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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My destination was the Canalta Jurassic, a dinosaur-themed hotel playing host to an Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission (AEBC) public hearing. I found a seat in the Cretaceous Conference Centre along with 20 Drumheller-area citizens, six Hansard staff and five AEBC commissioners. The event would be recorded and a transcript published by the Legislature, but I was there to witness the room’s mood.

For seven years out of every eight, the AEBC doesn’t exist. In every eighth or thereabouts (after every second provincial election), the commission is re-formed by the government and tasked with determining the boundaries of Alberta’s electoral ridings. This year’s appointees are Calgary lawyer Laurie Livingstone, Acme mayor W. Bruce McLeod, Carstairs gun club owner Gwen Day, Calgary lawyer D. Jean Munn, and Court of Appeal judge—and AEBC chair—Myra Bielby. In official terms these five people propose “that updates be made to provincial constituencies to reflect population increases.” Ultimately their work decides the weight of your vote.

Alberta’s population of 4,062,609 is represented in our Legislature by 87 MLAs. Ideally, each legislator represents the same number of people. For every citizen’s vote to be equal, each riding should have 1/87th of the population—that is, 46,697 people. But over time some areas grow and some hollow out, so that MLAs end up representing different numbers of people. Currently this varies from a low of 17,129 in Fort McMurray-Conklin to a high of 92,148 in Calgary-South East. If an election were held today, a vote cast in south Fort McMurray would be worth more than five times a vote in suburban Calgary.

Determining vote-weight is a tricky business. The commission considers the law, census data and a host of other factors to carve the province into 87 ridings, soliciting input across Alberta before releasing an interim and then a final report. The legislature typically accepts these recommendations holus bolus or with minor changes. Said Bielby in Drumheller, “We’d hate to be the first commission where that doesn’t happen.”

Each recent commission has had more public feedback than its predecessor did. It became clear early on that this year would set records. Before a new map had been proposed—before new census data were even out—and with a second round of hearings months away, some 350 citizens had contacted the commission. The previous AEBC heard from 500 in total.

Each presenter at the Drumheller meeting sat at a small table with a microphone, and every one of them told the commissioners why they opposed a new map. Craigmyle’s Maeghan Chostner said a bigger riding could worsen rural decline and isolation and “really dilute the ability of rural residents to have their real concerns heard.” Drumheller councillor Lisa Hansen-Zacharuk said her riding’s size was “almost obscene.”

It was obvious, however, even in January, that boundaries would change. Many Albertans do live “out there,” and rural citizens have a right to effective representation. But the populations of some parts of rural Alberta are shrinking even as the province, since the last AEBC, has added over half a million people. Take our representative democracy, mix thinning countryside with swelling cities, and add time: rural votes today weigh two, three, four, even five times those in the biggest cities.

The implications of a new AEBC were clear. As citizen Rod Trentham of Red Deer wrote to the commission in January: “Good luck with an extremely complicated but important process that is guaranteed to upset people.”

Drumheller-Stettler covers a vast swath of eastern Alberta; by area the riding is one of our largest and its voters are notably overrepresented. It’s thus of special interest to the AEBC. (Each commission since 1996 has held a hearing in Drumheller or Hanna.)

Few parts of Alberta more intimately know decline. The town of Drumheller’s population is rapidly aging; council in 1997 asked to be downgraded from a city so the province would pay for road repairs. The town, however, is stable by comparison. The population of Special Area No. 2, around Hanna, has fallen 5.9 per cent since 2011. Special Area No. 3 (Oyen): down 7.1 per cent. Special Area No. 4: down 8.5 per cent. The towns of Empress, Cereal, Veteran—all about one-fifth smaller, in five years. We at the meeting in January didn’t know the extent of Drumheller-Stettler’s hollowing out. The 2016 census later revealed there were some 1,284 fewer people in Drumheller-Stettler (pop. 36,810), or 3.4 per cent shrinkage.

Calgary and Edmonton, meanwhile, have exploded. While Drumheller-Stettler lost over a thousand residents, Edmonton-Ellerslie added 23,712 (pop. 60,554); Edmonton-South West added 44,234 (pop. 79,881); and Calgary-South East added 55,300 (pop. 92,148). Red Deer and Grande Prairie swelled too, as did ridings of boomtown spillover—Airdrie, Chestermere-Rockyview, Highwood, Leduc-Beaumont.

