Young pow wow drummer shares culture at Prince Albert event

Keaton Constant brought the sound of pow wow drumming into the Prince Albert Early Years Family Resource Centre at Gateway Mall, where he was a special guest during National Indigenous Peoples Day activities. For the children and families moving through the space, the drum was not a stage prop or a performance gimmick. It was a living way to see culture passed from one generation to the next.

The centre, which serves families from prenatal to age 5 and offers all of its services free, is located in Unit #290/320 at 1403 Central Ave. It says it sits on Treaty 6 territory and on the Homeland of the Métis, which gave added weight to hosting Indigenous cultural programming in that setting. National Indigenous Peoples Day is celebrated June 21 and was first marked in 1996, and community events across Saskatchewan gave Keaton’s visit a place in a wider day of public celebration.

Constant came with his drum group from École Vickers Public School as he headed into Grade 7, bringing a presence that was bigger than his age. Earlier reporting identified him as a boy from Wahpeton Dakota Nation living with proximal femoral focal deficiency, and noted that he has undergone cardiac and orthopedic surgeries. His family has described drumming as his passion his whole life, something he seemed drawn to from birth, and that focus showed in the way he carried himself in community settings rather than in any sense of limitation.

That same public role has followed him before. He previously carried an eagle staff at the Prince Albert Grand Council Fine Arts Festival with help from his father, Kirby Constant, who was identified there as the newly elected chief of James Smith Cree Nation. The family’s story has also included help from Prince Albert RCMP in fulfilling Keaton’s wish for a travel trailer, another sign of how much attention has surrounded his resilience and his place in local cultural life.

Constant was also looking ahead to Muskeg Lake Cree Nation’s Traditional Veterans Pow Wow, listed for June 27 and 28, keeping him in the middle of a busy pow wow season. At the family resource centre, though, the lesson was immediate and simple. A young drummer stood in a mall-based community space and showed smaller children that the circle is where identity, discipline and belonging are learned.