A UAFEST INITIATIVE IN DEVELOPMENT

Baba Kokum

130+ years of intertwined stories in Canada. Now it is time to explore them together — with Indigenous voices shaping the project from the beginning.

Working conceptIndigenous co-creators welcome

The proposition

Not a finished program about Indigenous people. A project we want to build with Indigenous people.

Baba Kokum is a working UAFest concept for exploring the long, complicated and often overlooked relationships between Ukrainian settlers and Indigenous Peoples in Canada — stories of proximity, exchange, assistance and cultural crossover that also sit inside a much larger history of colonial settlement and Indigenous dispossession.

We are making the concept public before the program is fixed because the people whose histories and cultures are involved should have the opportunity to challenge it, reshape it and decide whether it is worth building with us.

Why this name

Two grandmother words — and one important caution

Baba

In Ukrainian family life, baba is a familiar word for grandmother. Grandmothers often carry family memory through food, textiles, songs, language, ritual and the everyday work of keeping culture recognizable across generations.

Kokum

The widely used spelling kokum relates to Plains Cree kôhkom, “your grandmother.” It is a Cree kinship term, not a generic Indigenous word. That matters: the working title points to a specific Prairie history and must not be used to flatten distinct Indigenous Nations into one identity.

The title is provisional. If Indigenous collaborators tell us the name is inaccurate, too broad or simply the wrong starting point, changing it is part of doing the work properly.

The historical starting point

More than 130 years — but not one simple story of “friendship”

Library and Archives Canada dates the arrival of the first two Ukrainian settlers in Canada to 1891. Tens of thousands followed, especially to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. That gives Ukrainian settlement in Canada a history of more than 130 years.

There are documented stories of Ukrainian settlers and Indigenous neighbours exchanging knowledge, labour, goods and support. Floral scarves carried by Ukrainians became especially recognizable in some Cree and other Prairie communities and are now widely described as kokum scarves.

But a respectful project cannot turn those stories into a comforting myth. Ukrainian settlers also arrived through a Canadian settlement system that occupied Indigenous lands. Contemporary research on Ukrainian–Indigenous relations explicitly asks how Ukrainians benefited from and participated in those colonial structures while also recording meaningful relationships that existed between individuals and communities.

Place matters

Baba Kokum begins at UAFest in Carleton Place — on Algonquin Anishinaabe territory

UAFest takes place at Riverside Park in Carleton Place. The Town of Carleton Place recognizes the area as the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation. Any local relationship-building must therefore start by understanding whose land our festival is on and listening locally.

The “Kokum” part of the working title comes from Cree language and Prairie histories. We will not present Cree experience as if it were local Algonquin history, nor ask one Indigenous partner to speak for every Nation. Different parts of the project may require different relationships and different expertise.

What it could become

Six directions to discuss — not six things we have already decided

A co-curated story space

A public exhibit or festival installation built from community-approved stories, objects, archival material and contemporary voices — with Indigenous partners deciding what belongs, what does not, and how it should be interpreted.

The scarf as one doorway

Ukrainian floral scarves became known in a number of Prairie Indigenous communities as kokum scarves. That visual connection can open a conversation about trade, memory, kinship and cultural adaptation — without pretending one object explains an entire relationship.

Intergenerational conversation

A format where Elders, Knowledge Keepers, Ukrainian-Canadian families, youth, artists and researchers can place different memories beside one another rather than forcing them into one polished narrative.

A living digital archive

With consent, the project could grow beyond a single festival into a digital collection of interviews, photographs, research notes and community-created material that remains accessible and can keep evolving.

Workshops and contemporary art

Textile, visual-art, storytelling or youth-learning formats may become part of the project where invited cultural practitioners want to lead them. We will not copy ceremony, regalia or cultural practices into programming ourselves.

A model for better relations

The long-term value is not a one-off display. It is creating a repeatable way for a Ukrainian cultural organization to listen, compensate cultural labour, build relationships and make room for Indigenous leadership in future work.

Our working commitments

The process is part of the project

Co-create from the beginning

We are publishing a question and a working framework, not presenting a finished Indigenous program for approval after the fact.

Be Nation- and community-specific

First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples are not one culture. Cree histories on the Prairies are not interchangeable with Algonquin Anishinaabe histories in the Ottawa Valley.

Consent before content

Stories, names, images, recordings and cultural knowledge should only be made public with clear permission and agreed attribution, access and reuse terms.

Respect protocol and boundaries

Ceremony, sacred knowledge, language, designs and community protocols are not raw material for festival programming. Indigenous partners define the boundaries.

Compensate cultural labour

Where Elders, Knowledge Keepers, artists, researchers or facilitators contribute professional or cultural work, the project should budget for appropriate honoraria or fees rather than treating expertise as free volunteering.

Keep the concept editable

Baba Kokum is a working title. The name, framing, format and even the premise can change when the people we hope to work with tell us they should.

Why UAFest can host this conversation

We already have the public platform. We are looking for the people who should shape the substance.

UAFest began in Carleton Place in 2023 and has grown into an annual Ukrainian cultural festival. The 2026 festival is scheduled for September 13 at Riverside Park, with a public goal of 5,000+ visitors.

We can bring event production, volunteer capacity, communications, a public website, digital storytelling tools and an existing audience. Those are useful assets, but they do not make us authorities on Indigenous history or culture. Baba Kokum only becomes credible if the cultural and historical work is built with the people who hold that knowledge.

Who we hope to meet

Partners who want to improve the idea, not simply put their logo on it

Algonquin Anishinaabe organizations and community members in the Ottawa Valley

Cree and Métis voices with knowledge of Prairie Ukrainian–Indigenous histories

Elders and Knowledge Keepers interested in advising on protocol and framing

Indigenous artists, textile artists, curators, storytellers and cultural educators

Researchers and archives working on Ukrainian–Indigenous relations in Canada

Indigenous youth and community organizations interested in intergenerational cultural work

The most useful first response may be criticism. If a term, assumption or proposed direction on this page is wrong, we would rather learn that before building around it.

Start the conversation

Help shape Baba Kokum before it becomes a program

Tell us what we have right, what we have wrong, what should be left alone, and what a respectful first step would look like from your community’s perspective.

info@uafest.ca · +1 (613) 621-1261

Email the UAFest team Contact UAFest

Research starting points

Why these claims are on the page

This is not presented as a complete history. These public sources establish the starting facts and, just as importantly, the need for a more careful community-led account.