it feels different.

You can almost feel the generations that walked this land before us.

Île-à-la-Crosse, or Sakitawak, has been a gathering place for centuries. Long before roads existed, these waterways connected Cree, Dene, Métis, and later European traders. Families were built here. Languages grew here. Traditions were shared here. It became one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in what is now Saskatchewan and an important centre of trade, culture, and kinship. Île-à-la-Crosse has always been more than a dot on a map. It has been a place where people came together.

Of course, our history isn't without pain.

Like many Indigenous communities, our people experienced loss, injustice, and the lasting impacts of colonialism and residential schools. Those stories deserve to be remembered. They are part of who we are.

But they are not the whole story.

Walking through this celebration, seeing people come home from across the country, hearing the laughter, the music, the languages, watching children run around where their grandparents once played... I couldn't help but think:

We're still here.

After 250 years, we're still gathering.

We're still speaking our languages.

We're still telling our stories.

We're still raising families.

We're still creating.

We're still loving this land.

That isn't just history.

That's resilience.

Sometimes people think resilience means never breaking.

I don't think that's true.

I think resilience is coming home anyway. It's carrying the stories of those who came before us while continuing to build something better for those who come next.

As a First Nations woman, this weekend filled me with pride. Not because our history is perfect, but because our ancestors survived enough for us to stand here today.

I hope they would be proud.

Proud to see thousands of us returning home.

Proud to hear the drums, the fiddles, the laughter, and the conversations.

Proud to know that after everything, this community is still standing.

Being here reminds me that healing doesn't erase history.

Healing honours it.

Congratulations, Île-à-la-Crosse.

Thank you for 250 years of story, strength, resilience, and home.

Here's to the next 250.