by Ted Binnema, François Lanoë and Heinz W. Pyszczyk
University of Alberta Press
2025/$39.00/232 pP.

When it comes to navigating in unfamiliar terrain, today’s travellers have many options based on GPS systems. I’m a bit of a luddite with my boat anchor of an iPhone, but it does have the county map on it showing every quarter section of land, and landowner’s name, for miles around. If all else fails, I have topo maps for old school route finding, thanks to generations of cartographers who have plotted the entire country in a series of grids based on calculations of latitude and longitude. But in Cartographic Poetry we learn that Indigenous people, the Siksika and Gros Ventre, had a totally different way of navigating, based not on mathematical measurement but on landmarks, particularly rivers, that were, and are, of cultural, historical and spiritual significance. The authors note that “Poetry is language condensed: Siksika cartography is landscape distilled,” that is to say, not only landmarks but the history of a nation was distilled in the minds of the First Nations travellers and guides. Every river, every mountain, every buffalo jump was a living story in the mind of the people.

This was the mental cartography the early fur traders relied on, while exploring the west with Cree and other Indigenous guides. One notable explorer was Peter Fidler, a Hudson’s Bay Company surveyor and map maker. In 1792, guided by Sakatow and his band of Piikani, he made a winter journey from Buckingham House on the North Saskatchewan River south to the Oldman River gap. Nearly a decade later he established the short-lived HBC trading post of Chesterfield House, where he asked the Siksika leader Ac ko mak ki (Old Swan) to draw a map of the land south of the post, an area that at the time was a blank spot on European maps. Fidler, writes author Ted Binnema in one of his chapters, took great care in getting his guides to draw on paper the maps they held in their minds. Among explorers in that era, he “was unique in his systematic efforts to preserve and document Indigenous cartographic conventions.” Indeed, Cartographic Poetry contains a wealth of ethnographic detail on place names thanks to the meticulous care Fidler took with his Siksika and Gros Ventre informants.

The maps drawn for Fidler are very different from the European tradition of mapping. They are minimalist by necessity, since they would have been typically drawn in the snow, in sand or mud, or upon a piece of hide using charcoal or other medium. They show the Rockies, the “Back-Bone of the Earth” to the Piikani people, as a pair of double lines in Alberta bending east to the Musselshell River in Montana and then south again to the Big Horn Mountains. From it, the major rivers are drawn simply as lines leading out to the plains with the Indigenous names attached by Fidler. We are then shown their transition in Fidler’s hands to maps a fur trader might understand. Next, this Indigenous knowledge passes from the HBC to the famous British cartographer, Aaron Arrowsmith, for his 1802 map of North America. The authors point out that Fidler, if allowed, would have made a much better map than Arrowsmith. The latter, to “…make his depiction plausible to a western reader, invented sinuous river courses and confluences even though he had no evidence for them.” His map was relied on by Lewis and Clark for their much-ballyhooed continental transit in 1804 (which had already been done with zero fanfare by Alexander Mackenzie in 1793), but Arrowsmith’s map “…contributed nothing to the success of the Corps of Discovery.”

Today these maps “are priceless treasures,” write the authors. In publishing them they hope others will “become as fascinated by the maps, their authors and the territories they depict as we are.” With this respectful, evocative study, they have succeeded.

Sid Marty’s most recent book is Oldman’s River, which won the Al and Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize in 2024.

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Singer near some aohtoksooki, or common yarrow.

Singer and his dog Zorro beside raised beds where he is growing native plants to preserve seeds and eventually fight back leafy spurge.

Ninaika’ksimii, or Louisiana sagewort, grows in Singer’s yard.

Leafy spurge, an invasive plant, grows in the prairie that Singer is working to restore.

Singer shows a goldenrod plant on the Kainai Blood Tribe reserve. Goldenrod is a native plant, but its Blackfoot name has been lost to colonization.

Api’soomaahka, or William Singer, is converting his cultivated land back to native grasslands. His father began growing crops on their land when Singer was a child. Cultivation introduced non-native species such as Kentucky Bluegrass, brome grasses and invasive spurge, which harm native medicine plants such as sage and sweetgrass. Singer watched these traditional plants disappear. Twelve years ago he began to restore the land to its former state, a project now called Naapi’s Garden. He uses controlled burns, goats and hand weeding to remove the yellow-flowered spurge, but its roots can extend nine metres deep. To protect traditional native plants, Singer grows sage, sweetgrass, mint and turnips in raised garden beds, collecting their seeds and reintroducing them to the land.

Photography by Amber Bracken

With information originally published in The Narwhal, July 31, 2020.

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The past few years have seen a resurgence of interest in the use of psychedelic substances. The word “psychedelic” is an umbrella term for natural or synthetic substances that alter the senses, change thinking and impact mood. Also known as hallucinogens, they belong to various classes of drugs, and include peyote, MDMA, LSD, ayahuasca, ketamine, psilocybin, ibogaine and others. Though it is not fully understood how the different classes of psychedelics might have a therapeutic effect, neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to “rewire” associations, impulses, emotions and memories—is thought to play an important role.

Psychedelics have been used by humans for various reasons, including traditional healing, spiritual practices and recreation, for millennia. They have received special legal and moral scrutiny in North America since their use became associated with the so-called “counterculture” of the 1960s. During that time in the US, the criminalization of psychedelics granted authorities a reason to target Vietnam war protesters. Since then, psychedelics have been subject to the “war on drugs.” In Canada psychedelics are considered a controlled substance with criminal repercussions whether one has them for personal use or with the intention to share with or sell to others.

This is why it was such a surprise to hear Mike Ellis, associate minister of mental health and addiction at the time, announce on October 5, 2022, that for patients with substance use disorders and trauma, psychedelics would now be available as treatments. Did I hear that correctly Alberta’s UCP has consistently opposed decriminalization and regulation of illegal drugs. In the words of its previous leader, Jason Kenney, “flooding the market with government-provided illegal drugs is not something Alberta will be doing.” Yet, with this new policy, the UCP would allow criminalized drugs to be used in as-yet unproven therapies for substance use disorders.

It was such a surprise to hear that psychedelics would now be available in Alberta as treatments.

As an addictions physician, I pay close attention to changes in drug policy. As a street doctor with family-physician values, I’m constantly on the lookout for new resources for my patients. I wanted to believe there was something in Alberta’s new regulations that would help my patients.

I had grounds for skepticism. At the same October 2022 press conference, in just as radical a departure, Ellis announced new restrictions to supports for patients with opioid use disorder. Those patients’ physicians would be prohibited from offering certain treatments, and would even be required to send patients to a difficult-to-access clinic called the Narcotic Transition Service to be taken off their medication. Tapering stable patients off their opioid medications can sharply increase the risk of death from drug toxicity and should only be done cautiously in the context of a strong therapeutic alliance, such as with one’s primary care provider. It was devastating news for patients who were stable on these medications. For some the change proved fatal.

At the time, the juxtaposition of these two changes puzzled me. Why were evidence-based harm-reduction interventions being quashed while unproven therapies using illegal psychedelic drugs—that the UCP until recently found abhorrent—were receiving enthusiastic endorsement?

On Tuesdays I wear work boots and cargo pants. The extra pockets are needed for latex gloves, a mask and hand sanitizer. I stuff donated socks, first-aid supplies and throat lozenges into a backpack. In winter I layer on thick long johns and a toque. A portable oxygen monitor and naloxone kit are clipped to a D-ring on my waistband, and my boot treads have spikes. I want to be prepared for anything. Not only are Tuesday patients often quite ill, but many have had terrible experiences in the healthcare system: stinging moments, while sick and asking for help, of dehumanization or outright racism.

Having internalized the stigma of violence over many years, homeless people often tolerate subpar conditions of outreach care. They don’t expect anything more than what US medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer calls “shitty care for the poor.” They will express gratitude for a bit of antiseptic spray and a band-aid to cover chronic ulcers and emotional wounds. Just doing my job, I say, struggling to tuck in ragged edges of tattered gauze. I try to hide my fury and sadness from patients who need their doctor to have a strong back.

