When Gloria Nahanee attended St. Paul's Indian Day School in the 1950s, she was taught Scottish, Irish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Spanish and square dances by nuns. When the Squamish Nation held their powwows in the 1940s and 1950s, sometimes lasting ten days, she sometimes ran away and hid at the other end of the field.

"I thought I had to dance,"; she recalls in Spirit of Powwow (Hancock $39.95). "The regalia and the noise scared me at first. But I can remember the stage where our ancestors Uncle Dominic Charlie and August Jack did the Squamish songs and dances.";

Powwows at Squamish disappeared for 30 years after 1958. It wasn't until Nahanee's own daughter began to naturally dance at age six that she began to explore the traditional dances of her own culture. Nahanee travelled to powwows for two years and co-founded the Squamish Nation Dancers in 1987, then organized a revival of the Squamish powwow in 1988.

"The old spirits told me they wanted the powwow revived,"; she says, "and that our young people would carry this on.";

The annual Squamish pow wow is now a three-day event that attracts 200 dancers and an audience of up to 4,000. Spirit of Powwow is Nahanee's illustrated introduction to, and celebration of, the powwow dances and traditions, co-written with Kay Johnston.

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