2  Niksookowaks / All My Relations Reflections on Reconciliation

The Many Moods of My Grandma

As a young child, I did not fully understand my grandmother. Throughout her life, moments in time would bring her to a place that my young self could only describe as far away. The adults in my family described these moments as Grandma being in her mood: a myriad of emotions associated with sharing stories directly or indirectly of the many times in her life during which she seemed to be happy. Although I got used to her going into her moods, my mind was always searching for sure reasoning, while my heart just wanted her to be okay all the time.

During the journey of my undergraduate studies, some of the answers to my whys started to surface—intergenerational effects were being talked about, and the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP 1996) was an important document. I would sit with my mother, and since it seemed we did not talk much about it, I got brave and asked why my grandma had these moods. My great-grandmother raised my mom, so the life they shared was more like a close and honest mother-daughter relationship. Thus, my mom knew the very likely reason why her own mom had these moods, and she shared with me what she had never before shared with anyone. In sum, the truth was covered with trauma that my grandma endured in residential school when she was fourteen years old. The story was hers, and it was one that she never talked about in her life, while living through it, she found something within herself to forgive those who caused her trauma.

As I got older and had my own children, I wanted to come to a place of understanding for my grandma; I just wanted time with her that was not spent trying to stay out of her way or feel that yearning for my idea of normalcy. I was a stay-at-home mom for about five years, and during that time, I picked her up to go to town and brought her out to my house for visits so she could make the bannock for stew. I remembered moments that I loved about her—like our shared love for country music—and I would say stuff like “Grandma, I bet you used to wish Hank Williams Sr. was your boyfriend. Or I suppose Elvis.” She would giggle, and like all of us Blackfoot women, she would hit me, we would laugh, and she would say, “Geh you! Don’t say that to me.” I would tell her, “Well, I might consider leaving my husband for George Strait if he would give you all his horses. I wonder how many horses he has.” She would be laughing and say, “Probably not as many horses as your grandpa.” We had some silly conversations, and when I just wanted to hear her voice, I would call and ask, “Grandma, how many cups of flour for bannock?” Her answer was always “Two, maybe three cups if it’s just for your family, but you’ll end up using about four cups.” I always took note of how she made certain that she spelled my children’s names right—first, middle, and last. She always got it right; it mattered to her.

I never spoke much about my grandma’s story until my work in post-secondary institutions had me leading the cultural awareness initiatives for Lethbridge College. My heart ached with both love and inspiration for the woman my grandma Shirley was. Maybe she was not perfect, but her life, like so many, was interrupted by the Indian residential school system, and from this, she tried her best to care for herself, never depending too much on anyone. When she was in her best moods, she supported her children and grandchildren the way she could. I think of her often in all that I do, understanding that the trauma she lived through helped me consider where my life has been easier, a life I have that does not have much suffering. So many of the grandparents of our nations persevered the best they could; like theirs, my grandma’s story—young Shirley’s life—mattered. As I am of a generation after the residential schools, I will never fully grasp what my grandmother endured within those walls. However, my understanding of her story, honouring her life in my continued steps as her granddaughter, has helped me move forward stronger as a Blackfoot woman. Truth can evoke a space of empathy to begin an understanding of the interrupted lives of many Niitsitapiiks (the Real People). Reconciliation is that effort by non-Indigenous people to embrace learning and turn any perceptions they may have into positive changes of thought. By gaining a sincere understanding of Canada’s dark past and current state of systemic racism, it might be possible to grow a compassionate heart and positively change the moods of many Indigenous people.

Marcia Black Water, Iito’tawoahkaakii (Walking Beside)

Reconciliation

The word reconciliation is defined differently depending on who you talk to. For some, it is based on past experiences, while others adopt the academic definition. Academically, it is defined within the disciplines of law, social science, psychology, and sociology. It is also defined by the experiences of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and by the holistic concept of the impacts of colonization on the body, mind, and spirit. Therefore, it depends on the level of education a person has, who the person is, and the person’s real-life experiences with colonization and the residential schools. Flisfeder (2010, 1) writes, “A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission is a commission tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state actors also), in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past.” This includes the restoration of friendly relations, the action of making one view or belief compatible with another, and the action of making financial accounts consistent through harmonization.

