UQSUQTUUQ/GJOA HAVEN - A five-day drum dancing festival in Gjoa Haven, where songs, knowledge and stories from different communities will be shared, is one of seven projects to be showcased on a national fundraising website for the month of June.

Attima Hadlari drum dances in an iglu. He is involved in a five-day drum dancing festival set for July in Gjoa Haven, an event named one of Canada's seven wonders by the Small Change Fund, a Canadian organization that helps microfinance small-scale projects. - photo courtesy of Small Change Fund

The Seven Small Wonders of Canada is a project by the Small Change Fund, a Canadian organization that helps microfinance small-scale projects through fundraising. The campaign encourages Canadians to give a gift to the country in honour of Canada's birthday, by donating to one of the projects.

During the drum dancing festival in Gjoa Haven, scheduled from July 4 to 9, elders will talk about the history of drum dancing and youth will learn what drumming is all about, said Attima Hadlari, the project's contact person. He added youth will also learn how and when to celebrate drum dances. During the event, Gjoa Haven, as the host community, will start the drum dancing followed by a drummer from each community before the event is open to all, said Hadlari.

"The aim of the event is to perform ... as well as promote our culture," he said.

He added the elders hope the youth will be interested in drum dancing and keep it going in the future.

Hadlari said he submitted an application to the Small Change Fund as he had heard it helps fund small events.

"It's hard to express how thankful we are that a group like that recognizes it's important to keep it going," he said.

The Gjoa Haven drum dancing festival was one of about four projects submitted from Nunavut and was selected following an eight-week process, said Dani LaGiglia, program director of Small Change Fund.

"It sounded so amazing and so interesting that we decided to feature it as a seven wonder," said LaGiglia. "We wanted to feature this project because we believe there is lots of work happening in Northern communities about retaining or passing on the culture or traditional means of communication. We thought this project in particular was great because we realize people from the south would not normally have the opportunity to learn about a festival like this so there would be really no other way of people of knowing, unless we feature it as a wonder of Canada, for people to understand the interesting work that's happening in the North."

The festival will receive $5,000 from the Small Change Fund and will see its project featured on the organization's website, where people can donate.

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