Walking Through the Fire - Visual Album - Wilmot (near Kitchener)

Presented by The Wilmot Ecumenical Working Group on Indigenous/Settler Relationships (WEWGISR)

We are thrilled to be hosting a free screening of Walking Through the Fire on Thursday, November 14, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at Zion United Church, 215 Peel Street, New Hamburg, ON.

Donations at the door will be appreciated. The building is accessible but parking at the church is limited so we would ask that only those with mobility issues use it. Street parking is available on Peel and Wilmot streets plus at the Sobeys Plaza. For more information contact [email protected]

This special film brings the magic of collaboration to the screen, with award-winning First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists from across Turtle Island joined by Billboard charting/6x CFMA winners Sultans of String!

Film will be followed by a Q&A panel with Indigenous collaborator Shannon Thundrebird, local Wilmot GRAMMY and JUNO Award winning engineer and co-producer John "Beetle" Bailey as well as filmmaker and Sultans of String bandleader Chris McKhool.

Walking Through the Fire: Visual Album is a musical film experience unlike any other. From Métis fiddling to an East Coast Kitchen Party, rumba to rock, to the drumming of the Pacific Northwest, experience the beauty and diversity of music from Turtle Island with Elder and poet Dr. Duke Redbird, the Métis Fiddler Quartet, Ojibwe/Finnish Singer-Songwriter Marc Meriläinen (Nadjiwan), Coast Tsm’syen Singer Shannon Thunderbird, The North Sound from the Prairies, Blues singer Crystal Shawanda, Heavy-Wood guitarist Don Ross, Northern Cree pow wow group, Dene singer-songwriter Leela Gilday, Inuit Throat Singers and more!
A central theme running through Walking Through The Fire is the need for the truth of Indigenous experience to be told before reconciliation can begin in earnest. Embedded in the title is the energy of rebirth: fire destroys, but it also nourishes the soil to create new growth, beauty, and resiliency. Walking Through The Fire ensures that we emerge on the other side together, stronger and more unified.
Sultans of String created this project in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and Final Report that asks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to work together as an opportunity to show a path forward. Says bandleader Chris McKhool (whose grandfather was a stowaway from Lebanon at the turn of the last century), “We know that as a society we can’t move ahead without acknowledging and reflecting on the past. Before reconciliation can occur, the full truth of the Indigenous experience in this country needs to be told, so we’ve been calling on Indigenous artists to share with us their stories, their experience, and their lives, so we settler Canadians can continue our learning about the history of genocide, residential schools, and of inter-generational impacts of colonization.”
"The place that we have to start is with truth. Reconciliation will come sometime way in the future, perhaps, but right now, truth is where we need to begin the journey with each other. As human beings, we have to acquire that truth”
Dr. Duke Redbird - Chippewa/Anishinaabe Elder and poet
"The very fact that you're doing this tells me that you believe in the validity of our language, you believe in the validity of our art and our music and that you want to help to bring it out. And that's really what's important, is for people to have faith that we can do this”
The Honourable Murray Sinclair, Ojibwe Elder and former chair of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission
See the trailer here

Experience in Full Surround Sound. 82 Minutes.

Many thanks for the support of non-Indigenous funding streams of the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario, and Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this project.

The Wilmot Ecumenical Working Group on Indigenous/Settler Relationships (WEWGISR) was created in 2017 as a response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action in its specific calls to the churches. Based in the Region of Waterloo, the group promotes understanding of the history of Indigenous communities in this area and beyond; creates space for and facilitates relationship building between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people; and raises awareness of settler privilege. Our work includes hosting educational events for our community and participating in events organized by the municipality.

Situated on the lands of the "Between the Lakes" Treaty of 1792 and traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Chonnonton Peoples. We are all treaty people with a responsibility to honour all our relations.

Host or Publisher Sultans of String