My personal view of reconciliation is best expressed through a series of questions: How do I reconcile with a white government that used its legal documentation to put me in the residential school where I was told that being Indian was bad, where I was told that my grandparents, whom I loved very much, were praying to this evil entity called the devil? How do I reconcile with the white workers for trying to do things their way and getting punished without an explanation, for experiencing the emotional pain of loneliness and their attempt to destroy my ancestors’ spiritual way of life as they talked about a loving God? Beyond residential school, how do I reconcile for the mistakes I have made because of my anger and hatred toward a white government that has no face? John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister, is dead, but his policies continue today. I will never get the cultural knowledge and love from my grandparents and great-grandparents that I lost when I was sent to residential school. How am I supposed to “reconcile” that?

The only way that I was able to move on in life and deal with my anger and hatred was by going back to the culture—one that the white man had instilled in me was bad and evil—and listening to the Elders. So is reconciliation for the experiences in residential school? Is reconciliation for taking this land away from the Kainai people and putting us on reserves? What are we really reconciling?

Going beyond that, the white government has corralled all people of Native ancestry into a pool called Indigenous people. Because of that, now we are struggling to keep our ancestral territorial names. The Kainai people were here before the white man came. Then the white man came. Then people of mixed blood appeared after the white men had babies with the Native women. Then designated races—such as the Métis, people of Cree and French ancestry, and the Inuit—appeared. Although government legislation today distinguishes between First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, all have become Indigenous people. The Kainai, and the rest of the Blackfoot, were the first people to live in this territory, and that needs to be strongly recognized. It seems we are still being directed by the white government on how we distinguish the traditional inhabitants of this land.

Macdonald has succeeded in directing the Kainai Blackfoot people toward adopting the European way of life. The Buffalo is gone, and the Kainai people have adopted the white style of governance. Therefore, if we are talking about reconciliation at the level of governance and having equal representation, then we require a Kainai Blackfoot seat at the Lethbridge mayor and council chambers.

Academics define reconciliation through their research and have a definition that they think is correct. Politicians have their own definitions based on what is “politically correct.” As a First Nation member of the Kainai Nation, my question about reconciliation is, How do I regain what I have lost, or will that ever happen? I speak for myself because everybody has their own story to tell.

Or is reconciliation the next phase of Macdonald’s initiative “to have all Indians adopt the European way of life”? Academics played a significant role in the cultural genocide of Indigenous people because the government adopted and built policy around academic papers and studies. The creation of residential schools was based on the 1879 Davin Report. How did this help the Indigenous people? Have we assimilated? Was the attempt successful?

Today, it is a fight for inclusion so we can further our initiatives to participate in local, regional, and national groups. Kainai was here before the white man came, and now the academics are including the Métis and Inuit as being a part of this territory. Academic research can be steered in any direction. I do understand that research is essential to move some things forward or to understand how certain things function, but the research that has been done on First Nations created a cultural genocide. Now, do we do more research on reconciliation? After the reconciliation initiative dies down, then will we have a research project titled “From Cultural Genocide to Reconciliation and the Positive Outcomes of Getting Kainai to Lead a European Lifestyle”? We are headed that way as I fight for Kainai inclusion through designated seats on the City of Lethbridge mayor and council.

Jordan Head, Makoikiskisnam (White Wolf)

The Light

In the middle of nowhere, I sit and feel the sun scratching my skin. I notice the silence and my thoughts tangling with one another. Everything around me looks different, as if my consciousness is bruised. My thoughts no longer feel like mine as I begin to wonder how I became who I am and where all this began. My bruised consciousness then takes my existence to a different place, a place of non-existence, a place of complete darkness and waste. My consciousness hangs on to a thought, a hope, as I realize that there may be no such thing as a soul. I begin to feel the echoes of fear and death camouflaged in the wind and hitting my emotions like I’m falling into a freezing lake. Fear begins seeping up into my spine, like I’m stepping on broken glass, then blackness, silence, nothingness. My heart begins to race, my fingers feel tingly, and I have shortness of breath. The land looks unreal, as if it is a dream. My body begins to tighten, and I can no longer control my thoughts. I realize that I am dying, and there is not a soul in sight to help me. I cross my arms across my chest and fall to my side. I have no idea where I am or what my name is. I see complete blackness around me, covering me one cell at a time. I realize there is no God, no eternal soul. We are only lab rats, a coincidence, a random event in the universe. My tongue rolls back into my throat as my last few thoughts have nothing to hold. A complete silence enters my consciousness, and it immerses into complete doubt, fear, and unknowingness. My last thought is not even my own as I dissolve into nothing.

