Celebrations honouring Treaty Day were held across Halifax Thursday, including a flag raising, parade and award ceremony downtown. “It’s really important to honour Treaty Day for the simple fact that it really it has us reliving our commitments to each other, and it reaffirms our commitments to each other,” said Pam Glode-Desrochers, executive director of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Society. “For me, it’s about bringing us together. Today we have a salmon dinner at the Friendship Center. It’s for everybody. And it is about bringing us together. “And that’s what the treaty is. It’s recognition of our commitment to each other and that it’s still real and that we’re going to move together forward, and we’re going to do it together instead of at each other. We’re going to do things together. And one of the big things about the treaty is, it’s peace and friendship, and that’s the basis of it.” “It’s home to an incredibly vibrant Mi’kmaq community. We’re so proud of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, for one thing,” said Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore. “It goes well beyond that. It goes back to the fact that we are all earning our living and growing our families in Mi’Kmaw’ki and the Mi’Kmaq have been the hosts on this land, enabling all that has happened here for thousands of years.” In 1985 the Supreme Court of Canada held the Treaty of 1752 made with the Mi’kmaw nation. A year later, then Grand Chief Donald Marshall Sr. made every Oct. 1 Treaty Day to honour the key role of the treaties in cultivating the relationship between the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq and the Crown. “This is only the 40th anniversary of recognizing Treaty Day in Nova Scotia,” said Fillmore. “I think it’s really important that we do it today in Peace and Friendship Park, a park who takes its name from the very treaty that we’re celebrating on this day.” “Treaty Day is for us to understand that we are we’re all working, living and playing here together, in Halifax,” said Glode-Desrochers. “And it’s really important for us to understand that nobody’s going anywhere. We’re family. We’re friends. And if we can just concentrate on what’s important to us, all the rest, the noise, falls to the side. We have way more in common than what separates us. And we have amazing community members who are doing good work. And I think if we stay focused on those pieces, the rest falls to the side.” Treaty Day is a reunion for many Mi’kmaq and a time for people to learn a part of Nova Scotia’s 12,000-year-old history. “It’s important for me to be here today because I’m a Mi’Kmaw, and it’s important to support our veterans and our chiefs,” said Brooke Moore, who went to the flag raising and parade. “And these treaties are living agreements. And today is to remind us of that and to honour that.” “Why it’s special today is because I’ve been involved with the Friendship Center in so many different ways over the years and with the community, and this is my first salmon dinner,” said Leroy Fontiane, an Indigenous author who lives and works locally but is a member of Chipewyan Prairie First Nation in the Treaty 8 Territory of Northern Alberta. “So I figured, you know, what better day to come and join the community and the people here to really honour what this day really means for Nova Scotia and for my people.” Fontaine is the author of two children’s books, Sekweha the Superkid: And His Cultural Cape, and the sequel, Sekweha the Superkid: And His Superdogs that came out in September. “It’s a nice sequel too because it takes a seven Sacred Teachings, it takes the four medicines, and it combines it with the spirit world and talking to where animals go, where our family goes. All those types of things. And it kind of breaks it down for a young kid to digest,” said Fontaine of his books. “Indigenous or non-Indigenous people, we’re all learning to communicate and work together. And there’s an awareness piece, but there’s also dialog. We want to create that dialog. And I find like for myself, creating these books to allow them to plant those seeds for healthy good dialog at an early age, so that we can all have these discussions in a more meaningful way.” Which is the basis of the friendship and peace treaties and that the annual ceremony reaffirms the historic presence of the Mi’kmaq. “It’s incredibly important. We have a community that is thriving in many ways. But there is also unrest in the world and the way that we’re all going to sort of get through that, and happiness is by doing it together,” said Fillmore. “And so the notion that it’s built right into that treaty of peace and friendship, collaboration, certainly of tolerance and acceptance, are really more important now, I think, in our world and in our city than ever before.” “I think the big piece is, is that we’re starting. You’re building relationships, and I think that’s the key,” said Glode-Desrochers. “We get to celebrate with each other. We get to be together, we get to eat together, which is always a good thing. I mean, everybody loves the food, but it is about coming together, recognizing who we are, where we come from and where we’re going. And again, it’s got to be us all together to do that.” October is Mi’Kmaw History Month. On Saturday the Kjipuktuk Wije’winen Gala will take place at the Halifax Convention Centre. 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