The chronic rubbing of the bandage’s ragged edges, combined with the recent government announcements and my stubborn yearning for less-shitty care for the poor, may be why, one day last winter, I noticed a chic new storefront clinic near downtown. The interior gleams with glass and white marble. Plants thrive on windowsills streaming with natural light. I imagine the air is filtered just so, warm and humid with a hint of eucalyptus. I gaze up from my slushy streetcorner at shiny chrome letters: The Newly Institute.

I pull out my smartphone: “More like a spa than a clinic,” reads an online review. The Newly Institute website confirms it is a facility for psychedelic treatments enabled by new UCP legislation—ibogaine, psilocybin and ketamine, though Newly’s director is also “looking forward to pushing the boundaries of psychedelic therapy by employing substances like LSD and ayahuasca.” Photos portray clinicians in immaculate scrubs while executives in smart suits exude corporate confidence. A beautiful place, filled with beautiful people, for helping folks struggling with their mental health. I feel dowdy and damp in my muddy boots and sweaty layers.

Nevertheless I try to imagine practising within the Newly Institute’s pristine walls. In my mind I steam up a fresh espresso between appointments as patients relax amongst the plants and pleasantries. I stride across gleaming maple hardwood in spotless sneakers, dripping with efficacy. If this place, I reason, provides the newest treatments for the most intractable cases, then my current patients would be good candidates for its services. I think especially of one soul who lives with complex post-traumatic stress and substance-use disorder. He has been to residential treatment programs many times and to residential school before that. So many of my patients carry the most severe forms of the illnesses the innovative Newly Institute treats. I want to get them inside. So I make a call.

“I have a few patients I would like to refer to your clinic,” I say. A staffer in the spa clinic reassures me that they can help.

I had noted that the website mentions drumming, so the first thing I ask is whether there is an Indigenous adviser or elder on staff. The staffer apologizes. No, there is not.

Most of my patients live in homelessness or poverty, I explain, still a little hopeful. Is there a cost for treatment Well, yes. Consultations and treatment are “fully private,” I’m told, and paid for by the “client, an employer or by an insurance company.” Later I discover that the cost of psychedelic treatment courses varies widely but can range into the thousands of dollars. The standard one-month “intensive outpatient” program for mental health at Newly, for example, costs $12,950. Bloom Clinic in Calgary advertises a 10-week ketamine-assisted program for $5,965.

I try again. If someone has Alberta disability or income supports, will they be covered No. What about Indigenous patients with status under the Indian Act No.

The friendly person educates me cheerily: most of their clients—I feel chastised for saying “patients”—with substance-use disorders use only alcohol, or maybe cannabis, but not opioids. Those clients, I am advised, should first go to medical detox if they have opioid-use disorder.

Thanking the person on the phone, I feel a familiar disappointment, but also bafflement. If only their suggestion were that easy. So-called “detox,” or safe withdrawal, is a notorious bottleneck in Alberta’s system of care. Getting a spot when it’s needed is nearly impossible. Instead, in a wealthy province that now sees a drug poisoning death every five hours, our government is ushering in an intervention that helps only those who can afford it and are using the “right” substances.

I asked Dr. Leah Mayo, Parker Research Chair in Psychedelics at the University of Calgary, about the access disparity in the world she studies. She agreed that “major limitations to these interventions [are] becoming mainstream, and a lot of thought will need to go into how to make access equitable.”

And equity is about much more than simply access or cost. As a young anthropologist, I worked in rural Mexico with a group of curanderos, or traditional healers. During long drives between Indigenous villages, where they worked with young mothers learning to grow and use medicinal herbs, I listened to the healers as they grappled with the problem of commercialization of their plant medicines. In a recent forum on psychedelics, the Canadian Public Health Association voiced a similar concern: “…We must question how traditional Indigenous knowledge, cultural rights and opportunities for economic participation will be adequately protected as psychedelics gain prominence in Canada.”

Though services might struggle to be inclusive of Indigenous practices and perspectives, they must. We have the guidance: biomedical colonialism is addressed in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action and in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and should always be explicitly included in any new health-related regulations, programs or services.

Drug policy in Alberta is determined not by science, safety, access or equity but by commercial potential.

Maybe, after witnessing the toxic-drug crisis rampage for the better part of the past decade, I’m becoming impatient. Novel approaches take time; we have to gather data and properly implement sensitive aspects such as inclusion and reconciliation.

It has been well over a year, however, since Alberta’s new regulations were implemented, and though scientific evidence might someday prove the therapeutic value of psychedelics, it hasn’t happened yet. In a search of clinical trials registered by Health Canada for two of the psychedelic drugs approved under the UCP’s new regulations, one of the drugs—psilocybin—had only two clinical trials, both now closed. The other—a traditional central African root medicine called ibogaine—has no clinical trials registered. Dr. Mayo acknowledged that only one psychedelics clinic in Calgary, SABI Mind, is currently involved in a regulated clinical trial of its therapies. (The Newly Institute website has since removed references to treatments using ibogaine and psilocybin. Other clinics, including ATMA CENA in Edmonton and Calgary, are offering MDMA and psilocybin as well as ketamine.)

Meanwhile, evidence in favour of the interventions blocked by the UCP’s new legislation, including studies of prescribed safer supply of opioids, continues to accumulate.

Despite Mike Ellis’s stated rationale, his ministry’s mash-up of regulatory changes improves neither access nor safety for my patients. So, what’s really behind the changes The answer is disconcerting. Many psychedelic facilities and, it should be noted, residential treatment facilities receiving massive taxpayer-funded “investments,” are run by privately held, for-profit companies. The reality is that the public system of care holds no market prospects, while, as noted on Nasdaq.com, “psychedelic stocks have a bright future.”

The truth is that even during a crisis that annually kills thousands of Albertans, and despite sneaking in words such as “compassion” and “stewardship,” drug policy in this province is determined not by principles of science, safety, access, equity or human rights but by commercial potential. Alberta’s UCP government believes that health services should be driven not by a patient-centred mission but by marketing strategies like the Newly Institute’s: “We are firmly rooted in our collective commitment to excellence, whether it’s patient care, inter-office communication, or the impact of the colour we choose for our wallpaper in the office bathrooms. No detail is too small to be considered.”

As I lace up my spiked boots for yet another Tuesday of street medicine, I’m conflicted. While I’m glad for the existence of clean and beautiful places for patients, and for new approaches to treating severe mental health disorders, I recognize the pipe dream. My espresso fantasy melts away like dirty snow as I realize that neither my patients nor I would be any more welcome in a fancy private clinic than we are in general society. This is because, wherever we go, we expose the marble-clad foundation of discrimination upon which both for-profit clinics and society itself are built.

While the UCP cheers on the psychedelics industry to monetize its visions, I am deeply sad for the ongoing loss of lives and dreams in my community. Regardless of whether we use the word “patients” or “clients,” people are still people, not commodities, with challenges that are still illnesses, not market prospects. It turns out that what we sacrifice in a private system is accountability. Even more chilling is what we sacrifice in a for-profit health system: care.

If current conservative governments continue their path of destruction all in the name of profit, too many people will have to continue to hold their breath while waiting for care out in the cold, some until they simply stop breathing.

Bonnie Larson is a physician and community organizer who for 15 years has worked with people experiencing homelessness.

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by Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
with Sabina Trimble and Peter Fortna
University of Calgary Press
2024/$34.99/352 pp.

Canada has a tragic and shameful history of evicting Indigenous Peoples from their homelands when national parks were carved out of their territory. Wood Buffalo National Park (WBNP) is the largest such park in Canada, encompassing nearly 45,000 km². Created in 1922, it led to the expulsion and exclusion of Dënesųłıné (Dene) Peoples from their land. Remembering Our Relations centres on the oral histories of Dënesųłıné Elders, taking their experiences and knowledge seriously, and exposing the traumatic intergenerational harm of WBNP and how the creation, expansion and management of the park violated their Treaty 8 rights to their territories. The book demonstrates that Elders retain deep and detailed knowledge and interpretations of events, experiences and promises that were never included in or were erased from the documentary record. It also demonstrates their strength and resilience.

