Joanne Taylor (far left), Haley Arychuk (middle), and Matthew Mercredi (white shirt) spoke to paNow reporters about their experience travelling from the Northwest Territories all the way to Batoche, Saskatchewan. (paNow Staff/Nick Nielsen)

By Nick Nielsen

North Slave Métis Alliance

Yellowknife Métis come to Batoche to reconnect with their roots

Jul 20, 2025 | 3:22 PM

Sunday marks the final day of the four day Back to Batoche festival, meaning close to 40,000 people will be packing up their trailers and heading home over the course of the next few days. The festival attracts people from near and far, but none may have traveled further than a group of five that came from Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories.

The group representing the North Slave Métis Alliance (NSMA) travelled nearly 2,000 kilometres to arrive at Batoche. For NSMA Senior Administrator Joanne Taylor, the trip was about returning to her Métis roots and bring stories back to the Northwest Territories such as the stories of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont.

“I think it’s great get to come out and see the other side of stuff, you know, of other different Métis groups and let’s see how they are.”

The crew drove a full 16 hours to get from Yellowknife to Edmonton where they stayed the night, and then another five hours from Edmonton to Saskatoon where they set up shop for the day, and finally came to Batoche the next.

As for Matthew Mercredi, who calls Edmonton his home but joined the NSWA delegation after visiting some family in Yellowknife brought him the opportunity to come to Batoche, he wanted to see what the fuss was all about after his mother made the trip in the early 2000s.

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“I was up in Yellowknife doing a little visit with the NSMA and this crew, and she (Joanne) came up to me and said ‘Do you want to go to Batoche?’, and I said ‘Sure!’. My mother was down here I guess 20-25 years ago or so, and she told me she had a really good time here. So probably heard about Batoche Days before, but now I get to come down with these guys and see what it’s all about.”

The group came out for the whole festival, starting on Thursday and carrying over all the way until Sunday, so they had lots of time to take in everything Back to Batoche had to offer. Haley Arychuk was another member of the crew coming from Yellowknife, and she brought her kids along with her to experience a little bit of where their own culture comes from.

“Just to see the culture and the jigging and listening to the music brings you back. Like I feel like you’re back at home and it’s good for your mental health and it’s good for my younger kids to learn and to see and where their roots come from. So yeah, just to learn and to listen and see.”

Not only was it important for Arychuk to show her kids where their roots come from, but she said it was also important to show that Métis representation from the Northwest Territories. While the Métis as a whole are treated much better than they have been in the past in Canada, there is still some infighting between Indigenous groups in the Northwest Territories.

“For the North Slave Métis Alliance, it’s just getting the Métis name out because there’s a lot of Dene people that live in the Northwest Territories, so to get the Métis name and that we are here and we’re a part of it is important. There’s a lot of fighting up in the Northwest Territories, fighting for our rights as Métis. It’s probably much easier here than in Yellowknife and in the north, but yeah, just to get our name out there and to show that we show up to things and we’re here.”

While the NWSA hasn’t been able to host anything as big in the Northwest Territories such as Back to Batoche Days, they do have a few events that help bring their northern Métis community together. In June during Aboriginal Days, they host a fish fry that has served between 5,000-7,000 people.

They hope in the future to see members of the Saskatchewan Métis community come up north to experience their side of the trip just as they did coming to Batoche.