Whanganui iwi move onto Pākaitore/Moutoa Gardens for two nights next week, to mark 22 years since they reclaimed a place important to them in a 79-day occupation.
Since 1995 February 28 has been Pākaitore Day, the anniversary of the start of that reclamation/occupation.
The day falls on a Tuesday this year, so schools and kohanga reo will be part of it, finance team member Mariana Waitai said.
The section of Somme Pde between the gardens and river will be closed for the day, for safety as people move back and forth, and stalls will sell kai.
Whanganui iwi go onto the gardens on Monday to set up. On the 28th they have karakia by the river at 5am, followed by breakfast. After that schools and kohanga reo start arriving.
This year they will include some "mainstream" schools, Ms Waitai said. There's a powhiri at 9am, for people new to the place and people carrying photographs of those who have died during the previous year.
There will be activities and entertainment for children until lunchtime, including a triathlon and a performance by Te Taikura o Te Awa Tupua. They are an older kapa haka group, "the ones holding the songs" that children will learn to sing.
The afternoon brings more entertainment. At about 5pm members of the Pakaitore Oral History Project present their work to Whanganui iwi. It consists of 50 sound interviews about the 1995 occupation. Members of the iwi, council, police, reporters and others were interviewed.
The project has already been presented at two international oral history conferences, and the set of recordings will be available in the Whanganui museum and library and the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.
After that Pakaitore Trust chairwoman Miriama Cribb will speak. The trust is to be wound up after the third reading of the Whanganui River Settlement bill, with its functions moved to the new Nga Tangata Tiaki governance group.
Then there's "a great big feed" for whoever is there, and more entertainment, finishing about 8pm.
After another overnight the iwi pack up and leave on Wednesday.