PHOTOS: Yellowknife celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day

PHOTOS: Yellowknife celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day

Community comes together to mark 30th annual celebration in Somba K'e Park

For North Slave Métis Alliance President Marc Whitford, Indigenous Peoples Day is all about bringing the community together.

And nothing draws a crowd in Yellowknife quite like a fish fry.

“We're part of a larger family of Indigenous people living here in our city,” he said.

Despite initially cloudy weather at the start of the event in Somba K’e Park, the line of people waiting for a taste stretched the entire length of the park, or nearly 200 metres.

Whitford estimates that even on a slower year, they’ll serve around 3000 portions of fish. On a busy year, that can go up to 5000.

“It's important to do as a community, that we're able to give back to everybody in our city,” he said.

The North Slave Métis Alliance has been putting on the fish fry as long as he can remember.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of National Indigenous Peoples Day, since it was first declared a Canada-wide holiday in 1996.

The Northwest Territories was the first jurisdiction in the country to declare June 21 a statutory holiday, in 2001.

Gerri Sharpe has made bannock at almost all of them. This year she was doing it for the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission, setting up in Somba K’e park with a sun shelter, two frying pans, and numerous cans of Crisco.

“I've been making this since I'm nine, so it's just something I know how to do,” she said, adding that she’s had chefs stand beside her and copy her technique, but it doesn’t turn out quite the same.

“It represents Inuit for me,” she said. She agrees that events like Indigenous Peoples Day are a way to bring the whole community together.

“We are proud of who we are, and we need to share that with everybody,” she said.

Jessica Davey-Quantick has been reporting in the North since 2016. You can reach her at jessica.davey-quantick@cbc.ca.