Drawing on dozens of interviews completed over several decades, the book is not just a community “engaged” history, it is a community–directed history. Willow Springs Strategic Solutions historians Peter Fortna and Sabina Trimble worked with the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) and that community planned and conceived the project, developed the research plan and worked on the manuscript at every stage.

WBNP spans the boundaries of Alberta and the Northwest Territories and contains vast forests, wetlands, grasslands, salt plains and boreal plains. It houses the Peace–Athabasca Delta, the world’s largest inland boreal delta and second-largest freshwater delta. It is home to multiple species of waterbirds, fish and mammals. This abundant area was the traditional territory of at least 11 Dene, Métis and Cree communities. The ACFN is one of these, and their oral history and the archaeological record indicate they thrived for thousands of years here—until the park was founded.

The federal objective for the park was to preserve the last remaining wood bison herd. In 1926 over 6,500 plains buffalo were brought in and the park expanded, absorbing land the ACFN had lived on and harvested from for generations. Initially the Treaty 8 Peoples were permitted to live and harvest in the park, but after the expansion a permitting system regulated access and harvesting laws were introduced. Dene access to the park was eroded and restricted and people were evicted from their homes. In some cases wardens burned their cabins. People faced severe hardship and even starvation. Over decades, park officials repeatedly ignored attempts by the Dene to assert their rights. Racist rhetoric about Indigenous harvesters was deployed to justify their exclusion and eviction. But contrary to settler stereotypes, as the book demonstrates, responsible stewardship practices were at the heart of Dene legal systems and social worlds.

Important features of the book include a review of the scholarship on national parks that displaced, excluded and impoverished Indigenous Peoples in Canada. This is situated within a global pattern of settler colonial work to advance control over Indigenous land and resources. Yet we learn that the creation of WBNP is distinct in several ways, as here settler hunting and tourism were not central priorities, and some Indigenous harvesting was allowed within park boundaries. There is a useful appendix on building a community-directed work of oral history, and digital copies of archival documents can be viewed by scanning the QR codes. Links to the voices of the Elders themselves, some in Dene, are also provided through QR codes. Excellent maps and stunning photographs both historic and recent are included, though I wished some were in colour. Overall, this is an important book that Albertans should read and reflect on.

Sarah Carter is a professor in the department of history, classics and religion at the University of Alberta.

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by Robert R. Janes
ROUTLEDGE
2024/$39.99/180 pp.

Robert R. Janes’s new book, Museums and Societal Collapse, asks us to consider the role of the museum in a world on the verge of catastrophe. A former president and CEO of the Glenbow Museum (1989–2000) and now an independent scholar–practitioner and author, Janes is critical of a sector he feels has averted its eyes from the oncoming climate disaster and is struggling to deviate from a capitalist–colonialist vision of museums. An ideology of growth—of collections, visitors and funding—leaves little room for the central purposes of the museum itself, he argues, asserting that if museums were to come to terms with the suffering and trauma around them, they could better serve their communities in meaningful and tangible ways.

Janes unflinchingly expresses the urgency of this task. “The purpose of this book,” he writes, “is to introduce the museum community to the threat of societal collapse by initiating a frank and constructive conversation about the perils of such a future, as well as the roles and responsibilities of museums.” While he seeks to be realistic about the role of museums, arguing that as agents of civil society they are unlikely to have a major political or technological impact, he suggests that by leaning on their strengths as highly trusted public institutions that hold memory, bridge nature and culture, and create and disseminate knowledge, museums “can be lifeboats to assist with the creation of a new narrative for a new future.” This new future will be local, says Janes, requiring local narratives and local solutions that museums are well suited to bring about.

“Museums are tool, technology, history and art banks,” he writes, “as valuable as seed banks.” In other words, museum collections are “knowledge banks” that hold answers to questions such as: “How will our civilization adapt to the unfolding consequences of global warming?” Towards this, Janes sees opportunities in “using collections as sources of past adaptive knowledge in advance of a low-energy future.” While it may be unsettling to imagine a future where obsolete technologies become necessary again, in the “collapse or post-collapse” scenarios that Janes sees as likely, he argues that museum collections have the potential to become practically relevant in ways they have never been before.

Ideas such as this are a compelling reason for museum practitioners to read this book. They will find it overflowing with ideas to enliven their collections and programs, and to make their work more relevant, timely and meaningful. As president of the Glenbow, Janes was instrumental in the repatriation of Indigenous belongings to the Blackfoot Confederacy, and the book draws on this and other experiences from his long career to provide practical guidance for embedding reconciliation into museum operations, along with innovative exhibition ideas and suggestions for flattening hierarchical leadership structures. Whether you believe societal collapse is imminent or take a more optimistic view of the future, Janes offers pertinent insights into how we might rethink the role of public institutions in the face of an uncertain future.

On that future, Janes says “hope has little to offer” in the face of rising temperatures and an economic system locked in to fossil fuel production. Still, he writes, “hopeless need not mean helpless. On the contrary, hopelessness is the springboard to helpfulness—supportive, effective and useful.” For those willing to stare the possibility of societal collapse in the eye, the book is a practical roadmap for “what museum practitioners and academics must relinquish and reform if museums are to unlock and steward their inherent force for good.”

Caroline Loewen is a museum curator and writer in Calgary.

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by Darrel J. McLeod
DOUGLAS & MCINTYRE
2023/$24.95/320 pp.

While Darrel McLeod’s first novel is set primarily in the Indigenous Dakelh country close to Prince George, his central character, James, hearkens back to growing up in a part of Alberta with a distinct Cree presence—his people. The families and neighbours he writes about could easily have been my neighbours and schoolmates. I identified too with the familiar Vancouver scenes that open the novel—the market on Granville Island, the streets of Kitsilano.

But mainly the narrative focuses on the term that James, an experienced teacher, spends as principal of a rundown school in the Dakelh settlement of Chezgh’un. With promises the school will be rebuilt along with lodging for himself, he embraces the chance to bring in newer, effective teaching methods as well as helping a damaged community heal—as a staff member says, “Our natural and cultural way of raisin’ kids was completely broken up in four generations of residential school.”

The Dakelh language is quite different from Cree, but James responds to its Indigenous textures, appreciating connections to the natural and spiritual world. Communality too is an important aspect of Dakelh culture. McLeod brings humanity and humour to many scenes, including a “bullshitting” competition around a campfire. Especially touching are episodes featuring youngsters at a fishing camp, later presenting what they’ve learned at a concert with songs and drumming. McLeod is a master of sensory detail as he writes of the food and fun involved. A sex education session with teens involving bananas and condoms will leave you laughing.

As an educator and musician, James is someone we come to admire. But he’s not without rough edges. Although he has a partner in Vancouver, he isn’t above indulging in risky hook-ups on the road. “Attractive men… were his kryptonite.” Fair enough… but AIDS, in the context of the 1980s, comes across in the novel as more of an afterthought than the terrifying presence it was for gay men then.

A Governor-General’s Award winner for his memoir Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age, McLeod experiences a few bumps in this transition into fiction. We access the narrative entirely through James except for an inexplicable lapse when it shifts into a secondary character’s point of view for four pages. No editorial catch there. And, while the story emerges as it is happening, there is one jarring slip into future reflective mode: “For years afterwards, James would dream about that day, wondering what was real and what he imagined.” Still, a worthy read from an author who knows first-hand of country roads, tribal politics, the wisdom of elders and the promise of youth.

Glen Huser is the author of Burning the Night (NeWest).

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by Jessica Johns
HARPERCOLLINS
2023/$24.99/304 pp.

