Tla’amin Opening of Ɂəms ʔayɛ (Our House) Cultural Centre is set for Indigenous Peoples Day 2025

ɬaʔəmen encouraged to save the date and come home for the big event

January 22, 2025

The Tla’amin Nation is excited to call all ɬaʔəmen (Tla’amin people) home for the Tla’amin opening of Ɂəms ʔayɛ (Our House) Cultural Centre during the 2025 Spring General Assembly, June 20-21, 2025. This historic event will celebrate the first Cultural Centre to be erected in Tla’amin territory in over 100 years.

Located in the heart of t̓išosəm, Ɂəms ʔayɛ will serve as Tla’amin’s cultural hub, housing a feast hall, language lab, museum, and Traditional Food Processing Facility. It is a space designed to honour and revitalize Tla’amin culture, ensuring the transmission of ʔayʔajuθəm and Ɂəms taʔow to future generations. The Cultural Centre will also include gardens, a smokehouse, and a carving shed.

Hegus John Hackett reflects on this milestone, sharing, “This Cultural Centre is two decades in the making and essential to the survival of Tla’amin ways of knowing and being. Our language, laws, and way of life come from this land, and it’s our responsibility to uphold the relationships that we have sustained for thousands of years. Ɂəms ʔayɛ is going to be a teaching ground and a place to transmit ʔəms taʔow (our teachings) and to prepare the next generation of Tla’amin people to carry on our sacred responsibilities.”

Tla’amin Nation will open the new Cultural Centre and amenities to ɬaʔəmen on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. June 20-21 will be packed with social and cultural activities which reinforce Tla’amin identity and connection to lands, waters, and one another.

A travel subsidy is available to urban ɬaʔəmen who wish to travel home. Tla’amin waterfront lands at t̓išosəm will be open for camping, offering an opportunity for urban ɬaʔəmen to reconnect with family and community and our ancestral lands.

So please mark your calendars to join us for two days of feasting, songs, and ceremony as we honor our past, celebrate our present, and look forward to a bright future at Ɂəms ʔayɛ.

Registration for the General Assembly and Tla’amin opening of Ɂəms ʔayɛ will go live on April 2, 2025.

A grand opening celebration with our sister Nations and special guests is being planned for later this summer.

For more information contact: Media@tn-bc.ca