Creefest gets back to its northern roots

Since 2003, Creefest has grown each year from its inaugural event in Moose Factory.
The annual cultural festival organized by the Muskegowuk Tribal Council has always featured a variety of activities and entertainment hosted by each of the seven Muskegowuk communities in northeastern Ontario. This one was no different, except this year it got back to its roots.
After the 10th annual Creefest combined with Moose Cree’s Gathering of Our People event for one big festival last year, one might expect the eleventh to be even larger this year in attendance and big name performers.
Instead, Creefest scaled down in those areas when it was held from Aug. 1-5 in Peawanuck – a community of about 240 people located near the Hudson Bay coast.
But this was not a bad thing, said Creefest coordinator Greg Spence. If anything, it simplified the festival and brought it “back to its roots.”
“Creefest has always been about bringing people together like in our traditions,” Spence said.
Before communities were settled in the middle of the last century, First Nations families in the James Bay area spent the winter months out on their individual traplines. Once summer came, everyone would emerge and congregate out near the bay to celebrate and reconnect with one another.
Creefest was conceived as a modernized version of that tradition.
The festival has grown over the years, and often, notable musicians and acts from other parts of Canada were brought in as entertainment.
It got to the point where “everyone thinks Creefest is a music festival,” Spence said.
And although the isolation and remoteness of Peawanuck attributed to some of the financial restrictions of bringing in guest performers, it was easy to see how this would only enhance the cultural aspect of the festival, Spence said.
Peawanuck hosting Creefest exemplified the unity of the Muskegowuk people, since the community is not represented by the Mushkegowuk Council.
“Creefest is above politics,” Spence said. “It’s about the people.”
And Elders from the community have always been a “huge part” of Creefest every year, Spence said. They were among other Mushkegowuk Elders that wanted to restart the gathering tradition that would form Creefest.
“Creefest wouldn’t be here without them,” Spence said.
Local community members made it count to host Creefest for the first time.
They planned a variety of activities such as square-dancing musical-chairs, women’s goose cutting and men’s fish filleting competitions, plus Iron Cree competitions where men had to pull a truck and women had to pull a Ranger all-terrain vehicle.
Each night featured music in the community hall. Fiddlers from Peawanuck, Kashechewan and Moose Factory provided the music for jigging, while the Swamprockers, Lawrence Martin and Vern Cheechoo, and Peawanuck’s own Flinstones provided rock and country music.
The Kash Dancers, a square dance group composed of 12 Kashechewan residents, put their routine on display every night.
And Creefest was not only for Mushkegowuk people.
On consecutive days, two different groups of paddlers that hail from various parts of the U.S. arrived in the community after a month of traveling on the Pipestone and Winisk Rivers, unaware they were entering a community that was hosting a cultural festival.
Many tried the traditional foods like caribou and goose.
The paddlers were invited to square dance in the evenings. The first group had a dance-off of sorts with the Kash Dancers. The following night, the other group was asked to find a dance partner in the audience and a friendship square dance was performed.
Spence said despite the downscaling of Creefest in terms of size and entertainers, this year’s festival was one of his favourites.
“It was truly a bringing together of people and reconnection,” he said.