A coming home narrative wrapped in horror, grief and dreams, Bad Cree is a captivating debut by Jessica Johns. Johns is a member of Sucker Creek First Nation who won the 2020 Writers’ Trust Journey Prize for a short story—also called “Bad Cree”—which she expanded into this novel. The book is both terrifying and heartwarming, with protagonist Mackenzie plagued by gruesome dreams, and seeking out fierce and hilarious matriarchs to help unravel the mysteries of her very real nightmares. They assist in various ways: early on Mackenzie phones one of her aunties, who is in the middle of a “ten-thousand-dollar dual dab” bingo night. On a smoke break she calls Mackenzie back. After listening to her dreams, she says, “My girl, I might be an old Indian, but I’m not a goddamn dream oracle.” Good medicine like this is sprinkled throughout.

Mackenzie is torn by guilt about her sister’s death, and the novel follows her journey home from the Pacific coast to the prairies, from Burnaby to High Prairie. It’s a setting I responded to. As someone who grew up without reading or seeing much representation of places such as Edmonton in popular culture or in the classroom, I spent my adolescence dreaming of moving away to Vancouver. But maybe I wanted, as Johns succinctly writes, to “just leave the bad behind.” The bad being grief.

I could imagine myself anywhere from age 13 to my early 20s appreciating the horrors of Bad Cree but desperately needing to hear the life lessons it contains. While there are some grisly dreams—and the whisperings of evil creatures that some nêhiyawak would prefer not to name—the subtle teachings on grief and the importance of family are beautifully composed.

The novel also presents a refreshing representation of some of the contemporary issues that urban Indigenous peoples experience today, from Mackenzie’s non-binary kin in the city to the repeated use of checking one’s shared locations. It’s relatable, and yet each character has their own unique rhythm and way of being that kept pulling me in to learn more.

Later in Mackenzie’s quest for insight into her nightmares she searches online for dream knowledge, finding vague answers from Reiki healers to dissertation papers, before realizing: “Why am I searching for my answers somewhere else?” She understands she doesn’t need the internet to learn what her family must already know. All she has to do is move past the fear of having her family worry about her—give up control and become more vulnerable in her search for help and guidance.

But it isn’t so simple. The grief in this novel is both a haunting and a place for intergenerational healing. We might run away from grief, but it can also guide us in finding our way home.

Kaitlyn Purcell is a Ph.D. candidate at the U of C.

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“News like that will get you out of bed fast,” said Yellow Old Woman. He was aware that the vote was coming, but had not held out much hope that the dozen personal items that once belonged to the revered Blackfoot leader would ever make it back home. Half an hour later Tony Eccles, the curator of ethnography at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter, the place where Crowfoot’s regalia has been for the last 142 years, also called to share the news.

That vote marked a pivotal step in a journey that had begun in a storeroom at the RAMM in November of 2013. The sad thing, Yellow Old Woman explained, was that some of the people he set out with on the journey have since died. “The ceremonial men and women who attended the negotiating of that time, more than half have passed away. So that’s how long it’s been.”

In the fall of 2013 Yellow Old Woman, a ceremonial elder and the head of repatriation for Siksika, travelled to England as part of an eight-person delegation from the four First Nations in Alberta and Montana—Kainai, Siksika, Piikani and South Peigan—that comprise the Blackfoot Confederacy. The group was part of a research project called The Blackfoot Collections in UK Museums Network, which also included academics and staff from the University of Aberdeen, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) at Cambridge and the RAMM. The idea for the trip was inspired by another project, where five Blackfoot buckskin shirts from the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University had been loaned for exhibitions at the Glenbow and Galt museums in Alberta. The exhibitions included opportunities for First Nations people to handle and try on the shirts in what were much more intimate experiences than your typical everything-behind-glass visit to a museum.

The goal of these collaborations between First Nations and museums was twofold. Blackfoot elders and ceremonialists provided cultural information about the artifacts that dramatically improved how they were curated, described and cared for by the museums. And Indigenous people got access to invaluable cultural material that had long since vanished from their communities. The projects were an attempt to bridge disparate worldviews of the purpose, nature and provenance of the same set of historic objects.

Museums legally own their collections or, as in the case of the RAMM, steward them on behalf of governments. These institutions have extensive expertise and resources to preserve and protect the integrity of artifacts in perpetuity. And museums such as the MAA, RAMM and Pitt Rivers welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors every year with a mandate to showcase the world.

For First Nations peoples, however, many of the artifacts in question are not inanimate objects. Some are sacred and essential for carrying out spiritual ceremonies. They have immense potential for revitalizing cultural practices that strengthen identity and empower communities. Also, many of these artifacts were stolen or sold under extreme duress. They’re the spoils of colonialism. Some of the oldest artifacts from North American Indigenous nations are in museums overseas. Items from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries were sent far away to wealthy patrons and private collections that then ended up in museums. Laura Peers, an anthropologist who co-created the Blackfoot Shirts Project with Alison Brown, estimates that thousands of Blackfoot artifacts live in English and European museums.

“If you think about the history of museum-collecting practices and what museums try to do, there’s been this idea of museums as places where knowledge is created and to a degree… controlled, with cataloging and classification and all those kinds of things,” said Brown. “But when you take that away and confront people with items that are related to their heritage, particularly if they’ve experienced colonial forces… these things can become triggers for all kinds of stories in history and memory, and reminders of what’s not been passed on as well as what could still be.”

The vote by Exeter councillors in early April to return Crowfoot’s regalia occurred at a time of active debate across England and Europe about whether and how museums should decolonize their collections. Arts Council England had commissioned the Institute of Art and Law in February to develop new guidance for UK museums on repatriation. The report is scheduled for release in the fall of 2020 and will outline the ethical and legal considerations, as well as best-practice examples, involved in making decisions on how and when to return objects to their originating communities. The report follows on the heels of new policies in France, Germany and Holland that guide the repatriation of colonial-era artifacts.

Yellow Old Woman remembers the exact moment back in 2013 in the RAMM’s storage room when the conservation-grade cabinet drawer slid open to reveal the regalia. “It was really emotional,” he said. The group sang a ceremonial song to honour Chief Crowfoot and smoked a pipe. “The songs that we sing to honour chiefs all of a sudden became very powerful and brought tears to our elders.”

The artifacts include a buckskin shirt with scalp hair, leggings with red feathers and fringes, beaded pouches, a steel hunting knife lashed with the front part of a bear’s jaw, a bundle of feathers and a deer-hide necklace strung with grizzly bear claws, beads, animal teeth and brass studs. Chief Crowfoot’s bow is in the RAMM’s permanent gallery as part of the Americas display, but the rest of the regalia is in storage. The museum undertook a major conservation project in the late 1990s to restore and protect the artifacts. The shirt and leggings were last displayed in 2012 as part of an exhibition called “Warriors of the Plains” that was created and toured by the British Museum.

Yellow Old Woman said Chief Crowfoot could have worn many of the items when he signed Treaty 7 on behalf of the Siksika Nation in September of 1877.

He described how the Blackfoot elders quickly realized that some of the material had been misidentified. But they decided against revealing some of that information to museum staff. “We were reluctant to share too much,” Yellow Old Woman said. “Some stuff we [didn’t] expose because of the sacredness. It has ties to the land, to the spirit of the animal, and we believe those are living things and they give us power.”

Given the spiritual importance of the regalia, Yellow Old Woman wonders why Chief Crowfoot would have given it to Cecil Denny, an officer with the North West Mounted Police who befriended the chief and was staying in his camp during the time of the signing of the treaty. Denny’s sister loaned the artifacts to the RAMM in 1878 and the museum purchased them in 1904 for £10. The Blackfoot have a strong tradition of hospitality and giving gifts, which Yellow Old Woman said probably played a role in the exchange. Also, Crowfoot had lost many of his children to disease and often took others under his wing. “He adopted a lot, and that’s basically what he did with this individual,” Yellow Old Woman said.