I open my eyes and below me is my body, convulsing. I look at it and realize that is not me. I am separate yet connected to the universe, like a drop of water in a sea. I am neither a human nor an animal. I am pure thought, pure consciousness, pure energy. My one eternal question is answered to me intuitively, like looking at a sunrise. My question: Why have I suffered so much? The answer: Suffering was the element, the tool to keep my spirit, my soul, intact, a choice I made before I was born.

A spirit evolves from a rock and signals me to follow him into his consciousness. I look back and see my body motionless. I then find myself standing on top of a hill overlooking a huge canyon. I look to the sky and I see night and day on fire. An angry violent wind blows on top of itself and pushes me down the canyon. I begin to realize that this place may keep me here. I begin running back up the canyon, but I am blocked by a huge heat wave that smiles and winks at me. I find myself in complete fear and sadness, like a thousand heartbreaks.

I notice in the distance some hills on fire. I begin to run to them, slowed by fear. As I arrive, the fire dies down, and I see a marbled road crossing the canyon, and at the end is a light. I hear thunder and rain but there are no raindrops. A spirit points at a purplish pinpoint light at the end of the marbled road. He tells me, “Keep that light one thought away from you; this light is the way out.” The spirit then takes me to a place that has fierce hot winds and hills that look as if they have been sitting upright crying. As I begin to walk toward these hills, I feel fear leave my lungs, like a flock of birds flying away. I come to the edge of a hill, and I see thousands of people doubting eternity as their spirits watch in pain. I look up to the burning sky as anger rides on raindrops and fills their lives. I see lost romances falling and disappearing into the dark canyon. I see a hand desperately reaching for someone. The fiery sky cracks open, and I see people’s dreams fall and melt on the cold ground. I see so many lost souls wandering aimlessly with no light in their eyes. Then in an instant everything vanishes; I am standing next to my body. The spirit tells me, “You can come with me into this light and you will be fine, or you can go back and make a difference in people’s lives.” I say, “I choose to go back.” He then smiles and says, “You are a warrior; I will be back when the time is right.”

I slowly open my eyes, and the tingling in my face and arms slowly starts going away. I slowly sit up and see the blue sky. A cool breeze swims into my lungs as I slowly begin to breathe again. I see the sun. I am ready to live my life.

John Chief Calf

Oki Niksokowaawa

Upon my return to Lethbridge as an educator in 2018, I sent out to Creator my willingness to be a conduit for learning and a support to all children of Lethbridge. I was provided with the great opportunity to be on the RLAC in the fall of 2019. In my short time on this committee, I have been surprised and encouraged that our city is engaging in work that has the potential to change the way we see one another as neighbours.

One of my first public speaking assignments in my new role was to speak to “storytelling” and what that might mean to mental health workers in education and other educators. As I researched the history of Blackfoot people in Lethbridge and vice versa, an article jumped out at me about how Blackfoot women were treated in the historical context of the city. The image I had has remained with me and has provided me with further resolve to ensure that students of all cultures are aware of the proud Blackfoot heritage our ancestors had for millennia, and although our recent history was of colonization and oppression, together and with our neighbours we can overcome the adversity that Blackfoot people face and continue to encounter in our journey to once again being the proud community members our ancestors taught.

The RLAC has provided the opportunity to meet with people who have a shared understanding of and commitment to reconciliation.

Annette Bruised Head, Naato’saakii

Mayor of Lethbridge

The reconciliation initiative has just completed its third year.

