Meiyah Whiteduck contestant in first Miss Indigenous Canada competition

Pikwakanagan – Meiyah Whiteduck has long been a proud visible representative of her Anishinaabe culture, dancing at Pow Wows, singing and drumming with the Pikwakanagan Wildflowers and selling her beadwork at Ottawa Senators games, but now she is taking on a new way of showing her pride in her heritage as a contestant in the first Miss Indigenous Canada pageant.

“I’ve never been in a pageant before,” the 24-year-old from Pikwakanagan said. “I did not feel western society pageants aligned with my values but this is the first year of the Miss Indigenous Canada and when I looked it up and saw what it was about, I was excited.”

The competition is not a focus on beauty or gala gowns but is about providing an outlet for young Indigenous women to celebrate their achievements and promote cultural involvement and connection as young Indigenous leaders in Canada. Meiyah, who has been a regular participant in Pow Wows, represents her community singing and drumming, sells her beadwork and works as an Indigenous Student Worker so it was a very natural fit.

She is one of 26 contestants in the competition, a three-day event on July 24-26 which seeks to “empower and encourage young Indigenous women to develop leadership skills, give back to their communities and connect to their cultures.”

Areas of competition include an interview, personal essay, traditional presentation and community presentation. Applicants needed to display a pre-existing involvement in their community, which was something which has come very natural to Meiyah for her entire life, following on the example of family members and with their encouragement.

“One of the main things was who you are as a role model,” she explained.

The contestants, who represent First Nations across Canada, were varied in their approach with a focus on cultural revitalization, she said. Many are poets and painters. In her case, she chose to focus on her time spent learning and practicing traditional crafts, including beading, sewing and quillwork. Added to this is being a Pow Wow dancer and explaining how this helped her explore her culture further.

Her love of beading began in Pikwakanagan with her nan, Elaine, who passed on her knowledge and it was further developed with her sister, Tamara.

“They also had bead nights at the museum and it blossomed with me wanting to do more. I kind of went crazy with it,” she said.

Her quillwork is more recent and she has been working on birchbark from trees her parents felled on their property.

Meiyah noted she is grateful she was raised with strong family and community values which has helped her learn and engage in traditional teachings to pass down to future generations.

Representing Pikwakanagan

Meiyah is also very much representing Pikwakanagan. One of the things she is preparing is a community scrapbook and when she wears different outfits for the pageant, she also wants to make those connections back to her home community.

She has the support of not only the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation (APFN) chief and council, but many businesses in the community. This helps pay for pageant expenses and transportation, among other things.

“My goal was to connect with Pikwakanagan and also promote their businesses,” she said.

This is not a typical beauty contest and the emphasis is on making a positive impact in Canada, she stressed. Each contestant had to have a platform for social media and hers is cultural revitalization and supporting mental health through cultural revitalization and crafting.

“My goal is ‘bead with me’ videos,” she said. “Connecting with culture always supported my mental health.”

Her beading business – Whiteduck Creations – began because beading is something she enjoyed doing so much, she explained. She has also expanded recently to doing quillwork on birchbark.

“I harvest porcupine quills which sometimes means roadkill,” she joked.

Meiyah is a founding member of the Pikwakanagan Wildflowers and the group still gets together as much as they can to sing and drum. At many events at Pikwakanagan and in other parts of the Algonquin territory the group has represented their community and culture.

During the Miss Indiegiouns Canada pageant there is also a fundraising effort which is going to the We Matter campaign to support Indigenous youth with mental health issues.

Indigenous Student Worker

Meiyah also supports Indigenous youth in her work and is well aware of the different challenges and mental health issues they face. She is employed as an Indigenous student worker for the Kawartha-Pine Ridge School Board, a job which sees her supporting 90 students in 11 different schools.

“I support students in cultural programing and if they need mental and social support, I am there as well,” she said.

She has done various workshops with the students, including sharing her love of beading. A recent endeavour has been working with students making a birchbark canoe.

“We talked about things like harvesting birchbark,” she said.

Some students are also wanting to learn Anishinaabemowin, which she can help with and others are hoping to learn Mohawk, so she has looked into those resources for them.

“We also look at the Seven Grandfather Teachings and medicine wheel,” she said. “Everything I am doing is helping them learn more about their culture.”

The students she works with live off reserve, so this is an important way for them to connect with heir culture.

Meiyah is a graduate of the Educational Support Worker program at Fleming College and she is planning on going back to Trent for her Indigenous Teacher Education degree. She hopes to be a teacher of Anishinaabemowin one day.

“I always had our language teacher in elementary school at St. James (Eganville) and when I went to Trent, I took a full year in Anishinaabemowin,” she said.

Pikwakanagan also offered language classes and through having those foundations she has improved her language skills dramatically.

“I am not even close to being a fluent speaker but I have skills to know how to pronounce it properly,” she said.

Pageant Weekend

Meiyah is looking forward to the pageant weekend which is a three-day “retreat style” event with workshops, tours, guests speakers and activities. She also has a lot of support which will be coming from Pikakwanagan to cheer her on.

“There are quite a few people from the community coming and my family will all be there,” she said.

The pageant will be held at Six Nations and it is also Pow Wow weekend there, so it works out well.

From carefully choosing her outfits to showcase her cultural heritage, she is excited about being part of something new in Canada.

“This is the fist step in making history for Indigenous pageants,” she said. “I am thinking regalia mixed with ribbon skirts.”

Debbi Christinck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Eganville Leader