Whereas US politicians redraw maps themselves and Alberta’s MLAs did likewise until 1969, the AEBC is independent.

By provincial law, any riding can have 25 per cent fewer or 25 per cent more people than the average and four can have up to 50 per cent fewer. These are allowances, however, not goals. Previous AEBCs have typically made 10 per cent, plus or minus, their limit. Today almost two-dozen ridings, most of them rural, have a population more than 10 per cent below average. Four of these are more than 25 per cent below; four more, including Drumheller-Stettler (–21 per cent), are right on the cusp. In the cities, 19 ridings are more than 10 per cent over. Seven are over 25 per cent larger—in violation of the law.

The result is that the farther you drive from Calgary or Edmonton, the more influence a voter has. West Yellowhead (pop. 31,551), for example, has roughly two times the voting power of Spruce Grove-St. Albert (62,786), whose residents likewise send one representative to the legislature. Lesser Slave Lake (pop. 27,663) has three times the voting power of two Alberta ridings. Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley (pop. 23,094) has four times the voting power of Calgary-South East (pop. 92,148). Four ballots to one, if you will.

Each AEBC confronts a similar situation, since the province’s rural proportion has been shrinking steadily since 1901 (then 75 per cent rural; now less than 20 per cent rural). But no matter a commission’s recommendations, many Albertans jump to the wrong conclusion.

The United States has loaned much colour to our political vernacular. “Pork-barreling,” or public spending in exchange for political donations. “Astroturfing,” or fake grassroots. But the US’s greatest lexical export may well be “gerrymandering.”

The term dates to 1812 Massachusetts, when Governor Elbridge Gerry redrew an electoral map to favour his party. The Essex County district was so distorted it evoked a perching, dragon-like salamander—or “Gerrymander.” Since then, hundreds of US districts have been redrawn to favour one party or another, easily picked out by their “squiggles and offshoots and tentacle-looking protuberances,” in the words of a Washington Post writer. In the Obama era, Republican legislators redistricted Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, among other states, in what Salon editor David Daley calls “the biggest political heist… in modern memory.”

Gerrymandering—along rural/urban lines—is long believed to have skewed Alberta’s map. The Calgary Herald wrote in 1991 that a Getty-era redistricting proposal “smacks of gerrymandering” and was “an unconscionable abuse of power”; the Edmonton Journal called the 1992 AEBC “a farce.” When that commission couldn’t reach consensus, the premier had a PC-dominated legislature committee draw the map instead; the cities gained no seats. “If that isn’t gerrymandering, I don’t know what is,” said Liberal leader Laurence Decore.

Similar objections have come up at every subsequent review. Despite an outcry, Edmonton lost a seat in the 2002/2003 exercise. The Stelmach government added four urban ridings in 2009 instead of combining rural ones, raising the seat count to 87, and was accused of foul play. One AEBC petitioner that year dubbed the province “politely gerrymandered”; another called the AEBC process “jiggery-pokery.” The Liberals saw PC “sticky fingers” all over the new map. Wildrose leader Paul Hinman said the process “reeks of political gerrymandering.”

Thus 2017 began under a haze of suspicion. (“Get rid of the Tory’s gerrymandered ‘rurban’ ridings!” wrote citizen Doug Fischer on the AEBC’s Facebook page in January.) But Albertans perhaps borrow US lingo too eagerly.

Whereas US politicians redraw maps themselves, and Alberta’s MLAs did likewise until 1969, the AEBC is independent. By law four commissioners who aren’t MLAs are to be named: two by the governing party, two by the opposition. (In 2017 McLeod and Dunn were the former; Livingstone and Day the latter.) Two must be rural, two urban. The chair—the tiebreaker, maybe—is chosen by the Lieutenant Governor and is typically a senior judge or the province’s Ethics Commissioner. Bielby is Alberta’s most senior judge not retiring this year.

Some commissioners issue minority opinions with AEBC reports; Liberal appointee Bauni Mackay in 2002/2003, for example, opposed Edmonton’s loss of one seat. None have accused their colleagues of political bias or otherwise cast aspersions on the mapmaking process.

Moreover, the numbers just don’t point to gerrymandering. By 1990 Calgary and Edmonton had 36 of Alberta’s 83 ridings; with roughly half the province’s population, they had 43 per cent of the legislature seats. In the 1996 review they gained two ridings each—“the rest of Alberta” lost four. They were up to 41 seats by 2003, and to 44 by 2010. By then Calgary and Edmonton, at 52 per cent of the population, had 51 per cent of the seats.