Led by the RLAC, it is evident that 2019 built on the momentum established in the first two years. The United Nations declared 2019 to be the year of Indigenous languages. Lethbridge City Council unanimously adopted the Blackfoot word Oki as our city’s official greeting. Community groups and organizations in the city added their support. The Heart of the City Committee commissioned a large three-dimensional “Oki” sign, the University of Lethbridge produced “Oki” desktop signs, “Oki” buttons were circulated, and the Lethbridge Public Library produced “Oki” pins.

Blackfoot language classes were initiated at the Galt Museum and received strong support. For the first time, there was a Blackfoot component as part of the Lethbridge Jane’s Walk. The City of Lethbridge began a summer program focused on providing employment for Indigenous people.

All these activities helped promote respect and understanding. I am looking forward to more progress in 2020.

Chris Spearman, Nitsikimmapiiyipitsi (A Compassionate Person or One with a Heart)

Two Worlds Converging

This is a story of unsettling the horrific history of Canada born from the plight of Indigenous peoples. It is also a reflection of two worldviews converging and the unsettling journey across these two worlds. It is told as a story because, as Thomas King would say, “the truth about stories is, that’s all we are” (Parkinson 2018)—and this is my story, as told from the perspective of a third-generation Canadian-born white male.

Born in a small southern Alberta town, I didn’t have much of a lens to view the world. As far as I knew, there wasn’t much of a world beyond our little town. To some degree, that was okay with me because even that small world was often daunting and complicated enough. It was easier to hide away in comfort when that privilege was afforded to me. However, I always thought and felt that there was something not quite right, that somehow, I had been told a lie by which I must live.

Where I grew up, there wasn’t much of a diverse community, and those who would be identified as diverse were easily absorbed by assimilating forces. When it came to Indigenous peoples, the only times I heard of them were in racist jokes, some of which I had told, or descriptions of them as savages in colonial history books or fantasized as mythology in movies. I would later come to the awareness that there were First Nations and Métis families in our community, some of whom I grew up with or knew in some way.

It wasn’t really until I moved from that small town that I started to experience the world more broadly. Not just the greater part of the world I lived in, I started to experience the worlds of others, the ways others experience and connect with life. This is where this particular story really begins. The story of unsettling the lessons of history and an unsettling of self that sparked reflection and profound learning and growth.

Through various life circumstances, my horizon of how I saw the world was both disturbed and expanded, much of this occurring after I went to university for the first time in my life at the age of thirty-one. It was there that I gained a greater learning of the real truth of our Canadian history. It took thirty plus years before I started to learn this truth. That’s a crime in and of itself. Our national history has a stain that many have covered up to hide it or just completely ignore it as if it were a normal facet of society. It is a history that has done everything but completely annihilate Indigenous peoples.

At first, I felt immense guilt and shame. I don’t think this was misplaced. How could I not feel shame for what our nation has done to the traditional people of the land we have occupied? Of course, I felt guilty for my ignorance of the history but also for perpetuating racism through the jokes I told and the narrow lens through which I identified Indigenous people. But with guidance and mentoring from a Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) Elder, I learned that guilt and shame only hold us in the grips of colonization. I was taught that this history is not our fault, but it is our responsibility. If we are to truly move forward in reconciliation, we must first hear the truth and then situate ourselves to take action. Guilt and shame hold us in time, while knowledge and action propel us forward.

Many times along this new journey of reconciliation I arrived at a crossroads between two worlds and had to consent to be uncomfortable and to have my perceptions questioned. I began a path of decolonization, which requires more than surface-level change—it is a deep awakening and healing from the lies I’ve been told and by which I lived. At each crossroad, I journey down a new path of learning and growth. I’ve learned that this will be a lifelong learning and a lifelong awakening, and it is not easy but it is necessary.

The path of walking between two worlds has become my symbol and my journey, literally and metaphorically. I was honoured to have a significant part in creating the logo for the work of RLAC as the logo designer. The concept of what became the logo came to me almost immediately, but then I provided some other concepts to have some options. But this one concept kept calling to me, so I pursued it the most.

