In the spirit of reconciliation, I want to acknowledge I’m writing this article on Treaty 7 territory, which is home to the Siksika, Piikani, Kainai, Îethka Stoney Nakoda, Tsuut’ina, and members of Metis Region 3.
Land acknowledgments like this one are a common occurrence at nearly every public event in Canada, but they often lack depth and authenticity. Without intention, land acknowledgements become glossed-over statements – a rudimentary list of Indigenous nations.
“After they do land acknowledgements … I often wonder, do these people really know about the in-depth story around the territory?” says Oom ka pisi Roy Bear Chief, Espoom tah (helper) with the faculty of health, community and education.
Bear Chief — along with colleagues Ta’tsi ki po’yi Hayden Melting Tallow, Ainh Ki Grant Many Heads and Ai piss sapi Stephen Price — want to change how people perceive land acknowledgments.
They introduced their idea as part of Mount Royal University’s Journey to Indigenization – an annual event integrating Indigenous ways of knowing into the university – they hope to reimagine land acknowledgements.
“This whole exercise is giving voice back to the land,” Bear Chief says. “Let the land speak through the stories.”
Establishing an idea
When asked how they met, Melting Tallow jokes they have the “same mom, different dad.” More seriously, he explains how he, Bear Chief and Many Heads all come from Siksika Nation, Canada’s second-largest reserve.
Melting Tallow says the Department of Indian Affairs and the Protestant and Catholic churches divided the reserve — Catholic in the east and Protestant in the west — discouraging association between the two. He was raised in the east, while Bear Chief and Many Heads come from the west.
“That’s how it was in the 20th century,” adds Many Heads, who works as an interpreter at Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park.
“Once they learn about these areas, then we can tell them the stories that go along with the different places and get them to know and respect the land,” says Many Heads. “And that’s not just our people, but Canada.”
A key part of understanding the land is acknowledging its relationship to the people who reside on it — and how it was stripped from them.
“Our people have always been here,” Many Heads says. “We don’t have migration stories … our people – we’re prairie people, we’re foothills people and we’re mountain people.”
Many Heads explains how for the Blackfoot, Treaty 7 was “a land share, not a land surrender,” a mutual “nation-to-nation” agreement founded on an understanding of and respect for the land.
“We didn’t look at our land the way settlers or people do,” says Many Heads. “To the Blackfoot, all this was a gift to sustain us and to look after.” Bear Chief agrees, noting that their project is all about “trying to change the perception about the land.”
Knowledge beyond ‘the depth of a plow’
Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its 94 calls to action in 2015, land acknowledgements have become a popular act of reconciliation. For some, however, these statements are “disingenuous token gestures,” not moments of reflection or education.
Bear Chief and his group hope they can create a program to challenge this narrative and share the history of the Blackfoot people. Their exercise is designed much like a blanket exercise, which teaches the history of colonialism in Canada. A narrator, playing the ‘settler’ role, asks participants to fold over the blanket with each piece of land stolen from its Indigenous stewards.
“We don’t have migration stories … our people — we’re prairie people, we’re foothills people and we’re mountain people.”
Grant many heads
Blanket exercises are not new. In 1997, KAIROS Canada — an interfaith group focusing on ecological justice and human rights — introduced their national KAIROS Blanket Exercise. For Bear Chief and the group, however, they want to develop something more than a blanket exercise.
“I think we have to look at something else,” he says. “To me, it’s about taking people through a journey through the whole exercise and gaining information along the way.”
Bear Chief – who participated in the KAIROS exercise – says their project seeks to go deeper and expand people’s knowledge beyond “the depth of a plow.”
Explaining the analogy
The analogy refers to the baseline knowledge most people have of the Niitsitapi, or “real people,” and their territory’s history as being only two fists deep — the approximate depth a plow can penetrate the soil.
The real challenge, however, lies in adapting the extensive Blackfoot history into a 90-minute exercise for a variety of classrooms.
From idea to implementation
As the dean of the faculty of health, community and education, Price acts as “the big bee,” Melting Tallow says. He’s taking the seed they’ve planted and spreading it. The hope is to create a program allowing others to become educators themselves.
“We don’t have cloning technology. We can’t make 30 Roys,” Price says, referring to Bear Chief. “This exercise will be another opportunity for other people to become facilitators.”
The group is still working out the logistics, but hopes to do workshops with Mount Royal students. From there they’ll look to make it university-wide and share it with other school boards. Price adds how Many Heads and Blackfoot Crossing hold much of the knowledge the group will rely on.
Many Heads sees the framework of his tours as a foundation for this new program. He explains how their tours build off one another, beginning with Blackfoot origin stories and the archaeological record, moving into the history of pre-contact and pre-treaty, all the way up to the treaty and its legacy.
“Let the land speak through the stories.”
Roy bear chief
Although the program is brand new – appearing at Journey to Indigenization for the first time – Bear Chief hopes it will serve as a tool of enlightenment rather than a source of finger-pointing.
“This whole exercise is not about making people feel guilty, about things that have happened,” Bear Chief says. “To me, this exercise is an educational journey that people — at least at the end — get to understand.”
Melting Tallow builds on this concept, stressing the program is a way to highlight the truth and uncover what has been lost.
“We don’t want to change the curriculum here, we want to add to it,” he says. “And to do that we have to tell the truth.”