Consider too those US districts’ tentacle protuberances. A 2009 MIT study posited a correlation between a district’s “compactness” (meaning no part is too far from the centre; think circles and squares) and its not being gerrymandered. By this standard, Canada’s ridings proved considerably more compact than US equivalents. In 2015, Edmontonian Michael Ross used the MIT formula on Alberta’s provincial ridings, finding them equivalent to Canada’s. Just look at the maps: Not even our least-compact riding remotely resembles, say, North Carolina’s 12th district or Maryland’s 3rd, both approximating crime-scene blood spatter.

Two elections will be contested using 2017’s map, which will be approved, for the first time, by a legislature whose majority party in no way benefits from rural overrepresentation. My sense was the new map will be controversial, so I called Justice Bielby on April 10 to learn a bit more about her commission’s process.

The 27-year judge dismissed criticism of previous commissions. “What’s triggered the change this time, and maybe the concern, is not what happened last time but in the last eight years… a huge inflow in population,” she said. In other words, even if an AEBC’s work were impeccable, booms still throw ridings—as Bielby put it—“substantially out of whack.”

Similarly, she rejected those who see gerrymandering here. “They’re affected by the recent [US] election,” she said. At Drumheller, for example, citizen Rick Laursen had warned the AEBC that “the current government want[s] to realign boundaries to make it more advantageous for future elections.” Elsewhere Bielby was given “proof” of past shenanigans: Chestermere-Rocky View, flanking Calgary like curtains, or Cypress-Medicine Hat’s “donut hole.” Municipal boundaries, among other factors, determined those shapes. “People jump to conclusions,” Bielby said. “They’d say ‘There’s such a weak, undulating border on this side of the constituency; something wrong must have happened.’ [I’d tell them] Take a closer look; that’s a river.”

Changes will not achieve the ultimate goal—as guaranteed by the Charter—of effective representation.” —MLA Rick Strankman

The uneven weight of votes, Bielby said, also reflects Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, which itself is informed by the Charter. Much legal interpretation has deemed that the Charter guarantees Canadians a right to “effective representation,” not (as in the US) to absolute vote parity. This is why we don’t just divide Alberta’s population by 87 and draw boundaries such that every riding has the same population. The process would be quicker, sure—but towns and neighbourhoods would be cut into pieces.

Justice Edward Wachowich, the 1995 AEBC chair, summarized the grounds for equity rather than strict equality: the Supreme Court and Alberta Court of Appeal agree that “the right to vote under the Charter includes… the right to have the parity of the votes of others diluted, but not unduly, in order to gain effective representation or as a matter of practical necessity.”

To ensure effective representation, the AEBC considers population density/sparsity, common community interests, existing community boundaries, geographical features (including roads), the number of local authorities an MLA might meet (school boards, municipal councils, community associations etc.) and the desirability of understandable and clear boundaries.

The best defence of “not undue dilution,” Bielby said, is the huge size of a handful of rural ridings. Drumheller-Stettler, for example, stretches almost from the QE2 to Saskatchewan. Some at the Canalta Jurassic had driven two hours to get to that hearing, in the riding all the while. Some MLAs estimate they travel hundreds of hours every year for work. Long-time Little Bow MLA Barry McFarland told the 2017 AEBC he annually spent 100 workdays driving.

In April, with the interim map underway, Bielby said MLA workloads were on her mind.  If her AEBC were to insist on parity, even in northern ridings, “You’d have a constituency the size of a quarter of the province,” she said. “Is that fair for the MLA?”

On May 23, with nearly two dozen public events in 14 cities and towns under its belt, the AEBC released its preliminary report. By that point—the summer hearings not scheduled, a final report not due until October—the commissioners had heard 749 submissions, or 50 per cent more than the previous AEBC had received by its end.

As the presenters in Drumheller had sensed, urban growth was always going to force the mapmakers to wield their red sharpie. Indeed, the 2017 AEBC proposed a major update.

The new map has Edmonton gaining one seat, to 20—a fair reflection of the city’s share of Alberta, since its population divided by the average riding’s equals 20 almost exactly. Calgary will gain a seat as well, to 26 (closer to equality, but below the one-and-a-half extra seats the city’s population would warrant if strict parity were the AEBC’s only criterion). A third new riding accounts for bursting-at-the-seams Cochrane and Airdrie.