The day after the visit to the RAMM storage room in November 2013, the Blackfoot delegation met with museum and city officials for a public panel discussion. “They all agreed that the material they had should be returned to the Blackfoot,” Yellow Old Woman said. But museum staff also cautioned that it would take time and further discussions before Crowfoot’s regalia could be repatriated.

Many Guns explained that Crowfoot earned the respect and leadership of his people because of his remarkable physical courage (he once killed a grizzly bear with a spear) and his keen instincts for diplomacy and peacemaking. He was the primary negotiator for the Blackfoot Confederacy when establishing the terms of Treaty 7 with the representatives of the British Crown. The chief of each of the five participating First Nations—Kainai, Siksika, Piikani, Nakoda and Tsuut’ina—all signed the treaty, but it was Crowfoot who laid the groundwork for the consensus.

“He was able to understand the bigger, really bigger, long-term picture,” Many Guns said. “We ended up with even more constraints and more difficulties, but I believe if he had taken another way, there’s a good possibility we wouldn’t even exist today.”

Above and beyond his prowess in battle and proclivity for peacemaking, Crowfoot is a significant figure for the Blackfoot because he exemplified an important cultural value. Many Guns explained that the wavy line in Blackfoot imagery symbolizes how change is an ineluctable part of life. Learning to navigate change is considered an invaluable skill. “Let’s say you get diagnosed with diabetes; it’s being able to pick up that disease and walk with it with pride,” she said. “Let’s say you were going through changes, you’ve lost your family; it’s picking up that disaster and walking with pride so that you can show your children how to deal with change.”

Crowfoot was born in 1830 and grew up when the Blackfoot tribes controlled a vast area of the northwestern plains from the Rocky Mountains in the west into what is now east-central Saskatchewan to the east, the North Saskatchewan River to the north and the Yellowstone River in the south. He emerged as an influential leader as European settlers brought catastrophe—smallpox epidemics, the whisky trade and the indiscriminate slaughter of the buffalo—undermining a way of life that had flourished for thousands of years.

“Everything in their world was gone or missing or no longer existed,” Many Guns said of the circumstances for the Blackfoot leading up to the Treaty 7 negotiations. She described how the Kainai and their chief, Red Crow, were late getting to the negotiations at Blackfoot Crossing in the fall of 1877. The tribe had gone south into the US to try and find a herd of buffalo to hunt. They ended up having to kill their horses and eat them, so they walked into camp.

“That’s when they knew there was no future, the buffalo were gone,” she said. “Crowfoot brought us through one of the most horrific periods in our history, and every part of his memory is really important. It reminds us of our resilience. It reminds us of our ability to change and adapt.”

In July 2014, as part of the Blackfoot Collections in UK Museums Project, Alison Brown, Tony Eccles and Anita Herle, a curator at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, visited Alberta and Montana. They spent two days at Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park, which is on the Siksika reserve an hour east of Calgary. The museum itself is built into a ridge overlooking the river valley where the treaty was signed. The building took 20 years and $30-million to construct. The architect, Ron Goodfellow, worked closely with Blackfoot elders to incorporate 17 cultural symbols into every facet of the design. Many Guns described Blackfoot Crossing as a story woven into the shape of a building. The architectural approach reflected the way Blackfoot stories and culture are imbricated with the landscape.

Jack Royal is the chief executive officer of the Blackfoot Confederacy Tribal Council, but was the president and general manager of Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park from when it opened in 2007 until the fall of 2017. He was there in the summer of 2014 and helped tour the guests from England. They explored the museum, its displays, on-site storage and research facilities. They also walked to Cannon Hill, where the treaty was signed, and visited Chief Crowfoot’s last tipi site and grave, which are all connected by a network of trails through the river valley.

It seemed like everything was in place after the visit, but then Royal started to get a series of emails from Eccles at RAMM. Questions about storage capacity, insurance and environmental controls. “We would send him an email and he wouldn’t respond for two or three months at a time,” Royal said. And when Royal would finally get a response it would include another question that would start the cycle again. Blackfoot Crossing submitted a formal repatriation request in 2015 and secured a grant from the Alberta government to fund the costs of safely transporting the artifacts. But as months turned into years, Royal said he encountered what felt like one arbitrary roadblock after another. When he left the organization in 2017, he was doubtful the regalia would ever return. “Obviously I am happy these things are finally coming home,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Camilla Hampshire, the museum manager at the RAMM, explained in an email that all those questions were part of their standard due diligence for all repatriation requests. Organizations are asked to provide information about governance, financial position, business plans and what they intend to do with the repatriated material. “It helps us compile a report and make a recommendation to councillors,” Hampshire wrote. “Blackfoot Crossing provided RAMM with a business plan for 2015–16 that suggested it was in an uncertain financial position, but none of the other documentation requested.”

Daryl Betenia, director of collections for the Glenbow, has been helping out behind the scenes since 2014. She provided advice to Blackfoot Crossing about various professional museum standards and technical details such as the right environmental conditions for exhibit cases. Betenia and Joanne Schmidt, the Indigenous Studies curator at the Glenbow, had a meeting at Blackfoot Crossing in May of 2019 to see where they were planning to display Crowfoot’s regalia.

“We were all incredibly impressed by what they had done. I think they could probably sell that model to other museums,” Betenia said. “Within a larger gallery, they created a separate space, which they were able to seal off and engineer so it’s able to maintain the appropriate humidity and they can control light levels.”

She too has been in contact with staff from the RAMM about the repatriation. “There appeared to be a great deal of concern on the part of the museum and Exeter about Blackfoot Crossing,” she said, particularly about appropriate museum standards and a lack of accreditation. “They were very focused on ensuring that if they do repatriate something, it goes to another museum and it gets appropriate museum care.”

Robert Janes, the director of the Glenbow at the time, and Gerald Conaty, the curator of Indigenous Studies, worked closely with Blackfoot leaders for over a decade before the release of that material. It was a decisive and ground-breaking decision that precipitated the creation of Alberta’s First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Act in 2000, which is still the only Canadian law on the books that deals with repatriation. The Blackfoot First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Regulation followed in 2004 as the means for applying the legislation.

Betenia said that at first she worried how the release of all those artifacts would affect the future and mission of the Glenbow. The museum was founded in 1966 by Eric Harvie, an oilman and philanthropist, who wanted to present the world to Alberta. “He was building these collections, and particularly international collections, as a way to offer an opportunity to Albertans to see things they would not otherwise see.” Releasing items out of the museum, and perhaps initiating a chain reaction that would hollow out the collection, could contradict that vision. But 20 years later no flood of repatriation requests has ever materialized. Betenia estimates they receive six requests every year and said they’ve proven to be a thoughtful and respectful experience for everyone involved. However, the regulation only covers Blackfoot items and has yet to be expanded to include First Nations from other parts of Alberta and Canada.

Betenia’s experience with repatriation trans-formed her perception of the role of museums and their relationship to the communities they serve. “We are stewards of a lot of this material rather than owners,” Betenia said. “These pieces are seen as living things that need to go home. I don’t think it’s our place to argue with that.”

I met Chief Ouray Crowfoot at the Blackfoot Confederacy Tribal Office in southeast Calgary at the end of May. He had just wrapped up a biweekly meeting with his counterparts from the Kainai, Piikani and South Peigan nations. We settled into chairs on opposite sides of a large boardroom on the third floor. Bottles of hand sanitizer were spaced evenly around the horseshoe-shaped arrangement of tables.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Ouray said. “I’ve only been chief six months, and three of that’s COVID months.” His father is from the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina; Ouray speaks with a strong southern accent, as though each sentence is gently easing back in a recliner chair until it finds the position of maximum comfort. His mother was Amelia Crowfoot Clark. Her father was Cecil Crowfoot. Cecil’s father was Joe Crowfoot. Joe’s father was Bear Ghost. Bear Ghost’s father was Chief Crowfoot.

“Actually, [his name] is Isapo-Muxika, which means Crow Indian’s Big Foot,” said Ouray. He explained that his great-great-great grandfather’s name was truncated during the treaty signing by an official who decreed it too long and cumbersome. The same goes for many of his forebears, who were given biblical names because the Indian agent couldn’t be bothered to learn or translate their original Blackfoot names.