For those who aren’t familiar with the logo, it is a circular design that has two halves of a circle within it, each with a jagged edge that merges into the other. There are three dots placed in each half-circle. The colours are sacred colours; ochre is often used. Without going too in depth, this story is the basis of the logo. The concept came from an article written by a prominent Blackfoot scholar, Leroy Little Bear (2010), called “Jagged Worldviews Colliding.” Essentially, this is the path of colonialism, with Western, colonial worldviews dominating and imposing themselves on the traditional worldviews of the various Indigenous peoples of the lands on which Canada now exists. These worldviews are not very compatible, thus the jagged edges represented in figure 2.1.

The reality is these two worlds exist alongside each other, with the revival and growth of cultural ways among many of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people and the persistence of Western ways as a dominant narrative. It seems that the path forward in reconciliation is to minimize the collateral damage of these worlds colliding and find a way for them to converge, come together, or coexist. People need to support this coming together, to walk the path between these two worlds as a bridge. This is where I find myself situated from a settler’s perspective, working alongside many Indigenous people in understanding how to bring these worldviews together while maintaining the integrity and the revitalization of the Indigenous worldviews.

To walk along this path between these two worlds is to be open to learning the truth of our history but to also learn about a worldview into which I was not born. I am to create relationships with people whom I grew up only knowing as a fantasy or as “other.” I am to be uncomfortable while challenging my perceptions and bias to unravel my own racism. I am to create a place of healing for myself and build a community of respect, understanding, and reciprocity.

Although I have been involved in efforts of reconciliation and decolonization for about a decade now, it is still really new. I know that there is a long path ahead, one that will continue to be jagged but is necessary. It is also one that has been healing. I have been honoured to be a part of a world that is truly built on community, collaboration, and reciprocity. I have been invited to participate in many ceremonies and be involved in some significant ways. I was gifted a Blackfoot name, Piitaana, which means Eagle Man—a name I was told is of high regard but also a big responsibility.

To honour my name, I am to be humble in this path, to walk alongside my family, friends, and neighbours from both worldviews. I am to remember the truth of our history and to share it with all I know and lean into a better tomorrow where we can grow together. My role is to see a future where we can all coexist in mutual respect and understanding, not at the cost of furthering colonialism, but to honour and respect what I have been taught and gifted. My role is not at the forefront. My role is from within this new community. My role is to continue to explore and experience the processes of self-decolonization as a non-Indigenous, Canadian-born person and to help others take this same path.

Although I still journey along a path greatly unknown, I have more clarity than ever. But this isn’t just my journey to travel. As we share the collective history that connects us all, the work of decolonization and reconciliation is for everyone. I invite and encourage my family, friends, and neighbours to consent to being uncomfortable and to learn and reflect on the truth of our history, to unsettle ourselves and open space for growth.

If anything, change, even if small, will happen as a result of my daughters never telling the same racist jokes I told and knowing the truth and living with respect for those who lived on this land long before our ancestors did. If this becomes the new reality for more families, change is possible. I was taught that it will take seven generations for the Indigenous peoples to experience full healing from colonialism. I hope this can be true for all of us, to heal from the destructive path of colonialism, one that has torn us apart from one another and created jagged edges that collide. I hope that we can find reconciliation with one another, and if my journey so far is any indication of the healing it can bring, I see hope for us.

Jerry Firth, Piitaana (Eagle Man)

What Is Reconciliation?

Councillor, City of Lethbridge

What does reconciliation mean to me?

This seems like such a simple question, but for reconciliation to work, it requires much of all of us, both privately and publicly.

As a city councillor, reconciliation is a call to action. Reconciliation means building a better, stronger relationship with the Blood Tribe Council and supporting/building partnerships between the Kainai Reserve and the city. Reconciliation means supporting, advocating for, and building partnerships and relationships with urban Indigenous and Métis organizations. Reconciliation is a reminder that I must do my work as a councillor focused on what I, city council as a group, and the City of Lethbridge as a corporation are doing to ensure that racism is addressed in Lethbridge. What are we doing to ensure that all people living in Lethbridge have an opportunity for employment, food security, and affordable housing and feel a part of the community? Do we have appropriate mechanisms to ensure that all people—especially those who have traditionally been marginalized—have access to the council to share their ideas/opinions/concerns, are being heard, and are part of the decision-making that is helping to build the future? What are we doing to ensure the work of the city is considered through the lens of Indigeneity?