To accommodate these—since the AEBC can’t add MLAs—rural Alberta will lose three constituencies. Four ridings northeast of Edmonton (Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills, Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, Bonnyville-Cold Lake) will become three. Five in west-central Alberta (Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, West Yellowhead, Drayton Valley-Devon, Whitecourt-Ste. Anne, Stony Plain) will become four. And seven in central-southern Alberta (Battle River-Wainwright, Drumheller-Stettler, Strathmore-Brooks, Little Bow, Cardston-Taber-Warner, Cypress-Medicine Hat, Vermilion-Lloydminster) will become six.

Rural MLAs reacted with disbelief. “It just doesn’t make sense,” said Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Nathan Cooper. Highwood MLA Wayne Anderson: “I don’t think common sense is in play on this one; it’s all about numbers.” Paula Simons in the Edmonton Journal, however, called the proposal “long-overdue justice” for her hometown in particular, and wrote that the map “would dramatically tilt the Legislature in the direction of demographic, democratic fairness.”

True to previous AEBCs, one commissioner issued a minority opinion. Gwen Day suggested rural Alberta need not lose any seats. “It would have been in the best interest of all Albertans to preserve as many of the existing ridings as possible using allowable variances,” she wrote.

Justice Bielby, for her part, said the new map “strikes a balance between population numbers and public interest.” Probably the proposal shouldn’t have surprised anyone. All but one of Edmonton’s ridings will be within 4 per cent of the population average. The average variation in Calgary is just 2 per cent. And where the challenge proves greatest, in rural Alberta, only 10 ridings deviate more than 10 per cent.

Lesser Slave Lake (new pop. 27,818) and Central Peace-Notley (32,471), were permitted, respectively, 40 per cent and 30 per cent variance. Previous AEBCs made such allowances too. The Electoral Boundaries Commission Act allows up to four such exceptions if ridings meet criteria including size and distance from Edmonton. MLAs in these ridings typically travel by plane.

Residents of Drumheller-Stettler had asked the AEBC to leave their sprawling riding alone or give it a special designation, as in northern Alberta. The commissioners’ proposal meets them halfway.

Barring revisions before October 31—when the AEBC final report is due—much of the riding won’t change. Stettler and hamlets east will join the new Stettler-Wainwright. Near Drumheller the riding will send out a tendril to envelop Strathmore, the villages of Rockyford, Standard and Hussar (and surrounding area) and Siksika Nation. The rest is status quo. The new riding resembles a tilting mushroom—odd, but probably not enough to invite conspiracy theories.

Where Drumheller-Stettler’s population was previously well below the provincial average, the new riding (working name: Drumheller-Strathmore) will grow to 54,232, or 16 per cent above the average. With the stroke of a pen, the area goes from over- to underrepresented.

On its face, this fact will upset locals. The AEBC, however, is taking into consideration another criterion: projected population decline in east-central Alberta and growth elsewhere, which should have the effect of quickly bringing Drumheller back to average. “By the time of the next electoral boundary review,” the commissioners wrote, “the… 16 per cent positive variance may well be on par with the provincial average… or below.” (Had they kept the riding intact, its population would soon have fallen to 25 per cent below average—a privilege typically saved for truly remote northern ridings.)

Here, the commissioners were perhaps heeding advice from a predecessor. “One of the mistakes we made years ago,” said 2002/2003 AEBC chair Bob Clark (former Alberta Ethics Commissioner) at the January 2017 hearing in Olds, “was spending too much time just looking at the population now, as opposed to looking at the areas that are growing, and taking that into consideration.” This strategy partly backfired on the 2010 commission, which is why Fort McMurray-Conklin today has such disproportionate voting power (less development than expected occurred south of the city, and the 2016 fire didn’t help). But to ignore projected growth could render an AEBC’s corrective work quickly obsolete. Such thinking is why the least-populated urban ridings—e.g., the proposed Calgary-North, 16 per cent below average—are at the city’s edge.

In adding population to Drumheller’s riding, however, the commission says it also managed to address locals’ main concern, by slightly shrinking the riding area. In other words, the 2017 AEBC believes it can create more democratic fairness across Alberta without increasing the Drumheller MLA’s travel burden. Assuming the constituency office in Stettler is replaced by one in Strathmore—to complement existing offices in Drumheller and Hanna—most area citizens will be able to travel a similar distance to meet their representative.