Ouray, who turned 45 the day after our interview, was wearing a pink dress shirt. He looked the part of an energetic young politician. He has an MBA and a master’s degree in accounting and has spent most of his career in the financial industry, working for global corporations such as Ernst&Young and KPMG. “Five years ago, four years ago even, I had no desire, no plans to move to Canada or no plans or desires to be chief.” Ouray returned to Siksika to help his mom after she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in October of 2019, a month before the nomination day for the election of the new chief and council.

“We’re going to do a lot of great things with Siksika, and I can say one of the big things already is bringing this shirt back home,” he said. I asked him if he thought the letters that Premier Jason Kenney sent to various British officials, including the mayor of Exeter and the director of Arts Council England, in late 2019 and on behalf of Blackfoot Crossing had tipped the balance for the vote to repatriate the regalia. “Jason Kenney more or less pissed them off,” Ouray said. “I think he might have hurt it more than helped it.”

In early 2020 Ouray started having regular phone conversations with Camilla Hampshire, the manager of the RAMM. He often received calls from Hampshire first thing in the morning because of the seven-hour time difference. “Every question she had, every concern she had, I addressed it.” The chief and the museum manager first developed a rapport and then a solution. The RAMM would repatriate the regalia to the Siksika Nation, which would then release it to Blackfoot Crossing. “I think [it helped] that I was a chief and a Crowfoot descendant and gave them the rationale and let them know who I am,” he said. “I want it to be mutually beneficial. So when we go over there, we’re going to take a big crew. We’re going to have a big delegation. We’ll give them a gift.”

Ouray mentioned he had his eye on another personal item that belonged to his great-great-great grandfather. But it’s not at the RAMM. Most pictures of Crowfoot show a knot of some kind tied into his hair at the top of his head. It’s an owl’s head, and Ouray’s uncle, Strater Crowfoot, has it. “My uncle Strater was chief when they started doing those repatriations through the Glenbow and he got that,” he said.

The historian Hugh Dempsey wrote a biography of Crowfoot that includes a description of the owl’s head. Three Suns, Crowfoot’s predecessor as chief, gave it to him when he was a young warrior. Three Suns told him it would be his protection and he would become a great leader if he always carried it. After Crowfoot died in April of 1890 at Blackfoot Crossing, people sang mourning songs to the owl’s head in the hope it could bring him back to life. And then somehow, at some point, it ended up behind glass or in a drawer in a storage room at a museum.

Ouray hasn’t asked his uncle yet for Chief Crowfoot’s owl’s head. He’s waiting for the right moment. “I want to be able to feel like I earned it,” he said. “Respect is a gift earned, not given.” 

Doug Horner is a Calgary-based writer and editor. He won the 2019 Alberta Magazine Award for best essay.

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The post Crowfoot Comes Home appeared first on Alberta Views.

Aboriginal tourism is growing across Canada. Branding various activities through aboriginality is clearly attractive to Indigenous people, provinces and the Canadian state. As in other provinces, Indigenous people in Alberta are being encouraged to engage in “ecotourism,” in which visitors experience the environment in more gentle ways, and cultural tourism. A 2013 Travel Alberta report notes high demand for Aboriginal tourism experiences, “reflecting international interest in the plains First Peoples traditions.” Keith Henry, president of the Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada (ATAC), has urged Aboriginal leaders “to grow this sector and seize the economic opportunities of an increasing market demand.” The Aboriginal Tourism Association of BC says tourism is a perfect opportunity for Indigenous communities to do sustainable economic development. While generating income, First Nations can simultaneously educate tourists about local environments and practices that demonstrate care for the Earth, people and wildlife.

On the surface, such tourism appears to promote Indigenous economic development and create jobs. Its advocates suggest it can reduce poverty, model sound environmental practices and help keep cultural traditions alive. But it may not be as beneficial as some think.

Growing interest in Aboriginal tourism is tied to a shift in the wider industry toward “experiential tourism.” Experiential tourists want customized adventures that promise personal growth, reflection and a feeling of accomplishment. A 2013 study of urban Albertans who vacationed in rural Alberta showed that, of the 3 per cent who participated in Aboriginal tourism, most would do so more often if it offered “more immersive experiences.” While respondents didn’t say precisely what kind of experiences they meant, they clearly want to participate in activities rather than be passive consumers. In 2005 Clint Dunford, Alberta’s then-minister of Economic Development, said people who come from overseas to experience Aboriginal tourism want immersive experiences. Research shows that international tourists, much like locals, expect Aboriginal cultural tourism to offer opportunities for a nature-oriented and conscious spiritual enlightenment that helps them reconnect with the environment.

Aboriginal tourism is defined by ATAC as “all tourism businesses majority owned, operated and/or controlled by First Nations, Métis or Inuit peoples that can demonstrate a connection and responsibility to the local Aboriginal community and traditional territory where the operation resides.” Aboriginal cultural tourism refers to businesses that meet these criteria while also incorporating “culture in a manner that is appropriate, respectful and true….” ATAC says “the active involvement of Aboriginal people in the development and delivery of the experience” lends authenticity. By this definition, anything from dogsledding to sleeping in a tipi, making moccasins, going for walks to pick medicines or participating in sweat lodges and powwows can constitute an “authentic experience.” Casinos, on the other hand, occupy a complicated space with respect to Aboriginal tourism. While Indigenous themes may be incorporated in the design and construction, and some events may be geared towards Indigenous audiences, casinos aren’t generally considered part of Aboriginal tourism.

Strater Crowfoot, past chief of the Siksika Nation and a key player in the development of Blackfoot Crossing interpretive centre, affirms this. Blackfoot Crossing opened in 2007 on the Siksika Nation at the site of Soyopowahko, an historic river crossing and meeting place along the Bow River. Various nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy gathered at the site and Treaty 7 was signed there in 1877. Crowfoot argued that the centre would allow for the restoration of “a sense of Siksika identity” and create economic opportunities for the community. “I think tourism is a good vein to take,” he said in 2006. “It is the new buffalo for the tribe. It’s renewable, it’s sellable and it can create jobs and opportunities. Many communities are looking at casinos and projects like that, but with those kinds of projects there are issues, social problems that may arise. This project is positive.”

The wider industry is shifting toward “experiential tourism”—personal growth, reflection and a feeling of accomplishment.

Crowfoot’s prediction about the marketability of Aboriginal tourism proved correct. Canada’s Aboriginal tourism sector is growing rapidly. In 2014 Indigenous tourism accounted for $2.65-billion in gross economic output, contributing $1.4-billion to the country’s GDP. That’s up from $596-million in 2002. The number of Aboriginal tourism businesses in Canada nearly doubled between 2002 and 2014, from 892 to 1,500. They now provide some 33,000 jobs. Some studies, such as the 2003 National Study on Aboriginal Tourism in Canada, suggest the demand from European and US tourists exceeds the available options. Although the range of options has certainly expanded, the market may be challenged by a lack of consumer confidence in the capacity of Aboriginal cultural tourism suppliers.

Alberta has roughly 140 Aboriginal tourism businesses (as of 2014), comprising 6 per cent of all Aboriginal tourism outlets in Canada (BC’s share is 20 per cent). While the majority of these businesses are Aboriginal-owned, 54 of them are Aboriginal-themed public (i.e., government-owned) facilities. They engage in outdoor adventure activities (27 per cent); accommodation (17 per cent); retail and attractions (each 13 per cent); festivals and events (10 per cent); resorts/casinos (6 per cent); food and beverages (5 per cent); and transportation and other activities (9 per cent). They represent 2,272 full-time-equivalent jobs and generate nearly $170-million of GDP.

