The Upper Similkameen Spirit Festival has come to an end for another year. We were excited once again to put on this celebration of First Nations culture for a second year as a partnership between the Upper Similkameen Indian Band and Princeton Community Arts Council.
The powwow, held over the Easter weekend at Princeton Secondary School, was an amazing event with drum groups and dancers from all over B.C., an exhibition of First Nations artists works from the En’owkin Centre and children’s art workshops.
New this year, running for three weeks, the ‘History of the Pow Wow’ exhibition proved popular with the beautiful regalia of Oly Bent and Tiinesha Begaye on display.
For the close of the Upper Similkameen Spirit Festival, we were excited to host Tiinesha Begaye at Riverside Centre.
Tiinesha, whose heritage is Navajo and Similkameen, played for a small but enthralled audience on Sunday, 15 April enchanting them with her music and stories.
This year we were excited to have support from returning supporters FortisBC, the Town of Princeton and the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen as well as the support of new funders including the British Columbia Arts Council, the BC Gaming Commission, Copper Mountain Mine, the First Nations Education Council and Telus BC Southern Interior.
We would also like to thank the Princeton Secondary School, School District #58, Cooper’s Foods and all our accommodation providers and raffle prize donators for their support.
Events like this would not be possible without the support of our volunteers and sponsors and so the Upper Similkameen Spirit Festival Committee would like to thank them all for their help in delivering another successful festival.