They’d say ‘There’s such a weak, undulating border on this side of the constituency; something must be wrong.’ [I’d tell them] Take a closer look; that’s a river.” —2017 AEBC Chair Myra Bielby

I wondered what Drumhellerites thought about the proposals, or how Strathmore would feel about being part of a new riding. And so, on July 21, 2017, I made another drive, this time to the public hearing in Brooks.

For all the changes proposed, and given the paucity of summer hearings (half as many as in winter), the event was sparse; maybe 30 people in a hotel conference room that could fit triple that. Five of the 15 presenters were MLAs, one a former MLA. Reaction to the map was mixed.

Drumheller-Stettler MLA Rick Strankman voiced the strongest concern. “Proposed changes will negatively affect the stability of [my] riding,” he said. They “most certainly will not achieve the ultimate goal, as guaranteed by the Charter… that guarantees effective representation.” He called for an exception to an area “simply too large for one person to effectively cover physically. …People have an innate preference to see other people in person. Electronic solutions are no substitute. Witness your commission’s own option to have both pre- and post-report public meetings.”

I feel some sympathy for Strankman. The Altario-area farmer mailed out an invite in 2015 asking constituents to “bring your wife’s pie” and was widely mocked on social media. Missed by snickering urbanites, however, were telling comments in the flier about the reality of rural politics. “This area is too big for traditional door-knocking,” the MLA wrote. “Take a break from calving, farming, spring work and NHL playoffs to join your neighbors from near and far.” Truly, his riding is too vast for door-knocking. On summer roads, the Strankman farm is two hours from the constituency office in Hanna.

But the 2017 AEBC proposes some tough and necessary corrections. Constant travel is a reality of rural politics that only a serious democratic deficit in the cities or a big increase in the number of MLAs could correct. Phone calls and digital communication will have to do where face-to-face proves daunting. Meanwhile, making the MLA’s job more manageable—more offices, hiring drivers—is the task of the legislative Members’ Services committee.

Even without all the driving, the urban politician’s job is arguably just as tough, with some challenges (e.g., refugees, homelessness, crime, mental health issues) disproportionately frequent in the cities. But even if the rural politician’s job could be proven more difficult, a democracy cannot long flourish if some citizens’ votes weigh considerably more than others.

Evan Osenton is editor at Alberta Views.

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This is also the site of what many Blackfoot people consider a great humiliation. At Blackfoot Crossing, in 1877, the chiefs of the various southern Alberta tribes, the Blackfoot (Siksika), the Blood (Kainaiwa), the Peigan (Piikani), the Sarcee (Tsuu T’ina) and the Stoney (Nakoda), signed an agreement with representatives of Queen Victoria and the North-West Mounted Police. Among the chiefs were Chief Crowfoot, Chief Old Sun, Chief Bull Head and Chief Red Crow, all legendary figures. With little choice in the matter, the chiefs agreed to “cede, release, surrender, and yield up to the Government of Canada for Her Majesty the Queen and her successors for ever, all their rights, titles and privileges whatsoever” to southern Alberta. In exchange the tribes received land for reserves, were promised education, and were granted tools, clothing, cattle, and small cash allowances. While recognizing the inherent right of First Nations people to hunt, the treaty provided strong “encouragement of the practice of agriculture among the Indians.”

Embedded in the wording of the treaty is a clash of cultures and ways of life. We know today the legacy of Canada’s policies toward the First Nations peoples, in particular the deficiencies of the reserve system, the failure of residential schools, the attempts to destroy cultures, and the lack of livelihood in native communities from coast to coast to coast. Despite this terrible legacy there have been many positive signs that changes are occurring in First Nations communities across Canada and that cultural renewal is afoot. One such example is the recently completed Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park Interpretive Centre, an ambitious $30-million museum facility that sits dramatically on the edge of an escarpment overlooking the Blackfoot Crossing site. The recently opened building, with its resemblance to the iconic teepee, is a rich fusion of the rituals, symbols and architecture of Siksika tradition.

An open house for the project took place on September 22, 2006, the anniversary of the signing of Treaty 7; a grand opening is planned for spring 2007. Many people have been involved in realizing the vision since the mid-1980s, when Ron Goodfellow was hired as the architect for the building. Goodfellow has maintained an architectural practice in Calgary for many years; he has designed museums, infrastructure projects and residential buildings. He grew up on a farm south of Taber, Alberta, and attended high school there. He studied architecture at the University of British Columbia, where his 1969 graduating thesis, “An Historical and Ecological Study of Southern Alberta,” provided a detailed examination of the prairie landscape and settlements by native and non-native cultures. Looking at this document today it is remarkable to realize that many of the themes he studied were worked into the design of this interpretive centre years later.

