Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future 

Polson High School held their first powwow just last year, and feedback was positive. Audrey Kenmille, a junior at PHS, got the opportunity to attend and help organize the powwow. She stated, “I think it went pretty well.“ This year the Indigenous Youth Club is hoping to host the powwow again, and make it even better than last year’s, by getting more students involved and getting the word out to more dancers and spectators. 

Last year Polson’s, powwow was held at the Standing Arrow Powwow grounds in Elmo, with kids attending from Cherry Valley and other schools in the area. It was a short powwow, as each dance category got 2 minutes to dance, with Chief Cliff as their head drum group. The Indigenous Youth Club hopes to not only get more students and other youth to attend, but they want to raise more money for the powwow as well. Kenmille said, “It’s nice to see indigenous culture normalized in school.” 

In recent years the start up of the Native Youth Club has brought the Indiginous cultures of the many tribes represented here into the spotlight. Before any of the dancing began they had stations to teach the kids some of the Ksanka and Salish culture. They taught the history of some of the dances that you would normally see at the bigger powwows like Women’s Traditional, Northern Highstep Traditional and Jingle, these stations also taught the kids how to dance after watching the dancers present. After lunch is when the Grand Entry and dancing officially started. There was an Intertribal, where anyone could dance even without regalia. 

In regard to the schools powwows on the Flathead Rezervation, Polson has joined Mission, and Ronan as some of the bigger schools on the reservation who have their own annual powwows. The Indigenous Youth Club has created a big stepping stone for the future of the schools powwows and the club by sharing and representing the many Indigenous cultures that are celebrated and shared within the native students at Polson High School.