Grotto Gardens opened up its doors over the weekend by holding a special celebration.

The celebration hosted by the Maple Creek tourist attraction had, for the first time, the Nekaneet First Nation set up a teepee that will be used to teach visitors about indigenous culture.

Before the teepee was set up on Saturday, the Nekaneet First Nation held a special ceremony where they blessed the ground where the teepee would stand. Something that Dana Hassett, the co-owner of the Grotto Gardens, said she was honoured to be a part of.

"The Nekaneet First Nation set up a sweat lodge in the back of our Grotto Gardens area," she said. "We took part in the sacred ceremony to bless the ground where the teepee was going to be the next day. It was really quite lovely to be apart of, and it was a great experience. Everybody that I had invited had gone away from it with being moved and it was quite a spiritual experience for them."

Hassett said that the feelings she felt regarding the ceremony were almost indescribable.

"It went over very well," she said. "It was quite sacred, and it was the spiritual cleansing. People were moved, they were emotional. It's pretty hard to put into words, and I think they would say the same. It probably gets lost in words. People probably would have to experience it themselves."

Hassett added that she had the idea for the event after speaking to an elder from the Nekaneet.

"I had spoken with an elder from Nekaneet," she said. "She's made teepees in the past, and I knew of that. So I asked her about that and so we just through conversation we kind of put together a bit of a partnership in thinking that she could come down and we could start with the teepee, and then part of putting a teepee up involved a ceremony that they wanted to do prior. We were honoured to be apart of that, and it went from there."

Hasset said that they hope to accomplish a multitude of things including setting an example of how two cultures can work together and to teach people about the indigenous culture. 

"There is the part of truth and reconciliation that's going on with the indigenous people and that was just our call to action as being part of that and developing relationships with them," she said. "We apart of Sask Tourism and right now indigenous tourism is something that people are very much interested in learning about the culture. It's kind of different areas that we pulled together, and it made sense to us that it was something we wanted to try out and we brought it all together."

Hassett also hopes that communities and people can learn from how the people of Maple Creek and the Nekaneet have been able to work together for decades. 

"We are a different area. We have always been able to work together, to a certain extent. I think this is just something that we can do and it might be the way for others to see it and also jump on board and try to work together."

Hasset added that the whole weekend is a memory she is going to take with her and cherish.