For the straight-talking, opinionated Goodfellow, there was no question but to integrate the cultural symbols of the Siksika people and the prairie landscape into the building. The use of traditional icons in the design is intended to preserve the Siksika culture and provide direct lessons to the youth of the Siksika Nation and to museum visitors.

The building design is as specific as Goodfellow could make it—as he says, “this building can’t go anywhere else.” The architecture is derived from “the roots of the culture, the landscapes, and the things I’d seen growing up on the prairie.” The building was a labour of love for Goodfellow, who worked closely with many members of the Siksika community, particularly a group of elders who shared their knowledge of traditional Blackfoot practices. They agreed, not without controversy, that some of the sacred aspects of Siksika culture would be incorporated into the design.

Goodfellow’s architecture is derived from “the roots of the culture, the landscapes, and the things I’d seen growing up on the prairie.”

Another key figure in the story is Strater Crowfoot, a descendant of the great Chief Crowfoot. In the early 1980s, he returned to the Siksika Nation reserve after competing his MBA at Brigham Young University. Soon afterward he became the manager of the Hidden Valley golf course and resort on the reserve just east of the Blackfoot Crossing site. In 1987 he would become the chief of the Siksika Nation for the first of five two-year terms. He was instrumental in raising money for the interpretive centre.

Crowfoot now works as a consultant in Calgary, where he is clearly comfortable negotiating between the world of his heritage and mainstream Canadian society. It is also evident that he is very business-oriented and has no patience for the dependence of many aboriginal people on government; in fact, independent thinking has long been a characteristic of the Siksika Nation. Articulate, passionate and genial, Crowfoot has invested much of himself in making the Blackfoot Crossing project a reality. He acknowledges that while it has taken over 20 years to get the building constructed, in some ways it is just the beginning of the journey: “The huge issue now is telling the story in a way that is going to be accepted and marketable to the world and do it in such a way that is very professional. We have to gear our product development to being world-class.”

Crowfoot concedes that various groups on the reserve have had differing ideas about the facility. Beyond the sensitive issue of incorporating traditional practices into the design, some members of the community were concerned about the cost of the project and the siting of the building. Today the criticism seems to have abated, and there is widespread support for the museum.

Crowfoot notes that Ron Goodfellow “has been the mainstay of the project. Different councils have come and gone; he has worked with many different people. Some have seen him as an opportunist, a white man taking the Indians for everything and charging them fees. But they don’t realize that he has put in thousands of hours, many unpaid. This is not just a job for Ron, it is his life’s work; it has been a passion for him.”

The project has two missions, Crowfoot says: one is to “build a bridge back to the past,” to restore a sense of Siksika identity; the other is to provide economic opportunities. “You have to have an economy. I think tourism is a good vein to take. It is the new buffalo for the tribe. It’s renewable, it’s sellable, and it can create jobs and opportunities for the people. 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.”

Lucy Wright, the daughter of Russell Wright (who along with former chief Leo Pretty Young Man was instrumental in developing the project), underscores the vital cultural and educational role the new museum will play. Having recently completed a degree in education at the University of Calgary, she speaks eloquently about cultural need among youth. “Today a lot of our traditional knowledge is not being learned at home. The youth have to go to school to learn about their identity, the diversity of their culture and how complex it is.” In the early 1970s, her father helped develop a Blackfoot studies program with the newly opened Old Sun College on the reserve. He would eventually be trained in Ottawa in curatorial practices and would develop a small museum on the reserve, the contents of which are now in the new facility. Lucy Wright adds that her parents “had a lot of respect for Ron Goodfellow. In his design he captured Siksika culture.”

On a bright June day, I head east from Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway, then turn south on Highway 842. As I reach the top of a hill, a broad view of the prairie opens up. In the distance I can glimpse the edges of the Bow River. At the hill’s base is Cluny, a ramshackle prairie village, the remnants of one of Alberta’s early railway towns. Carrying on through Cluny and across the tracks, I abruptly enter the territory of the Siksika Nation, indicated by a large sign. The contrast is stark. The most obvious difference is the relative absence of trees and the forlorn groups of government-issue houses typical of many First Nations reserves.

