ShQUooz Circle Celebrates a Year of Movement, Culture and Community

The ShQUooz Circle is celebrating a year of movement, culture, connection and community through a growing partnership between UBC, Indigenous Women Rise (IWR) and the Indigenous Physical Activity and Cultural Circle (IPACC).

At the heart of this work are the women themselves.

Led in partnership with Elder Sally Lee, Diana Day and Angelina Day of Indigenous Women Rise, a grassroots organization connecting more than 4,000 Indigenous women throughout Metro Vancouver, ShQUooz Circle is creating opportunities for Indigenous women to come together through culturally meaningful physical activity.

One of the most recent experiences has taken the Circle onto the water through longboat training and paddling in preparation for the UBC Longboat races.

Water is medicine.

For Indigenous women from many Nations living in an urban environment, being together on the land and water creates opportunities for connection and to culture, community, one another and ourselves. We respectfully acknowledge that these activities are taking place on the unceded, traditional and ancestral lands and waters of the Musqueam people.

From a strength-based perspective, ShQUooz Circle recognizes physical activity as much more than exercise. Paddling together can support spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health and well-being. It builds relationships, creates belonging and reflects something Indigenous Peoples have always known: movement, land, water, culture and community are interconnected.

The project is supported by an incredible circle of Indigenous community leaders, students, researchers and allies. Our team includes Tarene Thomas, an UBC PhD student and Graduate Knowledge Holder, and Haley Hachey, a UBC School of Kinesiology student and Indigenous Knowledge mobilization lead. We are also honoured to work with Avery Kinsella, a Yukon Indigenous team member who is working with IPACC. We also recognize the important contributions of Emiko Koizumi, who supported the project for a year before leaving to pursue UBC medical school.

This work has been made possible through the ongoing support of the School of Kinesiology and leadership of Dr. Darren Warburton and Dr. Shannon Bredin, alongside research coordinator Kai Kaufman.

UBC Recreation has also been an enthusiastic supporter of the ShQUooz Circle, helping make the longboat experience possible as the women prepare to paddle together in the UBC Longboat races on October 3rd. 

As we approach the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, ShQUooz Circle offers something important to celebrate. Indigenous women are more than strong and more than resilient. They are carrying forward knowledge that has always been here.

We move together. We build relationships. We connect with the land and water. And we celebrate Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing.

The long boat races are not about competition they are about bringing community together.