POTLOTEK FIRST NATION - Despite the difficulties presented by social-distancing restrictions imposed by the Province of Nova Scotia during the latest stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers are confident that an indigenous gathering that often attracts thousands to this Mi'kmaq community in Richmond County can proceed safely later this week. 

The annual Mission to Saint Anne, who is considered the patron saint of Canada's indigenous peoples, has been taking place in various forms since 1742, when missionary priest Father Maillard said his first Catholic Mass on the island of Mniku (Chapel Island). Since that time, thousands have taken boats to the island to hold such activities as powwows, family gatherings, and sacred ceremonies on Mniku on the final weekend of July, culminating in a Sunday afternoon Mass service at the island's traditional chapel that is attended by several members of the Cape Breton Grand Council of Mi'kmaq Chiefs as well as priests, deacons and bishops from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish. 

The ceremony has special significance for Tom Syliboy, one of the key organizers for the 2021 Mission To Saint Anne. Ordained as a Roman Catholic Deacon nearly two years ago, he now ministers to his friends and neighbours in Eskasoni First Nation and has been pleased to attend the ceremony in an official capacity. 

However, in his younger years, Syliboy served as part of the security detail for the Potlotek event and, as a child, even experienced what he considers to be a spiritual healing at the mission in his childhood. The young Syilboy had struggled with severe epilepsy up until his first visit to the mission at the age of six, where he was accompanied by his grandmother. 

"She told me, 'Let's pray to Saint Anne,'" Syliboy recalled. "And I remember my Mom telling me... there's a rock there where they pour holy water into it - I think it was built in 1942. I was told that I was in [the rock]...And when I left Saint Anne's Mission, that was my last epileptic seizure. And that's not only my testimony, but it's the testimony of many of the Mi'kmaq people."

The 2021 Mission To Saint Anne runs from July 29 to August 2 at Potlotek First Nation.