Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre's Spo7ez Winter Feast is a culinary and cultural journey, March 24

The experience includes a museum tour and intro to the photographic exhibition Unceded

By Gail johnson

Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre.

Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre presents Spo7ez Winter Feast on March 24 from 5:30 to 9 pm

THE SPO7EZ WINTER FEAST at Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre centres on a celebratory meal, but the evening features much more than a culinary experience.

The offering is among the ways the centre showcases the two First Nations communities that lived in the Whistler area prior to colonization and their living cultures. Spo7ez was a village shared by the Squamish Nation and and Lil’wat Nation at the confluence of Rubble Creek and the Cheakamus River at Function Junction in Whistler. 

It all begins with a welcome song performed by the centre’s Cultural Ambassadors in regalia in the Great Hall. The expansive space houses a 40-foot-long Squamish hunting canoe, named X̲aays Transformer Brothers, which was carved from a single cedar tree. According to protocol, the vessel must be taken on an ocean journey every year to honour the spirit of the canoe.

The cultural leaders, who share dances and storytelling throughout the evening, then take guests on guided tour of the museum. This includes an introduction to UNCEDED: S7ULH TEMÍXW / TI TMICWKÁLHA / OUR LAND – A Photographic Journey into Belonging. Feautring photos of elders, youth, regalia, and more taken in spectacular settings throughout the Sea to Sky region, the show asks viewers to look at the world through a different lens on the shared territories of the Squamish Nation and Lil’wat Nation, which meet in Whistler. (See Stir’s feature article on UNCEDED here.)

The Spo7ez Winter Fest itself takes place in the Istken Hall, the name of a traditional underground pit house used by Lil’wat people in the past. The rooms were built into the earth, which maintains a more constant temperature than air, making them warm in winter and cool in summer.

Spo7ez Winter Feast.

On the Spo7ez menu are Indigenous-inspired dishes that incorporate traditional ingredients, like cranberry-rosemary Bannock; winter greens with pickled sea asparagus; roasted corn and bean salad; cedar-plank Arctic char with littleneck-clam beurre blanc; red-wine braised elk shank; and more. For dessert, there’s blueberry bannock pudding with berry compote and a Chantilly with xusem, or soap berries.

Wine for the night is from West Kelowna’s Indigenous World Winery, BC’s only 100-percent Indigenous-owned winery; Spirt Bear Coffee is a Port Coquitlam-based First Nations venture that offers 100-pure certified organic, fair-trade coffees as a way to celebrate Indigenous cultures.

The SLCC gift shop is open throughout the night, with exclusive hand-crafted Northwest Coast First Nations works, such as masks, scarves, mugs, jewllery, books, and more.

More information is here.  

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