350-kilometre Awareness Unity Ride aims to combat drug abuse

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Horses in brightly coloured tack and their happy, but exhausted riders capped off a four-day awareness journey with a grand welcome in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on Friday night.

Community members laid out a large feast in honour of the third annual Awareness Unity Ride, which saw riders travel more than 350 kilometres in four days spreading the word about prescription drug abuse.

“I feel stiff, tired, but my heart feels lifted … it feels like we accomplished a lot,” said Travis Mazawasicuna, an organizer and Dakota Unity Rider from Sioux Valley.

Mazawasicuna works at the community’s health centre and started to notice a troubling increase in people using prescription drugs to get high. When he started talking to health workers in other First Nation,s it became clear it wasn’t a localized problem.

Concerned health workers from Waywayseecappo First Nation, Birdtail Sioux First Nation, Canupawakpa Dakota First Nation and Sioux Valley created the ride three years ago to educate people about drug abuse and to promote traditional ways of healing.

Mazawasicuna measures the effectiveness of the ride by a prescription drug drop-off box at the Dakota Ojibway Police station.

“The first year there was just a couple of pills, second year just a bit, this year there was a lot of prescription drugs that were brought to the drop-off box,” he says.

Just as the name suggests, the Unity Ride is meant to bring people together in difficult times. Riders have gone on other lengthy journeys to raise awareness about residential school trauma and missing and murdered aboriginal women.

The group’s horses represent a highly revered connection to nature.

“A lot of people are getting disconnected with the Earth and whatever she has to offer us … our horses are that spiritual connection,” said Mazawasicuna.

Derek Nepinak, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and Terry Nelson, grand chief of the Southern Chiefs’ Organization, attended the Sioux Valley feast.

Nelson applauded the group for completing the long ride.

“This is a prayer asking the creator for help for people with every step that they take,” said Nelson, who has taken part in similar journeys and understands the stamina required to spend 12 hours a day in the saddle. “It’s about going through the land that our ancestors lived in.”

For Nelson, prescription drug abuse is a symptom of larger social issues, including poverty and unemployment, plaguing many First Nations communities.

“When people are in dire straights or they have problems there is a lot more stress … so going to the doctor and getting a pill sometimes turns into another problem,” he said.

Nelson hopes the ride will inspire people to turn to traditions like sweat lodge ceremonies instead of prescription drugs for healing.

The Unity Ride’s numbers fluctuated throughout the journey, but this year 19 riders made the final leg of the trip, with some coming from North Dakota and Saskatchewan to take part.

The riders’ arrival in Sioux Valley coincided with the reserve’s annual Dakota Oyate Wacipi pow wow, which saw traditional dancers of every age competing until Sunday.

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