From a current affair of sadness on the Stoney Nakoda reserve, an incredible culture and history is being revisited for the First Nation residents to see and be proud of for generations to come.
A $10,000 grant towards the profound project ‘Telling Our Stories’ will move it forward ahead of Canada’s 150-year birthday in 2017.
Leaders from the Nakoda Elders Wisdom Society (NEWS) will tell eight stories of historical and cultural importance to the Stoney Nation and to Canada that occurred throughout the Bow Valley.
The opportunity is a rare one for Stoney elders to provide the hidden history of the Bow Valley and significant moments in the band’s culture that helped shape what is Canadian today.
“They will be about the most important stories in the area,” said Deb Grady, MD of Bighorn community services coordinator.
The stories will be printed on a sign for all to read, including artwork, and alongside, a log bench will be installed.
“The physical work will be tentatively done by this fall and next spring will be the walks and talks, and we’ll have elders there,” said Grady.
Through the Canada 150 Fund, a federal grant that creates opportunities for Canadians to participate in local celebrations, the Banff Canmore Community Foundation spearheaded having a meeting with the organization and encouraging people to work together.
The total project is $25,000 and the physical work of completing installation of the benches and signs will be by Stoney Nation members and MD of Bighorn staff.
The idea to relate the Stoney’s vast and “incredible history” was spawned by a sadness on the nation, said Carla Pauls, Chiniki Community Program coordinator.
“Talking (to NEWS and others) about all this suicide, all this drinking, all these drugs on our nation, all these things that are happening, we wondered how we can pull together and have spaces that the Stoney can be proud of,” said Pauls.
“We have all of this incredible history, incredible knowledge and amazing people who can do amazing things on the nation, but it’s not quite where it needs to be.”
One of the prominent Stoney stories that will be told is of Chief John Chiniki, a man whose importance surpasses the Stoney Nation and lives in Canadian history for the Banff area. Chiniki played a key role in negotiations for what would be called Stoney Nakoda land, which has three bands - Chiniki, Wesley and Bearspaw.
Helping tell Chiniki’s story will be renowned artist and Stoney elder Roland Rollinmud. A distant relative of Rollinmud’s father, Rollinmud learned of Chiniki’s importance as a man throughout his life.
Recently, Rollinmud led the way up a grassy hill that hugs the Chiniki Cemetery near the Morley reserve. At the hill’s peak is John Chiniki’s gravesite; he was buried in the winter of 1904-05.
Near his gravesite, one of eight signs and benches will be installed and will relate the story of how the government of Canada sent representatives to the area for the First Nation people to sign Treaty No. 7.
Part of the treaty agreement was to determine the location and boundaries of the Stoney reserve.
“At that time, when Indian Affairs came looking for who would be the person to negotiate with, Chiniki happened to be here because he became an elder and he no longer travelled with the group that went to harvest,” said Rollinmud.
“All the others were out harvesting, including the Wesley and Bearspaw bands, so he was the only one who resided here at the time, at that hour, when that was about to happen. Of course, they nominated him as their leader – we call them chiefs, but in our day it was a warrior who would lead.”
Chiniki was a valuable negotiator and interpreter as he spoke Cree and Stoney languages. Trusted missionary John McDougall, who spoke Cree, was also present at the negotiations.
Government representatives spoke to McDougall, who translated in Cree to Chiniki, and then Chiniki translated to the Stoney people.
During the process, though, miscommunication occurred and Chiniki thought he had chosen a much larger parcel of land than was in actuality given to the Stoney people.
Chiniki thought he chose territory from Banff to Kananaskis Lakes to Jumping Pound Creek to where the Bow and Ghost rivers meet, but what was written in the treaty was only a portion of what he requested.
“Part of the sadness is (Chiniki) didn’t know what he was signing,” said Pauls. “He trusted the people that he was signing with and he later learned that those things weren’t really what he thought he chose.”
Following the treaty signing, the Stoney people were encouraged to move away from their traditional cultural practices by European settlers. With the formation of residential schools, tradition continued to fade.
“We lost that there, but it’s not all lost. It’s in us,” said Rollinmud. “I still have it, I know how I become who I am, but education again … gave me what I am – an artist.”
The hope is these stories will begin a dialogue and will be a starting point for the Stoney people to come forward and fill in previously untold information that was passed down through generations. This would include oral stories, documents and photographs.
“Today we are so corrupted and divided. There is an opportunity to realize it’s better to be as one,” said Rollinmud.
Other ‘Telling Our Stories’ sites will be around the MD and on the reserve including at the residential school site in Morley and in Exshaw.
The project is for the Stoney, but its reach goes quite beyond that, said Pauls. It is a way to link the Stoney and its youth to communities like Canmore, the MD of Bighorn and Banff, among others.
“A lot of work that we’re doing for people from here is to help them feel comfortable in other spaces and vice versa,” said Pauls. “We’re just at the point where we have people from the nation who are doing things in Banff. They’re going to school and working, but it would be nice to have that the other way too.”
“Who knows what that will do? Maybe it will change the way we teach things in school for those those things get past along for the next 150 years.”
In spring of 2017, tours to the eight sites will take place and elders who are able to make it will share the stories.
