Midewiwin Big Teaching Lodge 2023

When: August 4-7, 2023

Where: Treaty 7, Okotoks, Alberta

The Midewiwin Teaching Lodge Society (MTLSA) is a society that was founded in 2017 by the traditional Midewiwin Brass family alongside a few of their long-time traditional and ceremonial followers. The MTLSA was founded to bring Elder led cultural reconnection back to the people of Turtle Island (North America). Our main annual event is the Big Teaching Lodge which is on the August Long Weekend of every year out in Water Valley, Big Horn County, Alberta. For 2023, we are moving our lodge and have been welcomed to move to Okotoks from our fellow Elders in Treaty 7.

Participants and families come out over the four days to participate in the lighting of the sacred fires, sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies, naming ceremonies, feast preparation, and many Elder-led Midewiwin teachings. These lodges have been held by the Brass family with their growing community for many years. The MTLSA works each year to plan, obtain funding for, and successfully execute the Big Teaching Lodge since its founding in 2017.

The Midewiwin Teachings are inclusive to all who are interested in learning traditional ceremonial protocols. The MTLSA is welcoming to all Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQIA+ peoples of Turtle Island. These teachings are for all our relations.

When people come to the Big Teaching Lodge, they are immersed in traditional Midewiwin protocols and teachings. Participants have the opportunity to help with the preparations leading up to the Big Teaching Lodge, such as medicine picking, chopping wood, preparing and cleaning the land on the Lodge site, learning protocols to prepare traditional feast food before and during the event, and learning what to bring for traditional offerings to the Elders (ie: prayer cloth and tobacco) at our ongoing Turtle Island Teachings program in partnership with the Alex Community Food Centre. During the four days of the Big Lodge, participants are involved in the cooking and serving of food to Elders and ceremonial workers, they learn about offering their tobacco and prayer cloth and what the colors of the prayer cloth mean, they drum and use rattles while learning traditional songs, they learn about pipes and pipe ceremonies, they learn about the lighting and maintaining of the sacred fires, they participate and learn the teachings behind sunrise and sweat lodge ceremonies, they take care of the land and each other in a kind way as we would do in our traditional ways of knowing.

All of these teachings and skills are integral for cultural reconnection, and participants continue to grow and learn how to become traditional leaders within the community in ongoing, lifelong learning.

The Big Teaching Lodge is open to families with members of all ages. We include babies and children in the teachings and learnings, we invite Elders to join and are open to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to join. These teachings are for everyone. We however ask that you please leave fur babies at home in the care of others while you are attending the lodge.

Areas that your contributions will be going towards are: Elder Honourariums, sanitation, food and meal planning, tobacco and protocol offerings, and travel for individuals to arrive onsite for teachings.

Miigwetch for your donations!