On the last weekend of August, the sound of drums will roll across the Rankin Pow Wow Grounds on Gran Street in Sault Ste. Marie, where Batchewana First Nation hosts its annual pow wow. For two days — August 29 and 30, 2026 — the grounds will come alive with traditional dancing, drumming, and singing, alongside food and craft vendors. It is a gathering that showcases Anishinabek culture through dance, drum, and song.
The celebration is a two-day event. Dance categories span generations, from teen boys and girls aged thirteen to seventeen to adult dancers and golden age dancers over fifty-five. In 2025, the pow wow adopted the theme "Honouring Our Elders," with Steve St. Jules as arena director, Joe Syrette as master of ceremonies, and Mike Bisson as head veteran. The grounds are an alcohol- and drug-free zone, and no pets are allowed — small protocols that honor the ceremony at the heart of the weekend.
This year brings a notable change to the calendar. In a save-the-date notice issued through the Batchewana Health Centre, organizers announced that the annual traditional pow wow has moved from its customary Labour Day weekend slot to the final weekend of August. More details, the notice promised, were to come.
The ground on which the dancers will step holds its own story. Rankin Reserve 15D sits on the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie, where in 1939 the Nation purchased approximately 3,763.9 acres, including a strip of land along the St. Mary's River, with an additional 8.25 acres added a decade later. Today the reserve is the administrative heart of Batchewana First Nation, home to band offices, an arena, a health centre, and the pow wow grounds themselves — the place where the daily work of governance and the living pulse of ceremony sit side by side.
But the deeper story reaches back much further. Batchewana First Nation is an Ojibway people whose elders say the Creator placed them at Bawahting — the rapids at what is now Sault Ste. Marie — with laws and responsibilities to live in harmony with all Creation. The Nation's original territory extended from Bawahting up the coast of Lake Superior as far as what is now Pukaskwa National Park, including islands in the lake. Today, the four reserves of Goulais Bay, Obadjiwan, Rankin, and Whitefish Island make up only a tiny fraction of that vast ancestral homeland.
That homeland carries a history of resilience that gives the annual pow wow its deeper resonance. The Nation also knows the pain of dispossession: Whitefish Island, a 22-acre cultural site in the St. Mary's River where more than a hundred thousand artifacts have been preserved, was expropriated in the early 1900s and only returned to the Nation in 1998 after a long struggle.
Against that backdrop, the pow wow is far more than a festival. It is an intergenerational ceremony that weaves together drum and dance. The Nation's mission speaks of being guided by the Seven Grandfather Teachings to strengthen the health and well-being of the Nation. In 2025, the pow wow's theme was "Honouring Our Elders," anchoring the celebration in values that reach beyond the arena.
For visitors, the invitation is simple. The pow wow grounds at Rankin on Gran Street offer a chance to hear the drums, watch dancers of every generation move in time, sample food, and browse craft vendors. On the last weekend of August, the drum will call them all home again.