Manito Ahbee Festival

Derek and I attended the Manito Ahbee Festival in Winnipeg over the weekend.  Neither of us had ever been so we were pretty excited to be there.  For us the first event was the Aboriginal People's Choice Music Awards which are broadcast live on APTN.  We were so confused trying to get into the MTS Centre that we wound up on the red carpet right when Derek Miller (who won 2 awards) was going by. We of course got a picture of the 2 Derek's (it's on facebook).

I took this picture as we were getting to our seats.  The place was filling up and I must say the stage looked amazing.  I really enjoyed the awards show.  The amount of support that the people showed to the musicians was just so inspiring.

I loved how well run this powwow was.  They kept things moving along really well and keep pretty close to the schedule.  At one point we were 10 minutes ahead.  Yes, you did read that right.

This is Will Hedgepeth, owner of Red Eye Supply.  He won the Men's traditional special.  As you can see from the picture above there were a lot of men he was competing with.  I couldn't even get them all in a shot.  It was pretty exciting having someone from our area win the special.  Congratulations Will!

The Young Bear Singers were set up right below our seats.  They were recording a CD this weekend.  They were sounding gooood.  You can always tell what drum groups are sounding good by the number of people crowded around them trying to get a personal recording.

I want to say a special congratulations to Derek as he took 4th in the Sr Men's Fancy category.

I would give the Manito Ahbee festival a big thumbs up.  I especially enjoyed the powwow and would go back in a heartbeat.  I had one tiny negative.  This was the only powwow I have ever been to that I couldn't get any Native food.  What's up with that?