Waywayseecappo celebrates new business

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This article was published 10/07/2020 (2055 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Waywayseecappo First Nation invites everyone in the Brandon and surrounding area to attend the grand opening of its new gas bar on Highway 10.

Beginning at 11 a.m. on July 16, the event will cap almost three years of work developing a portion of the property, which includes an adjacent 535 acres it shares with Rolling River First Nation and Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation.

“This is just the beginning,” Waywayseecappo Chief Murray Clearsky said about his community’s plans for the land.

“We’re going to expand.”

Clearsky said celebrations Thursday will begin with a pipe ceremony, followed by an elder speaking and other speeches. There will be traditional singers with hand drums, as well as a demonstration of powwow singers and dancers with the big drum.

“We’re also going to have a pork-on-a-bun barbecue,” Clearsky said.

There will be numerous door prizes, and two motor coaches will bring Waywayseecappo band members from the reserve – about an hour and a half northwest of Brandon – to take part in the celebrations.

The process to get to this point has been complicated. The property is outside Brandon city limits, and the First Nation waited a year for the province to negotiate an exclusionary area. The highway had to be resurveyed. Then came provincial and federal elections. Finally, the pandemic slowed plans even more.

“We managed to get it (the land) converted,” said councillor Mel Wabash.

“I think we did damn good.”

The gas bar and convenience store, and the development of this section of the land, is a $5-million to $6-million investment. Band employee Dave Meeches said the final cost remains to be determined.

Profits will go back to the community, said Clearsky.

“Say, for education, programs, because we don’t get enough funding from the government,” he said.

“We have to subsidize them (programs) with our investments we have off the reserve.”

Waywayseecappo also owns a construction company that does siding for residential and business clients. That company handled the cladding for the building part of this gas bar project, which includes offices that have already been leased out. Similarly, proceeds from VLTs go back into the community, Clearsky said.

“Our graduates get $1,000 each.”

He added housing and house repairs also need additional monies.

“It all goes back into the general budget,” Clearsky said.

The full-service gas bar will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, employing 10 people to begin with. Service for recreational vehicles – power, water and sewage dumping – will also be available. Waywayseecappo also hopes to sell propane.

“In the future, we hope to put up another building here,” said Clearsky.

“A lot of elderly people from the city of Brandon are asking for a bingo hall. Not only First Nations, everybody.”

Clearsky said the First Nation is very proud to expand outside the reserve.

“The young people are willing to work out here,” he said.

Meeches said the project is about job creation, but also services out of Brandon will benefit.

“There are spin-off benefits to the area, especially to the RM of Elton,” Meeches said.

The First Nation is appreciative of the rural municipality’s willingness to host and support Waywayseecappo’s efforts.

» mletourneau@brandonsun.com

» Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.