As an individual, reconciliation is a responsibility. I have a responsibility to educate myself about the realities faced by many others in the community. I have a responsibility to offer support and understanding to those who need it. It’s also my responsibility to approach reconciliation with the best possible mindset—to be open-minded to other perspectives and to support people as they require and wish. As someone with power and a platform, I have the responsibility to make room for others and support others having a seat at the table (even if that means leaving the table myself).

As a local public historian and researcher for the Lethbridge Historical Society, reconciliation is truth. It is vital that we remember that it is truth and reconciliation, even though many jump immediately to reconciliation. But moving forward as a community means we must also face the truth of our shared history and the truth of people’s experiences. Reconciliation is ensuring that the stories and histories of all the peoples of Lethbridge and southern Alberta are told. Reconciliation is listening to and considering the many voices of the community and not simply the ones that have traditionally been the loudest.

What does reconciliation mean to me? All I have already written and so much more. In brief, it means a way forward for Lethbridge in truth, togetherness, justice, and love. Reconciliation means the future we must all work to build.

Belinda Crowson, A’okiwannowah (Seen by All)

Moh’kins’tsis and Sik-Ooh-Kotok

I grew up and spent the first eighteen or so years of my life in Calgary, Alberta—at least, that’s the name that I knew the place as. It wasn’t until many years later that I came to learn that the geographic area I knew as Calgary indeed already had a name (or rather many). For the Blackfoot, the name is Moh’kins’tsis, a reference to the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers—the same place out of which the colonial townsite grew and a traditional gathering space for Blackfoot and other Indigenous peoples for millennia. This later-life realization that I live in a world surrounded by unshared history, culture, and language has troubled me and caused me to evaluate the ways in which I contribute both positively and negatively to colonization and decolonization, exclusion and inclusion, including in my professional work.

One of the things I often look back to from when I lived in Moh’kins’tsis is the fact that I happened to live within walking distance of the Tsuut’ina First Nation. I remember travelling to the Chief Dick Big Plume arena every few weeks as a youth for minor hockey games. I remember walking into the rink and feeling that this place was unlike any other place “in my city.” I felt different there, though I was uncertain as a youth as to why. I remember there being display cases and framed images on the walls of chiefs and people in traditional regalia and thinking to myself, “Who are these people?” as they seemed to come from a world different from mine.

In fact, other than a few cursory and fleeting references to “Indians,” the buffalo, and teepees in my K-12 education, from what I can recall of my youth, I really had no other memorable points of interaction with Indigenous peoples. That of course is just from what I can recollect looking at the past through my mind’s eye. I’m sure that in the eighteen years I lived in Moh’kins’tsis, I interacted with Blackfoot, Dene, Stoney, Métis, and many other Indigenous peoples on almost a daily basis without actually thinking about it. And at the very least, I interacted daily with their territories: visiting rivers, parks, mountains, and valleys that all have names and stories that had yet to be revealed to me or, in the case of Calgary, travelling along roadways that are named after people or peoples but are devoid of context (places like Crowchild or Blackfoot Trail).

It wasn’t until I went to university that I came to be exposed to this other layer of historical, political, and cultural complexity that dominated (unknowingly) my world. And even then, it was only through experiencing the histories and cultures of Indigenous peoples in other parts of the world that I came to reflect in any meaningful or critical way on my own country’s and city’s colonial and pre-colonial history. In expanding my perspective, I also came to better understand the role that my chosen career path (community planning) has had on perpetuating colonial and post-colonial settlement in Indigenous territories and with it the active deconstruction of knowledge and embedded ecocultural values held by people and places—and moreover, how this contributes to exclusion, discrimination, and genocide.

