Donating to the Whapmagoostui Sundance will directly support this land-based gathering, promoting healing and interconnectedness within Cree culture, language and community. Each year the Sundance also creates jobs for Whapmagoostui community members, such as cooks/caterers, Traditional Cree/Indigenous healers, lodge builders, medicine/wood/bough gatherers, hunters, fire-keepers and much more. Your donation will directly contribute to the costs of planning this important event!

The Sundance will take place from June 30th through July 3rd, 2022. Given the current COVID-19 situation, we are working on new protocols to ensure everyone's health and safety. We appreciate your support! Miigwetch.

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About the Whapmagoostui Sundance:

The Sundance, or Bahkudassimouin, is a four-day ceremony of purification, spiritual rebirth and healing of the mind, body, spirit and emotions. Sundancers make a four-year commitment to dance for Life – to gain strength to deal with life’s challenges of all forms while bringing healing, balance and harmony to their families and communities.

Twenty-two (22) years ago, several Cree people from different Cree communities in Eeyou Istchee participated in a Sundance ceremony in Spruce Woods, Manitoba. This particular ceremony was - and still is - hosted by Sundance Chief David Blacksmith and his wife, Sherryl Daniels-Blacksmith. Late Joseph Esquash (Sherryl’s grandfather), an elder in his eighties, guided the Blacksmiths for many years in running the Sundance ceremony. He had participated in Sundance ceremonies since he was eight (8) years old.

In the summer of 2004, Late elder Joe Esquash passed on the Sundance ceremony to Matthew Mukash of Whapmagoostui, QC. He became the first Cree from Eeyou Istchee to be honoured as Sundance Chief and his partner-in-life, Danielle O’Bomsawin-Mukash. The Mukash family has brought the Sundance home in Eeyou Istchee; there are seven (7) Sundance Chiefs in Eeyou Istchee who run Sundances each summer.