The year 2011 has proven to be a tumultuous one on the Stoney Nakoda First Nation.
The year began tragically when police began investigating the murder of a Morley man on Jan. 1 at 3 a.m. Three people from Morley were subsequently charged with second degree murder.
Another murder occurred on Jan. 27. A 25-year-old man was charged with the second-degree murder of a 25-year-old woman.
On the same day, Alberta Fish and Wildlife raided two Morley homes, including one belonging to Grace and David Daniels, charging the Daniels’ son and daughter, Harlin and Terry Daniels, with trafficking wildlife and possession for the purpose of trafficking. The Daniels have stated the items in question had been passed down for generations.
Morley Community School and its partners, the Calgary Catholic School District and Tsuu T’ina Dept. of Education, were awarded the 2011 Mayor’s Excellence Award for a program designed to link students on aboriginal reserves with students in Catholic schools.
On June 22, a federal judge ordered Bearspaw Chief David Bearspaw Jr. and council to step down after they renewed their terms of office without holding an election. An election was held in August, with voters bringing in a new chief, Darcy Dixon and council.
In a positive move, on Oct. 19, the Stoney Cadet Corps was officially launched when a group of 30 cadets, the youngest just six years old, marched into the Morley Community School gym. The Stoney Tribal Cadet Corps (STCC), a joint program between the Stoney Nakoda First Nation and Cochrane RCMP, is giving Nakoda children and youth an alternative to joining gangs and turning to drugs and alcohol, while offering opportunities to make new friends, learn new skills and travel.
Two Morley sisters, Fontella Twoyoungmen and her sister Vanna Jade, were cited in October for bravery following a June 2006 incident that forced them to fight back against an attacker as they attempted to protect one another. Fontella was awarded the Star of Courage, Canada’s highest award for bravery, while her sister Vanna Jade will be recognized with the Medal of Bravery at a later date. Fontella died six months after the attack due to her injuries.
At the beginning of December, Morley artist Roland Rollinmud unveiled his mural that will hang in a prominent spot at the Cave and Basin National Historic Site once the facility re-opens next December. The mural features the Stoney Nakoda connection to the hot springs.
To the west, in the Municipal District of Bighorn, a group of current and former Exshaw residents banded together to see if the St. Bernard’s Catholic Church, built in 1907, could be saved from demolition and if so, how it could be used.
Also in January, Lafarge bought 10 acres of land in east Exshaw for future staff accommodations. With a large number of employees reaching retirement age and the modernization of the plant, Lafarge is taking this step now to plan for the next generation of plant employees.
Lafarge hosted two public forums in February to seek input on its plan to delay completion of a new kiln by a year. Brad Watson, environmental co-ordinator for the Exshaw cement plant, said the delay in construction is a result of the struggling economy and as a result, it makes more sense financially to spread the cost of the infrastructure upgrades over four rather than three years. Lafarge is expanding the capacity of the Exshaw plant to take production from 1.3 million tonnes per year to 2.2 million tonnes.
The Municipal District of Bighorn completed its heritage inventory in February, listing 21 sites, such as the Butchart kiln and the old slot quarry at Gap, of heritage value in the MD. Another historic site, the Horseshoe Dam at Seebe, celebrated its centennial in May. The dam began generating power in 1911, serving Calgary and the Exshaw cement plant.
Lafarge and the World Wildlife Fund signed a commitment to conservation that will be in place until 2050. The Rocky Mountain Conservation Partnership shows a local long-term commitment to protecting wildlife and the environment.
Bighorn librarians Rose Reid and Bonnie Ryan were awarded the first Marigold Library System Making a Difference award for their Bonnybooks program, which has put over 35,000 good-quality, gently-used and new books into the hands of children since 2005 as a means to promote literacy.
The biggest news event in the MD in 2011 occurred late in the evening of July 16 when a pile of chipped and recycled wood the size of a football field caught fire, bathing the surrounding cliffs in orange light and throwing embers 600 metres into the surrounding forest. About 60 MD of Bighorn and Sustainable Resource Development firefighters fought the fire through the night, first to contain it to the landfill, then to remove the heat. Without water nearby, crews relied on tanker trucks filling up at new fire hydrants in Exshaw to dump over 2,000 cubic metres of municipal water on the fire over the following two days.
Alberta Health Services, following a lengthy hearing process that began in 2009, granted the MD a waiver on July 15 giving the municipality permission to have the Dead Man’s Flats water well sit near a site once used as a dump. Contrary to provincial regulations, the Dead Man’s Flats well is located within a 450-metre radius surrounding a dump used by Alberta Transportation from the early 1970s through to 1990. Bighorn applied the waiver as geographical constraints – a future highway interchange at Dead Man’s Flats, the nuisance grounds itself and a nearby wildlife corridor – precluded the municipality of locating the wellhead elsewhere.
In September, dry conditions and a rare northeast wind during a blast in the Lafarge quarry at Exshaw led to an unusual dust cloud Sept. 12. The 22 km/h wind came over the top of the mountains north of Exshaw and blew across the quarry, which from that angle presented a larger exposed area.
Dust, noise and coal being dumped on the open ground led a group of residents to vent their frustration at Lafarge during a community forum in October. The meeting led Lafarge to form a community liason committee, featuring six to 10 community members and three or four Lafarge representatives.
Hugh Pettigrew, who had been with Bighorn as its director of operations for a decade, informed council on Sept. 14 he had accepted a job offer with the MD of Foothills as its deputy director of operations and engineering. Pettigrew’s last day at Bighorn was Sept. 30. “It’s a good opportunity,” Pettigrew said. “It’s a challenge that promotes my career and it’s a larger venture. I’m going to work in a different level than I am now, with a large crew of very talented people.
A proposal to establish a waste transfer station to serve the Bow Valley in Dead Man’s Flats gained some traction in October after sitting idle for nearly three years. Councillor Paul Ryan sought consent from council to take the concept back to the Bow Valley Waste Management Commission for a new look. The idea of a regional transfer station based in the western edge of the MD has lain dormant since 2008 when a BVWMC resolution to site a regional transfer station was not approved.
The eastern portion of the Banff Legacy Trail from the east gate of Banff National Park to Canmore has proven to be an ongoing question for the MD. Rather than route the trail over the Trans-Canada Highway to the Canmore-Harvie Heights Trail and be forced to take responsibility for the highway crossing the MD has been pushing to have the trail run along the south side of the Trans-Canada Highway.