Once I finished my post-secondary education, through chance (or fate), my first real job involved working as a community planner in Indigenous communities in western Canada. Through that work with Indigenous communities and Elders, I was offered a glimpse into perspectives and approaches to community planning that I was never exposed to in planning school, which left me, again, feeling as though my Western educational system had failed me, leaving me ill-equipped to understand the true complexities of not only the world around me but the very geographies I aspired to (and was supposedly taught to) “plan.” Since taking on my role in the City of Lethbridge—another city of many names, including Sik-Ooh-Kotok, meaning “black rocks”—as their first-ever Indigenous relations adviser, I have felt a great privilege to be able to now work with other community members and even fellow professionals to return the favour: suggesting ever so gently that there is much more to be seen and understood than first meets the eye.

When thinking about racism in Lethbridge and southern Alberta more broadly, so many of the root causes of the racism and marginalization faced by many members of the Indigenous community relate back to a lack of basic understanding of our neighbours and of the interconnectedness of our histories. I think of the role of the RLAC and indeed my role in the city as being to offer non-Indigenous peoples entry points to engage with a world and with peoples that until relatively recently have seemingly been hidden (the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC] of Canada helped, as have the increasingly reconciliatory tones of some of our country’s leaders). Although when we look around our community (and all communities, for that matter), nothing had ever really been hidden, just gone unnoticed by most non-Indigenous peoples.

I feel that Sik-Ooh-Kotok is on a strong path toward understanding what reconciliation is, but we still have much work to do. A lot of that work is very basic. It’s bringing people together and telling more expansive and truthful histories. But a lot of the heavy lifting is yet to come. Racism is an ugly beast that tends to rear its head when economic times are challenging and when social crises emerge. Our community and province are currently gripped by both. My hope is that over time we can learn to be more compassionate and work to create a more inclusive and respectful post-colonial community where we can all thrive and feel a sense of belonging.

Perry Stein, Miistaksi’piitaa (Mountain Eagle)

Conclusions

The contributors from the RLAC reveal a couple of key themes that point to the urgency of reconciliation work within the City of Lethbridge and the way that the experiences of residents (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) compel us to examine colonialist legacies and enduring ideologies of race as they permeate in our social environment. The work that the committee has accomplished, while important, is largely centred on establishing a symbolic field through which the process of reconciliation can continue. The hard work is yet to come, and that work appears to fall in four different thematic areas: indigenizing urban spaces, having sincere and difficult conversations, advancing structural changes that contribute to the work of decolonization, and convincing non-Indigenous city leaders and residents that we must be leaders in demonstrating that we are willing and committed to taking the lead on the necessary hard work and difficult conversations.

Jerry Firth and Perry Stein both discuss, through their childhood experiences, how and why urban spaces must be indigenized. In both of their experiences, their Indigenous neighbours and the Indigenous spaces in the town and city where they lived were illegible to them, rendered invisible by the ways in which Indigenous peoples have historically been exiled from urban centres or silenced when they have transgressed urban boundaries and entered those spaces. Jordan Head discusses the legacy of the Pass System, a formal mechanism of attempting to create an urban space that was decidedly non-Indigenous as contraposed to the Indigenous reserve. Both of these spaces were products of European colonialism, and both were fictions from the start, as the boundaries between the city and the reserve are constantly crossed by people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Yet this racialized geography is resilient, and the ideologies it buttresses work against creating an inclusive city and against a process of building relationships among Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents and neighbours. This makes the task of indigenizing the city a pressing one, as it will contribute to a process of making the multitude of Indigenous contributions to our city’s landscape (past, present, and future) visible and viable, making us realize the white city is and has always been not only fantasy but also an unfortunate legacy of the colonial encounter.

My Indigenous colleagues—Marcia Black Water, John Chief Calf, Annette Bruised Head, and Jordan Head—all reveal that the transgenerational trauma emanating from experiences of residential schooling and colonial domination more generally is not reconciled in the minds and experiences of our Indigenous friends and neighbours. Each, through their own unique yet patterned experiences, points to multifaceted wrongs that emanate out from experiences that we cannot treat as in the past because the consequences are felt in the present. These experiences are sometimes felt as anger and resentment, and those emotions are legitimate and justified. In a sincere process of reconciliation, we need to be able to have tough conversations; listen to the anger, pain, and resentment condensed through generations of cultural domination; and allow those voices to speak and be heard. It is the responsibility of the non-Indigenous leaders and residents of the city to make these conversations possible and to demonstrate that we are capable of listening, capable of empathizing, and eventually, perhaps, capable of healing together through these conversations.