Looking ahead toward a rise in the road, I can discern a shimmering teepee-like shape hovering above the landscape. This is the first hint of the new building. Approaching the museum, I pass Chief Crowfoot’s last teepee site, Poundmaker’s monument and a cairn marking Crowfoot’s grave. Arrival at the museum is carefully choreographed by the designers: a number of elements dot the landscape, including a series of buffalo rub rocks and mounds of piled stones traditionally used to drive buffalo over a cliff.

The design of the museum incorporates a host of traditional Blackfoot structures and symbols, including the teepee, the painted teepee cover, the sun dance lodge, the buffalo jump and various other traditional artifacts and symbols. The east-facing entry replicates the direction of teepee entrances—facing the rising sun and protected from west winds. The entry is flanked by ochre-coloured walls with the “chief ’s walk” on the left and a sinuous “winter count” wall on the right. The coloured glass canopy over the entry resembles a row of eagle feathers—part of the ceremonial “straight up” headdress of the Blackfoot. A feather was traditionally given to a young man when he had completed a vision quest and passed to manhood.

The overall building is roughly semicircular. In the middle sits the translucent white form that recalls the teepee and the sun dance lodge. This central feature is encircled by seven small skylights, teepee-like structures representing the seven traditional societies of the Siksika Nation (Horn, Crow, Black Soldier, Motoki, Prairie Chicken, Brave Dog and Ma’tsiyiiks). The roof of the museum is covered with a coloured material replicating traditional Blackfoot painted teepee covers. The western facade is relatively flat—Goodfellow notes that it looks like large bird landing on the prairie. The central portion, encircling an outdoor amphitheatre, integrates the travois used in the Buffalo Women’s Society lodge, the ceremonial headdress, an arrow design and feathered columns. Each of these structures, artifacts and symbols is an essential part of the complex cosmology and nomadic way of living of the Blackfoot people prior to the arrival of white traders, missionaries, police, bureaucrats and settlers.

Inside, visitors first enter the Sun Dance Gallery, a space that wraps around the exterior amphitheatre and is held up by steel trusses shaped like bows. From here the majesty of the site is fully exposed. It is a breathtaking view. The upper level of the centre includes the Vision Quest Theatre, administrative offices, a dining area, conference rooms and service areas. Of particular interest is the library, which will house material about the history of the Siksika Nation, and will also be used for recording the knowledge of elders, preserving it for future generations. Another important locale is a lodge space dedicated to the elders in the community and housed in the upper level of one of the seven teepees.

The design and choice of colours are carefully derived from the prairie surroundings. For example, the ochre colour used on much of the exterior of the building exactly matches the dried grass of the prairie in the fall. The gold glass in the lower level of the west facade represents mother earth, and the blue glass above it represents the sky. Stylized references to eagle feathers and traditional chevron and sunburst patterns are featured throughout the facility.

Visitors then descend staircases leading to the cavernous gallery. The exhibition designers for this space are Terry Gunvordahl and Irene Kerr of Exhibitio Planning & Design. They worked closely with another group of community members, the storyline committee. Together they developed an exhibition sequence structured by four large teepees: the creation teepee focuses on creation stories and the traditional way of living; the survival teepee addresses the difficult history of the reservation system; the celebration teepee features the dancing and drumming legacy of the Siksika people; the storytelling teepee provides an intimate space for sharing knowledge. Intertwined throughout the gallery will be other displays focusing on important local sites, the Indian Act of 1876, the legacy of Treaty 7, Eurocentric stereotypes of native peoples, traditional ceremonies, the role of chiefs in Blackfoot culture, the contributions of First Nations veterans, family displays and temporary exhibits. The designers have employed curvilinear forms throughout, and have used strong traditional colours.

Gerald Conaty is the senior curator of ethnology at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, a major repository of First Nations artifacts. It is also home to the Blackfoot Gallery, a collaborative initiative between the museum and members of the four reserves that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy in southern Alberta. Conaty believes that the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park Interpretive Centre is “a great project, one that holds a lot of promise.” The Glenbow Museum is one of a number of major institutions in North America and Europe lending artifacts to the Blackfoot Crossing project. Previously the Glenbow has repatriated a number of sacred bundles to the Siksika Nation. The Glenbow is lending a mounted buffalo to the new facility, along with other artifacts associated with former Blackfoot chiefs.

