cikâstêpayihcikêwin - Allen Sapp otâcimowin

At an early age Allen recognized he had a “special gift to see”. A gift he expressed through his love of drawing and art, Allen was encouraged by his grandmother to grow in his gifts and value the ways of the past.

Every day. He used to do some drawing at night when everybody went to bed using a lamp.

His grandfather taught him to work and how to use his hands. He taught him the need to respect all things.

I know he was kept by his grandparents up in Red Pheasant. The Soonias' were known for hardworking people. Very hard working people.

In his early teens, Allen was an awkward young man, his illnesses left him frail and unable to keep up with his peers. He was sent to a residential school where he struggled with loneliness, and the demands of a new language far away from home. When Allen turned 16 years his grandfather came to Onion Lake School to get him, he needed him back on the farm and so once again his grandparents re-assumed their rightful role as teachers of their grandson. On that farm, Allen lived an unremarkable life, a life defined by the cycles of the seasons, birth and death, planting and harvesting, gathering and hunting. Each day brought their own simple and ceaseless demands, getting water, chopping wood, tending the animals. Allen remained working on the farm and looking after his grandparents until the death of his grandmother in 1963. It was only then that Allen became aware of the City of North Battleford, thirty miles away from his home.