We organized our chapter as a set of stand-alone contributions by different committee members of the RLAC so that we could demonstrate both the diversity and overlap in our understanding of what reconciliation might look like and why it is critical at this historical juncture. When we came to choose an order for presenting the contributors, we situated our Indigenous colleagues first and our non-Indigenous colleagues second. This was intentional. We wished to demonstrate that there is a sequence to the work of reconciliation, and that work toward reconciliation has been long-standing but very one-sided. Indigenous members of our community have been generous with their time, have welcomed us into their lives, and have taken pains to explain their cultural perspectives and worldviews to their non-Indigenous counterparts. For reconciliation to be successful, however, our non-Indigenous leaders and residents must do more than simply partake in moments of cross-cultural sharing or celebrate diversity but rather open the space for airing difficult conversations and confronting the structural inequities that disadvantage our Indigenous counterparts in access to employment, education, health care, and political empowerment. Councilwoman Crowson and Mayor Spearman each speak to the council’s commitment to the work of reconciliation, and each, in their own way, reveals the obligation of non-Indigenous people to take the lead in making these conversations possible. In closing, we believe that reconciliation, for it to succeed, must be energized by the dedication and commitment of non-Indigenous people to show, through their investment in time and energy, that the commitment is sincere.

Patrick C. Wilson, Iipiams’kapo (Man Who Travels Far South)

Postscript

After this contribution completed the review process but prior to publication, the City of Lethbridge held municipal elections, electing a new mayor (following Mayor Spearman’s retirement) and several new members to the council. The current mayor and council, as is true for all political transitions, hold a different set of priorities and with them a new perspective on the work of the RLAC. The first months have revealed the relevance of long-standing debates in social movement research between those who have promoted working within government to promote change and those who have argued that change must be advocated from outside (see Lapegna 2014 for a nice discussion of these debates). Those who have argued for working outside government organizations to promote change worry about the prospect of movement co-optation and the risk that goals and principles will be compromised by bureaucracy and the political ideologies of elected officials and staff. Those who advocate for working inside government to enact change argue that the opportunity to forge structural change can only come within those offices and that the potential benefits outweigh those risks.

In the case of the RLAC, the ideological shifts on the council have threatened the work of reconciliation, and members of the committee are confronting a new political reality where the mayor and council are less receptive to the hard work of truth telling that must precede and accompany advances toward realizing the Calls to Action of the TRC. While elected officials voice support for the work of reconciliation, their understanding of what this should entail departs from the previous work of the committee and represents a more sanitized view of reconciliation (such as cultural celebrations or symbolic gestures), leaving out the difficult conversations that could help reveal the historical injustices that pattern the inequalities of the present. To give but one example, at a recent RLAC meeting, we were informed a Zamboni would be painted orange with an “Every Child Matters” logo for an upcoming hockey tournament. One RLAC member suggested that we should produce fliers with a bit of information about the legacies of residential schooling and the continuing violence against Indigenous women and girls, to which the mayor suggested that “you would have to have been living under a rock these last years to not know what ‘Every Child Matters’ refers to.” True work toward reconciliation is likely not possible in this political climate and reveals the obstacles to effectively incorporating Indigenous ontologies and practices in Western institutions, particularly in a context in which there are barriers to fully engaging the truths that must precede the work of reconciliation.

The following is a partial list of resources related to truth and reconciliation; missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people; and residential schooling and Orange Shirt Day:

• • Truth and reconciliation
  • https://reconciliationcanada.ca/
  • https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/trc-website/
  • https://fncaringsociety.com/
• • Missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people
  • https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/
  • https://www.nwac.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NWAC-action-plan-FULL-ALL-EDITS.pdf
• • Residential schooling and Orange Shirt Day
  • https://www.orangeshirtday.org/
  • https://legacyofhope.ca/
• • Other information
  • https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous

Patrick C. Wilson, Iipiams’kapo, and Katie Jo Rabbit

References