With the storyline committee, T. Jack Royal, general manager and president of Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park Ltd., is planning a comprehensive program of activities and promotion to coincide with the public opening scheduled for late spring 2007. Former tribal manager of the Siksika Nation, Royal is young and hip. He describes the project’s cultural, educational, economic and socio-political aspirations in a well-rehearsed manner, stressing that extensive market research has determined what programs will be developed beyond the museum itself. The area could be developed and designated nationally and internationally as a heritage site. A range of initiatives are being studied, including working with schools across Alberta, holding corporate functions, expanding recreational programs and holding concerts, theatrical performances and festivals. Visitors will also be able to descend into the valley below to explore its unique ecosystem, a recreational teepee encampment and the remains of an earth lodge village which is thought to have been made by a group of Mandan Hidatsa fleeing the ravages of disease in the Midwestern US during the 1830s. Once the facility is fully operational, Royal expects to employ 30 to 50 people in a wide variety of jobs.

Similar, if less ambitious, facilities have developed across North America since the 1970s. One of these is located on an important First Nations site just outside Saskatoon. Wanuskewin Heritage Park, opened in 1992, is an award-winning interpretive centre presenting primarily the cultures of the northern plains. It has attracted thousands of visitors over the years. Hugh Tait, who works with visitors to the Wanuskewin Heritage Park, believes there is a lot of opportunity and room for innovation in First Nations tourism.

Another comparable facility is the museum at Warm Springs in central Oregon, which opened in 1993. About half the size of the Blackfoot Crossing project, it had a similar development history, although the Warm Springs reservation also has a casino. Carol Leone, the museum director, says that they have developed programs in conjunction with the tribal educational system, and that they receive about 20,000 visitors a year from the vicinity and from as far away as Germany and Japan, where interest in Aboriginal North American culture is particularly strong. She also notes that there is a growing international movement among indigenous peoples to share knowledge and experiences.

Many building designs for North American native communities integrate the symbol systems of First Nations cultures, though some architects have rejected this approach by producing more abstract designs. With the influx of more traditional architectural values in the 1980s, many recent projects have opted for incorporating structures like the teepee, animal forms and other traditional symbols and patterns. It is worth noting that Douglas Cardinal, arguably the most famous architect ever to have emerged from Alberta, has Aboriginal heritage. He has evolved a unique architecture based on his study of prairie landscapes and a diverse range of influences, including his own ancestry and Italian baroque architecture. Cardinal is the architect for the highly successful Museum of Civilization near Ottawa; he also designed the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, and various First Nations projects across Canada.

The Blackfoot Crossing design reflects a contemporary view incorporating traditional structures and symbol systems. It is intended to provide a visual encyclopedia for the community, particularly the youth, and to help recover and preserve the unique culture of the Siksika people. The building is particularly impressive as seen from the east; the west facade is less convincing, although it has a strong presence when seen from the valley below.

Building a 60,000-square-foot facility in today’s rather dismal climate for museums is risky. Many museums across Canada are struggling to survive. Securing audiences and steady funding is a continual challenge, particularly in light of the steady decline in public funding for cultural institutions over the last several years. The Siksika Nation, while receiving government grants for the construction, including an Alberta Legacy Fund grant and federal support, has also invested heavily in the project.

Many factors, including the difficulty of fundraising, contributed to the project’s slow completion time. Ultimately, the cost of the entire project is in line with comparable museums that meet international curatorial standards. The success of the facility will depend on strong marketing and the ability of the community to develop a comprehensive range of programs. It appears that the cultural aspirations of the project are being realized, but its economic success is difficult to predict. Nevertheless, despite the legacy of the Indian Act and Treaty 7, the Siksika Nation is seeking innovative and exciting ways of preserving and sharing its culture.

Linda Many Guns, a member of the Siksika community currently pursuing a doctorate in indigenous studies, believes the design cleverly and successfully weaves together symbols from Blackfoot tradition. The integrity of the original vision is maintained by the strength of the design and the respectful relationship between the community and the designers. Many Guns says the experience is creating a new, consensual method of developing and managing projects, a method that blends Blackfoot and Western approaches. Ron Goodfellow’s long-term commitment has helped guide this remarkable process, which reflects the visions and efforts of so many.

The architecture of the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park Interpretive Centre is a testimony to the history and culture of the Siksika Nation, situated in a landscape that is a legendary, beautiful and tragic. Here one sees first-hand the paradoxes inherent to Canada’s long-standing relationship with First Nations peoples.

Graham Livesey is an associate professor in the architecture program at the University of Calgary.

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