Alberta Aboriginal tourism has been expanding steadily since the 1990s. Its early growth led to the creation of the Aboriginal Tourism Authority of Alberta (ATAA) by operators from southern Alberta. By the mid-1990s the Niitsitapi Tourism Society of Alberta was formed to bring together Aboriginal tourism operators from across the province. Between 1998 and 2003 the Niitsitapi developed a membership structure and offered marketing and business management support to Aboriginal tourism outfits.

Initially the Niitsitapi operated relatively independently, according to the National Aboriginal Tourism Research Project of 2015. Both the ATAA and Niitsitapi were short-lived, however, eventually closing for lack of money. The latter was especially vital to the development of the local Aboriginal tourism industry and was the first clear link between the larger tourism industry and Indigenous operators.

By the early 2000s the government of Alberta began to take a greater interest in Aboriginal tourism and draw on it to market the wider tourism industry. The province bypassed the Niitsitapi and instead developed distinct strategies to grow Aboriginal tourism, marketing these experiences on its own. It also began including Aboriginal tourism in its wider promotional activities, such as on its Travel Alberta webpage, where visitors are told, “All around Alberta you’ll find tributes to the strength and stamina of Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit” and—more problematically—that these places help tourists “feel the past come to life.”

The lack of commitment to supporting Indigenous-led tourism efforts in the 1990s highlights a tension that resonates with other areas of government–Indigenous relations, in which the government has been accused of not consulting enough with Indigenous people. Although in 2005 the province struck the Aboriginal Tourism Advisory Council, a 13-person body primarily composed of First Nations leadership and some Métis people, unlike BC it hasn’t had an independent regional Aboriginal tourism association. It wasn’t until May 2017 that Alberta announced it would provide $100,000 to support the creation of a provincial Aboriginal tourism body. Efforts to coordinate government activities with Aboriginal tourism businesses could be hindered by the fact that the province promotes its own Aboriginal-themed experiences and sites.

While ATAC claims Aboriginal tourism emerged in Canada in the 1990s, the activity is in fact much older. What exists today is reshaped “Indian tourism” merged with the broader industry’s turn toward the marketing of “experiences.” In fact, Aboriginal tourism finds its roots in the early years of imperialism.

In the mid-1800s, western Europeans and Americans travelled in the name of exploration and adventure. Indigenous people in turn found work as guides and as linguistic, cultural and environmental interpreters. Patricia Jasen, retired professor of history at Lakehead University, notes that tourists, predominantly from England, “flocked from the enervating city to the exhilarating wilderness, hoping to cast themselves under the care of Mother Nature and to rediscover the power of the primitive within themselves.” Jasen notes Indigenous peoples were seen through a romantic lens as living free from the pressures and oppression of modern English life. “Going native” allowed early tourists to cast off their prim and proper English ways in favour of a purportedly wilder and freer life. At the same time, tourists could witness and lament what they felt was the inevitable demise of Indigenous people—destined to “die out” as immigration and modernization swept over them.

Canada’s early tourism encounters took place farther east, and not until the displacement of Indigenous people and the subsequent building of the railroad was tourism developed on the prairies. Historian Daniel Francis says the railroad served as a key turning point. The government came to see tours through the plains and into the mountains, capitalizing on the beauty and “wildness” of the landscape, as a means to fund the railroad. Indigenous people were viewed as central to selling the image of the Wild West. The federal government was aware of the market for selling “Indianness,” and the CPR sought to capitalize on Indigenous people while simultaneously asserting dominion over Indigenous lands.

From the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, the CPR sold and orchestrated train tours through the prairies for tourists to view “wild Indians in their natural setting from the safety and convenience of a railcar.” It was “every bit as exotic as visiting the depths of Africa or some distant island in the Pacific,” wrote Francis. The government and tourism promoters also sold tour packages that mobilized romanticized images of Indigenous people, creating “the Indian” as a marketable commodity.

Tour packages once mobilized romanticized images of Indigenous people, creating “the Indian” as a marketable commodity.

Francis recounts that “seeing Indians” became such a popular tourist draw that in 1894, when flooding wiped out the CPR track, the company hired people from the Stoney reserve at Morley to entertain travellers marooned in Banff. The Indigenous peoples who participated did modified traditional dances, wore traditional clothing (some of it adapted to play to tourist expectations) and competed in rodeo events for money and prizes. CPR’s tour packages entrenched Indianness in the very heart of Alberta’s tourism brand.

The popularity of Indianness in Alberta tourism waned through the 20th century, in part as the result of an overall decline in tourism brought about by the First and Second World Wars. Over the past few decades, however, tourism and its relationship with Indigenous people has experienced a resurgence.

ATAC and the provincial government differ on who should control Aboriginal tourism businesses. The organization is comprised of operations mainly run by Indigenous people. Yet the province’s definition of Aboriginal tourism includes outfits such as Creative Western Adventures, a Calgary-based company founded and staffed by non-Indigenous people. CWA deploys various Indigenous people to offer “native encounters”—chances for non-Indigenous people to “meet” Indigenous people as part of a broader range of western experiences.

Alberta Tourism also promotes designated provincial parks, such as Áísínai’pi/Writing-on-Stone. Áísínai’pi is a sacred place where the Niitsitapi recorded “directly on the land… where petroglyphs and pictographs cover the sandstone cliffs.” The area is protected as a National Historic Site and through the province’s Historical Resources Act. Park officials regularly meet with Niitsitapi elders and the park employs Niitsitapi people as cultural interpreters.

The difference in ATAC’s and Alberta’s definitions says something about the central tension of Aboriginal tourism. While the province markets Áísínai’pi as an “Aboriginal experience” and works in tandem with local Niitsitapi, the site was ceded through questionable treaty-making processes. In the eyes of the provincial and the federal governments, the Niitsitapi don’t own Áísínai’pi and don’t have final say about how the site is managed.

It’s important to note that tourism “often preceded—or accompanied—immigration and resource exploitation,” says Jasen. Tourism, as with many core Canadian industries that trace their origins to the late 1800s, is both a by-product of and driver of colonization. As author James Daschuk writes, the reserve-making era extending from the late 1800s into the early 1900s was undertaken to “clear the plains.” Indigenous people were relocated and many were left without a secure land base. Indeed, the origin of many problems in Canada’s Indigenous communities today lies in forced relocations to low-value lands or the confiscation of land altogether.

As with the Miistukskoowa (Castle Mountain) land claim settlement, the land at Áísínai’pi remains in the government’s hands. While the Niitsitapi are permitted access for economic development—tourism—the government has not repatriated the land to its original caretakers. The fact the Niitsitapi will create development at Miistukskoowa with little direct oversight honours the recent recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—namely that the government engage in meaningful consultation and respectful relationships with Indigenous people when it comes to economic development.

But while this settlement might appear to be a win–win, any approach to fostering economic development in Indigenous communities still healing from the legacies of colonization should be built on a foundation of land restoration. An agreement that doesn’t see the land returned to the Niitsitapi is as revealing for what it doesn’t say—that the Canadian government’s economic interests still override the inherent right of Indigenous people to traditional lands.

Based on ATAC’s definition, neither Áísínai’pi nor Miistukskoowa is true Aboriginal tourism. The Niitsitapi don’t own or primarily control the kinds of tourism that take place there, even as they participate in it. Neither is Blackfoot Crossing—where reserve land is held “in trust” by the federal government—true Aboriginal tourism. Meanwhile, definitions raise complex questions about distinctions between government’s understanding of land ownership and Indigenous concepts of relationality, caretaking and stewardship.

Some Niitsitapi, of course, are proud and active participants in tourism at Áísínai’pi, and many at Siksika welcome the economic development potential of the recent settlement. But a contradiction is at work here. Allowing the governments of Alberta and Canada to retain ownership of the land while expecting native “culture” to be separated out and commodified compromises the core of what makes Indigenous people Indigenous. This model filters land relations through a market-based lens, one solely interested in expressions of Indigenous culture that fit the government’s Aboriginal tourism agenda. Indigenous cultures are yet again “for sale.”

