Remembering Our Veterans and Elders

In many of our traditional Native communities, it was our Elders who taught us the ways of our people. It was our Grandmothers and Grandfathers who sat around the winter fires and told the youth stories and legends of past; it was they who instilled in the rest of us the knowledge of who we were, and where we came from.

Our veterans were the men (and women) who defended our villages and bands from hostile tribes, who took care of the people and provided the safety that was never taken for granted. A warrior was a person who not only succeeded at war, however, but someone who others in the tribe could look to as an example of how to live in all walks of life.

Today however, it is our veterans and elders who are most likely, along with our children, to live in poverty. The respect which they were once given is no longer as prevalent, as our youth learn ways different from the past. We no longer learn as easily the traditions and stories of our tribal peoples, and our Elders slip away from us, one by one, more every year, each of them taking their knowledge to a place where it is lost to us. Our veterans, both men and women, make the sacrifices for the rest of us that we all too often ignore and take for granted.

In recognition of this, we would like to provide a few links to pages relating to Elders' and Veterans' concerns and organizations. Please take the time to look through at least a few of them, and remember these people at the next powwow you go to, the next feast you sit down at, the next charity or fund-raising group you would otherwise walk past. Volunteer. Donate. Take the time to honour them, before they are taken from us...