High school students embark on U.S. tour

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Thirty-six high school students from the Hobbema area will earn about Native American cultures first hand in a trip to Arizona, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico and Montana. The Osakyak Native Study Tour, which began March 26, includes students from Ponoka, Wetaskiwin and Falun high schools.

"Participants have been through rigorous selection processes to earn the chance to attend. They had to have almost perfect attendance and academic performance in school in school and their general attitudes and deportment were taken into account," says Cara Currie, Native liaison worker at the Ponoka composite high school.

Prospective participants were also required to write a proposal stating why they wanted to go and their future goals.

Funding for the adventure was largely provided by Hobbema's four bands. But the three schools also made generous contributions.

"We had to raise the balance of the money we needed through bingo, a walk-a-thon and a bottle drive," says Currie.

The 13-day carefully-planned trip features visits with various American Indian people. The Shoshone, Mescalero-Apache, Hopi, Havasupai, Navajo and Blackfeet Nations indicated a big welcome awaited the students, says Currie.

For the last few months the students have studied the people they will be visiting and they planned to continue their study on the bus journey down. "We will also be practicing the presentations we have been preparing about our own Plains Cree culture and history," says Currie.

The group has prepared traditional dances and theatrical presentations to perform for their hosts. A large collage of Canadian and Native Indian memorabilia, designed and constructed by the students, will also be displayed at each stop. News clippings from the Oka and Lubicon crises, pictures of RCMP officers, flags, pamphlets and Native handicrafts are displayed on a large board shaped like the province of Alberta.

"Students will be observing and learning about different tribal cultures and understanding the different ways other tribes have adapted to their environment. They will be discussing politics and controversial but interesting issues with other Indian people," says Currie.

The hosting reservations have planned a great variety of activities including participation in sports events, sightseeing and an eight-mile hike into the grand Canyon in Arizona where the Supai Indian reservation is located.

"The whole group, including the eight chaperones, is really excited about the response we received from the American Indian people," says Currie. Several students and chaperones are non-Natives.

"The tour is a truly unique opportunity for the non-Native culture as active partners in the journey," she says, noting it will be a far more meaningful experience for all participants than any school course in cross-cultural studies.