National Indigenous Peoples Day celebrated in Tillsonburg

Ryan Reilly performs at the National Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration in Tillsonburg on June 21. (Chris Abbott Photo)

Chris Abbott, Grant Haven Media

In an effort to bring forward the Indigenous culture, the Tillsonburg and District Historical Society hosted its fifth National Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration on June 21 at Memorial Park.

Under a bright, sunny sky, Eagle Flight Drum and Singers from London performed in front of a gathering of about 200 people.

“Eagle Flight is very well known in pow-wows,” said David Morris, president of the Tillsonburg & District Historical Society. “They’ve been around for about 20 years now, and Gordon (Nicotine-Sands) does an excellent job in terms of commentary as well.

“Last year, Robyn Michaud ran the show – she’s originally from Tillsonburg – and she’s here today to help out with the production,” said Morris.

“I grew up in this community,” said Michaud, who attended elementary and secondary school in Tillsonburg in the 1970s and 80s, “and learned nothing about Indigenous People. It took me moving away from Tillsonburg, moving to Toronto, connecting with community members, to know my own culture. Interestingly, years later I realized that there were classmates of mine at the same time that I didn’t know were Indigenous – and they didn’t know I was Indigenous. Everybody was going through the same thing, where you have this identity in this small town, and no one there to help you understand what that means.”

Years later, Michaud returned for a time to teach at Annandale school, and today lives in Oxford County.

“Being able to come back to Tillsonburg, it’s like a full circle moment for me… because I get to bring back all of the things that I didn’t get to learn growing up. I don’t fault my teachers, my teachers didn’t know what they didn’t know, and they never learned it themselves to be able to teach us.

“We talk about reconciliation, and reconciliation is about friendship and mutual respect. This is the fifth year the historical society has had this event, and each year the crowd gets bigger. The respect grows, the relationship grows.

“I am seeing it more and more in different cities like Woodstock, and in Tillsonburg and Ingersoll and Delhi, they are starting to be much more interested in learning about different cultures and celebrating different cultures… because you’re living side-by-side with people from different cultures and it’s a learning experience. I love it when people see that as a positive. That they can learn and become better people by learning more about other people around them.”

One of Michaud’s favourite parts of a pow-wow, and the celebration in Tillsonburg, is the intertribal dance, when everyone in the audience is invited to participate.

“That’s kind of my role today, I’m going to walk around and try to get people out there, and show them. It takes the fear out of it when you’re invited to share in the culture. It was the most beautiful part of the celebration last year, everybody got up and danced. It’s welcoming and sharing, and people were so grateful. I think that was the one thing that stood out for me, is how much gratitude there was from the people of Tillsonburg that we were holding this event in our town.”

Michaud said the event is an opportunity to start ‘building the positive.’

“I think that is the most important thing in 2026, bringing something that is celebratory here to town. People get to share in the culture, enjoy some food, see some craft vendors, and really get to know our communities in a very positive way.”

The first three National Indigenous Peoples Day Celebrations in Tillsonburg were held at the soccer park, on land that was home to a large Attawandaron village, one of the largest known Indigenous villages in Canada from the 14th and 15th centuries.

The discovery was made in 2000-2001 when the soccer park was first developed.

“It wasn’t really known what was there until they brought in the equipment and started to shape the land,” said Morris. “It was an old tobacco field. All of a sudden, things started to appear.”

After work by Archaeologix, Inc., it was discovered there had been up to 17 longhouses – big longhouses – with more evidence uncovered nearby in a later archeological investigation, although not as significant as the main site. Research documents are located at Annandale National Historic Site.

“When we first considered doing this five years ago, we realized that we really don’t have a lot of contact with Indigenous People here in Tillsonburg, although there are Indigenous People,” said Morris.

A provincial heritage plaque at the Attawandaron village site is still in the works.

“The other thing I would like to do is some sort of a picture board, a detailed picture board of the background for the village,” said Morris. “In the studies, they have a very nice map showing its location.”

The National Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration in Tillsonburg was financially supported by a grant from the federal government.