*This article is interactive – please right-click the ‘listen’ text for the full experience.
Every Monday night, a group of Indigenous drummers gather outside of Prince George’s University Hospital to show their support for the frontline healthcare workers and COVID-19 patients inside.
Masked and distanced, the UHNBC drum group has been meeting outside the hospital, the largest designated COVID-19 centre in Northern Health, for over a year.
“We just want to be that second wave of help behind these healthcare workers, behind the frontliners, behind everybody that is doing endless amounts of work,” Organizer Wesley Mitchell told MyPGNow.
At first, they drummed outside the hospital for 47 straight days.
As the pandemic wears on, they gather at the start of each week instead, singing traditional songs and prayers together for those who have fallen ill.
The group was also found drumming outside of Jubilee Lodge during the deadly December outbreak that took the lives of 17 residents.
Mitchell, who is of Wet’suwet’en (Tsayu) and Dutch heritage, was inspired by the 7 p.m. cheer for healthcare workers last year.
He was simply not satisfied with standing outside of his home banging pots and pans.
Mitchell, like others, congregated outside of the University Hospital during the nightly car parades.
listen
“The creator brought me to the hospital with my drum. It’s not making noise, it’s a heartbeat.”
On March 26, 2020, Mitchell started alone, but not for long.
“People started to bring smudge, we did ceremony there. To the best of our abilities, we would support each other,” he recalls.
“It was unity. It was the ability to support when nobody was allowed to go inside.”
Mitchell has drummed for people who were sick in the past.
As someone with a history of addiction now four years in recovery, he has found it to be a healing experience in his own life.
“I thought I could bring that to those inside that hospital looking for healing, support, any signs of people. It was a ghost town. It was just bare.”
“I know what it’s like to be in the hospital with a loved one who is very sick. I can’t imagine not even being able to be there.”
Patients who would otherwise be isolated and alone are able to look out their windows and see the drummers, says Mitchell.
Some have even connected with him online after they have recovered.
“When I see those things, online or in person, it’s like a miracle. It’s breathtaking. That’s why we continue, the beat goes on because we see this every week.”
Dozens of moments, some big, some small.
One in particular, observed through a patient’s window from the parking lot on March 22, 2021, will stay with him.
listen
“A gentleman was in the last moments of his life. His feet were tapping to our drums, and his eyes were lit up, full of light,” recalls Mitchell.
“We were outside drumming while this man passed away. He was tapping his feet to our drumbeat, and he went into the next world with peace. We were part of that. There’s no word that can describe that.”
Mitchell and his drummers have no plans to stop, even after the pandemic ends.
They hope to eventually collaborate with Northern Health to continue ceremonies in the future.
listen
“I don’t want this to ever stop. This is something that needs to happen for people who are going through trauma, people who need comfort,” he said.
“I want to be able to bring the drumming and the heartbeat and the smudging and the sharing and the praying, to people who desperately need it.”