Hundreds of hand drummers walk for healing

The Heartbeat of the Drum: A Walk for Healing featured more than 200 hand drummers and hundreds of supporters on Mother’s Day — May 8 — in Thunder Bay.

“The support and the people who showed up today was just absolutely wonderful,” says Frances Wesley, who organized the Walk for Healing after dreaming about the drums coming together for healing. “I just saw an African drum here earlier participating in our event, and lots of women from the outlying areas. I actually ran into a friend here from Cochrane — she drove down all the way for this.”

Wesley had the dream about the drums coming together about five or six years ago.

“It just became more fitting to organize this walk the more I heard about our young people working in packs to take their own lives,” Wesley says. “It made me very sad and I wanted to bring all of you together to help us to pray for the people that really need our help. And those are our young children, our young mothers who are lost in the streets of Thunder Bay today.”

Before the Walk for Healing began at Waverly Park, Wesley raised her hope that the drums would be loud enough for the young children on the streets to hear them.

“So that they will hear us, that they know we are here for them, and that we do care for them,” Wesley says. “And I think often too about our grandmothers, our great grandmothers who are being mothers. They shouldn’t be mothers, they should be carrying on their role as grandparents. Because their children are lost in the arms of drugs and alcohol, particularly drugs.”

After leaving Waverly Park, the hand drummers and supporters walked along Red River Road to Water Street.

“I was actually right in the middle of the walk and it was just beautiful,” says Angela Towedo Magiskan. “We were walking down Red River Road and looking ahead we could see the Sleeping Giant. You know all the thoughts that (went) through my head walking down, hearing the drums all around me and hearing the beautiful voices, it was just beautiful. There are no other words I can use to describe it: it’s beautiful. And I’m looking forward to next year.”

The hand drummers and supporters followed Water Street for two blocks before crossing over the railway tracks to Marina Park, where they circled around a youth drum and drum group.

“(It was) overwhelming to see the people come in and actually form a full circle,” says Nathaniel Moses, who organized the drum setup at Marina Park. “For it being as urban as it is, we still try to strive to live our ways of life. And that heartbeat, what a beautiful sound that was.”

Nicole McKay, another organizer, says it was “amazing” to see so many drums during the Walk for Healing.

“It’s really something to have community come together for something positive and to promote healing with individuals, families and communities overall,” McKay says. “It was really great to see everyone out.”

Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu, who represents the Thunder Bay-Superior North riding where the Walk for Healing was held, walked with the hand drummers and other supporters to Marina Park.

“It was fantastic,” Hajdu says. “I love seeing the community come together like this, and on Mother’s Day to celebrate women in our lives. And also to heal from the losses of all the women who have left us, whether it’s through disappearing or being murdered or sometimes just dying.”

Hajdu says there was a wide range of people participating in the Walk for Healing.

“When I imagine community, this is what I imagine when we have the entire community coming together, celebrating in their own way,” Hajdu says. “We see a bunch of hand drummers, you see Indigenous people, you see non-indigenous people. There’s people with drums from other cultures even participating.”

Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Don Rusnak says the Walk for Healing was “powerful.”

“I think the awareness of the issues in First Nation communities is out there in the broader Canadian public and that’s a good thing,” Rusnak says, noting that the federal government is planning to make investments into First Nation communities that are larger than promised under the Kelowna Accord. “A lot of our people are in a horrible place and we need healing. This is one of those events that bring us together and helps us heal together, because together we are stronger.”

Wesley says the organizers are looking at the development of a “world-wide” event next year for Indigenous people, in countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Finland and Sweden.