A place of gathering
New community hall opens in Kakisa
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, October 6, 2016
KA'A'GEE TU/KAKISA
The heady smells of moose-meat, stew and fresh-caught pickerel filled Kakisa's new community hall on Sept. 29.
Band members Chaal Simba, left, Tarek Chicot and Dawson Landry gave out gifts that included binoculars and hunting knives. to three hunters who had provided for the community. - April Hudson/NNSL photo
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Although the community has less than 50 people, nearly twice that number milled outside the hall all afternoon, enjoying the crisp sunlight and visiting with one another on the freshly laid sod.
The ribbon to the new hall had just been cut and feast preparations were underway.
Sept. 29 marked the grand opening of the building, which has been under construction for close to two years and has been in the planning stages for five or six years.
For council manager Ruby Simba, the event was bigger than just one hall - it's also the first grand opening the community has held.
"We didn't have one for our (original) community hall or renovation," she said.
"This is our very first."
The new hall comes equipped with a kitchen facility and storage rooms.
"We've got plans for the building as it's going to be used for all kinds of things," Simba said.
"We come in here and cook, we're going to invite an older lady to come and show us how to make buns and bread, things like that."
It will also be used for cultural activities, she said, including the band's Dene Zhatie program.
Although the hall itself was completed nearly a year ago, leaders held off on the grand opening until the community could truly embrace a spirit of celebration.
Longtime Chief Lloyd Chicot said the community had still been recovering from a 2014 forest fire which begun by Tathlina Lake, an area the band uses for hunting and gathering. That fire forced the evacuation of Kakisa.
In the summer of 2015, as the community hall neared completion, flames licked at the junction to Kakisa as well, although they did not come any further.
The fires took a toll on two of Kakisa's elders.
"We just about lost (them)," Chicot said.
Originally, the community had grand aspirations for the hall as a "really fancy building," Chicot said. But once councilors sought out the input of band members, they realized that was not what residents wanted. Instead, they scaled back the design and went with a multi-purposed layout that could be used for feasts, weddings, assemblies and leadership meetings.
The hall also provides a space for the community's youth to go during recess in the winter, and includes a weight room.
In total, the hall has space for 150 people.
At the edge of a gathering place Chicot said the hall's location, on the shore of Kakisa Lake, was picked because it used to be a place where people who were coming upriver camped.
Outside the hall is a trail that goes from the edge around Tathlina Lake and all the way to the Mackenzie River, he said.
"We wanted it to overlook the lake and fit in with the other buildings," Chicot said.
Recognizing the history of the site, Chicot said the band's future plans include building an arbour outside the hall.
"(We) want to do something permanent. We put (down) grass temporarily, but they want to do a semi-circle, arbour, circus-style tent or something," Chicot said.
The band also intends to install portable picnic tables on the covered deck of the new hall.
Around the base of the hall is a space that will be turned into a community garden, directly under the edge of the roof so rain can drip off the roof into the garden.
The band hopes to eventually heat the building with a pellet furnace as well as install solar power.