Indigenous-led tourism does educate about the lived realities of Indigenous people, yet the market will always be dictated by consumer expectations. The tendency of some people to de-emphasize casinos as a “true” form of Aboriginal tourism (i.e., a form that adheres to stereotypes), for example, reveals a troubling fetishism of Indigeneity.

On the face of it, embracing Aboriginal tourism makes sense. Who opposes sustainable economic development But then, Aboriginal tourism can never be a one-size-fits-all solution. Each Indigenous community—on reserve, off-reserve, status, non-status, Métis, urban or rural—is culturally distinct, as are the needs of its people. Not all reserves in Alberta are on lands that can sustain appealing tourism opportunities, and many lack even basic infrastructure. While Chief Weasel Child’s people are close to mountains, some northern Alberta communities are surrounded by muskeg, are under boil-water orders and offer little obvious marketability except as hunting destinations.

Aboriginal tourism won’t solve some problems. Much of Canada’s wealth is derived from Indigenous lands, yet, in the face of broken treaties, Indigenous people remain chronically undersupported. Many communities simply need their treaty rights taken seriously and adequate housing built. The province’s efforts might be best spent genuinely listening to Indigenous communities and pressuring the federal government to redress its long-standing neglect. Once land and infrastructure that are a basic right of Indigenous people are in place, Aboriginal tourism could be a different prospect altogether.

Aboriginal tourism promises to raise awareness of Indigenous culture and provide much-needed money to people and communities, yet it is at best a band-aid economic development model. It shouldn’t be touted at the expense of more meaningful and substantive reconciliation.

Jennifer Adese (Métis) is an assistant professor in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton University.

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I was fortunate to be able to pursue my interest in indigenous studies more formally when I took up an academic position in the faculty of Education at the University of Calgary in 1967. The following year, a colleague and I approached the department chair to develop a course on Native education. The chair said there was no such field but that we could teach the course on Saturdays for no pay. After four years, due to rapidly rising enrolment, the course was officially recognized. More than 40 years passed, however, before the faculty mandated a half course in Native education for all would-be teachers.

My wife, Virginia, and I have since taught Native education in two faculties, focusing on fundamentals. To begin with, few students—and few Canadians—know about Canada’s 600 culturally unique Aboriginal nations, living in six distinct cultural areas—Eastern Maritime, Woodlands, Plains, Plateau, West Coast and Northern. Our students learn a vast array of historical, legal and political realities, many of them entangled in legally defined categories such as Status Treaty, Status Non-Treaty, non-Status non-Treaty and Métis Aboriginals. Many First Nations communities in BC and Quebec did not sign away their historical lands through treaties. This has recently given rise to a large number of land claims.
Education is my primary concern. In the course, we emphasize the nature of traditional First Nations education, which was and often still is based on modelling, apprenticeship and storytelling. Four kinds of elders play an important role in all three processes—holistic healers; those authorized to perform sacred rituals and ceremonies; counsellors; and storytellers respected for their ability to share their vast cultural knowledge.

Working in indigenous settings is a perpetual learning experience. In 1986 the late Chief John Snow, long-time leader of the Wesley Band of the Stoney Nakoda Nation, invited my wife and me to minister at Morley United Church. I serve as pastor, and Virginia is the director of Christian education. Always strongly supportive of our efforts, Chief Snow served as a wonderful mentor on Aboriginal ways until his death in 2006. The privilege of working with the Stoney people has offered us an opportunity to enhance the nature of our teaching in the field of Native education. We have supplemented our Stoney experiences with numerous visits to Plains First Nations communities from Alberta and Saskatchewan down south all the way to Texas. Staff at the Comanche headquarters awarded us with a licence tag for our car: “Comanche Nation: Lords of the Plains.”

Under half of all First Nations adults in Alberta have a high-school certificate. This rate is well below that of the general population.

Currently approaching a quarter of a million people, the Aboriginal population is the fastest-growing in Alberta; it increased 23 per cent between 2001 and 2006 alone, while Alberta’s non-Aboriginal population grew 10 per cent over the same period. Alberta has one of the youngest Aboriginal populations in Canada, with about one-third younger than 14. Only about one-quarter of the non-Aboriginal population is that young. Statistics Canada credits the fast growth to high birthrates and more people identifying themselves as Aboriginals.

When it comes to education outcomes, however, Aboriginals are well behind other Albertans. Just under half of all adult First Nations people in Alberta (44 per cent) have a high-school certificate. This graduation rate is well below that of the general population (75 per cent), and the Aboriginal dropout rate of 11 per cent is twice the provincial average.

In October 2013 more than 40 literacy experts gathered in Banff to make recommendations to improve Aboriginal literacy across Canada. A report in support of the initiative estimated that as many as 60 per cent of Aboriginals do not have the literacy skills necessary to fully participate in today’s society.

Achievement scores for Aboriginal students tend to follow a descending rate between Grades 3 and 9, when they are the lowest. Only about 7 per cent of Aboriginal students graduate from university, and the rate is even lower for on-reserve students. This compares with a university graduation rate of 21 per cent for non-Aboriginal students.

My teaching has convinced me that the first challenge facing Canadians is to become better informed about Aboriginal history and culture.

Alberta Education indicates that Aboriginal student achievement is lower than that of non-Aboriginal students, though gradually improving. In a Memorandum of Understanding for First Nation Education in Alberta (MOU), a 2010 agreement between the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs in Alberta and the governments of Alberta and Canada, the parties say they “hold a common vision… wherein First Nations students are achieving or exceeding the full educational outcomes, levels and successes of all other Alberta students.”

Change requires, first of all, understanding the factors that contribute to the problem. Researchers have identified many factors that account for low Aboriginal student achievement, including racism, poor educational leadership, insufficient school and community support such as tutoring and social activities, impersonal education environments, failure to establish a cultural context, low teacher expectations, lack of positive neighbourhood influences, negative peer pressure and instruction that isn’t aligned with student needs.

Half of Status Aboriginal children in Canada live below the poverty line. A report by Citizens for Public Justice notes that the poverty rate for off-reserve Aboriginal peoples in 2010 reached 15 per cent, compared to 9 per cent for all Canadians. Poverty and a host of allied conditions correlate negatively with educational achievement.

In addition, for a substantial number of Aboriginal peoples on and off reserves, life is fraught with danger and hopelessness. Suicide rates, especially among young Aboriginals (15–34 years), far exceed the Canadian average. But not even these factors fully capture the challenge facing Aboriginal education in Alberta.

Aboriginal educational outcomes must be understood in the context of the vast gap between traditional indigenous worldviews and those imported from Europe, and how these belief systems differ in their approaches to teaching and learning. Traditionally, the Plains First Nations of Western Canada held in common seven distinct metaphysically based beliefs: respect for the universe, interconnectedness of all living things, the virtue of being, comprehensive kinfolk obligations, sharing, supremacy of community goals, and decision-making by consensus.

Respect for the universe requires reverence for the basic rhythms of Mother Nature. Individuals and societies who work within the realm of opportunity bestowed upon humankind by the Creator, namely the workings of nature, will prosper and be blessed. Students are taught to seek harmony with the workings of nature and not to seek to exploit them.

Even today, in many Aboriginal communities, family and kinfolk obligations have priority over all other obligations—including employment, schooling, government responsibilities and general maintenance of all types. If a family member becomes terminally ill, everything else comes to a halt. That individual can count on someone from the family to be at their bedside until they pass on.
Interconnectedness means that all living things are interdependent—humans, wildlife and earthly processes. The principle of respect for all people and indeed all beings (including the Earth, which is considered to be alive) was developed from practical experience. It requires co-operation among all parties in the community.

To value “being” instead of “doing” means to experience the moment without any thought of what might happen next. The late Cree elder Joseph Couture called this phenomenon “living in the perennial now.” After all, in an unpredictable world “the moment” is the only sure thing; nothing else is guaranteed.

Traditionally, Canada’s First Nations believed that those who possessed or had access to resources were expected to use those resources to assist others. People welcomed the opportunity to share.

John W. Friesen is a professor in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary.

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