Gingerbread contest featuring teepees helps build Christmas spirit in Saddle Lake Cree Nation

The community health centre in Saddle Lake Cree Nation has been holding several virtual community contests to keep the Christmas spirit alive and well within their membership. 

The contests have had members of the community, located 171 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, baking and decorating up a storm.

"We wanted to showcase their talents," said Terri Cardinal, a member of Saddle Lake and a child development specialist with Jordan's Principle. 

"We have noticed there are a lot of talented people that we weren't even aware of." 

The goal of the project is to keep people in the community communicating and participating, since COVID-19 restrictions have limited any sort of gathering for the season. 

The Jordan's Principle branch in Saddle Lake is made up of community health workers helping families access services like speech and language pathologists, pediatricians, as well as mental health services. 

"The gist of it was mental health — with a lot of things going virtual now we had to get a bit creative," she said. 

Gingerbread teepees

Venissa Cardinal has always had a love of baking and took the gingerbread house contest to a whole new level by creating a teepee village. Her entry won first place.

"I really wanted it to stand out, and look a little more Native and colourful," she said.

"I tried to make everything from scratch except the poles and the horse. The smoke is made of cotton candy." 

Venissa Cardinal had planned to attend Portage College in St. Paul, Alta., but due to COVID-19 her culinary program was put on hold. She said being in the contest allowed her and her daughter to spend some time together and let their imaginations go wild. 

Door decorating

For Leona Cardinal the decorating contest was right up her alley, as she has always loved to decorate for Christmas. With the community-wide contest, she was able to showcase her passion and talent.

"The inspiration comes from having children enjoy the beauty of Christmas," said Leona Cardinal.

Her home is filled with lights, garlands and homemade wreaths. After taking down some pine trees in her yard this year she planned to keep some for the Christmas season. 

"I told my hubby I wanted to use some of the branches for decorating, so we kept some hanging around and when the door decorating opportunity came around, I put those branches to use."

She was awarded first place in the door decorating contest and said she enjoyed the opportunity to share something she has been doing for years. 

The Saddle Lake health services are planning to keep the momentum going with ugly sweater contests and a youth reconciliation virtual event.

"We are hoping things do get better so we can do in-person services again, but until then we have to get creative to keep the connection with the community," said Terri Cardinal.

"We will just try new things and hope they fly but the people seem to be stepping up."