Month: September 2024

So Far from Home: Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and Red Deer Industrial School

So Far from Home: Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and Red Deer Industrial School

Jared

Editor’s note: September 30 is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day. Reading residential school histories can be a painful process. If reading this is causing pain or bringing back distressing memories, please call the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419. The Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day and can also provide information on other health supports provided by the Health Canada Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program.

An earlier version of this article appeared in the December/January 2024 issue of Nisichawayasi Achimowina.

Written by: Laura Golebiowski (Indigenous Consultation Adviser), in collaboration with Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation.

“Eight children, an equal number of boys and girls, were going with us to enter a Residential School… I applied, but without success, to the Principal of the Brandon Residential School, for the admittance of the Indian children. That they were “non-treaty” was the alleged objection. As, however, the Red Deer school was willing to receive them, we decided to take them there…In the course of two or three years, five of those apparently healthy children had died from Tuberculosis.”

– Samuel Gaudin, in Forty-Four Years with the Northern Crees

Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation are the Nisichawayasi Nehethowuk: the people whose ancestors lived near where the three rivers meet and who speak Nehetho, the language of the four winds. Their territory includes the rich lands of the Canadian Shield and boreal forest in what is now northern Manitoba. Their central community hub is located at Nelson House, a long-time place of Indigenous occupation where the Hudson’s Bay Company established a trading post in the late 1700s.

The rocky shoreline of Footprint Lake, Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation territory near Nelson House, Manitoba. Source: Laura Golebiowski.
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Public archaeology in Nose Hill Park

Jared

Written by: Sam Judson and Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary.

Calgary was incorporated as a Canadian city in 1884 and, since then, has grown to be a city of more than 1.5 million people. Although the City of Calgary is less than 150 years old, people have lived in this area, called this place home, and taken care of these lands for thousands of years. This long history is told through the numerous archaeological sites within and beyond Calgary’s city limits. Examples such as the Hawkwood site, Everblue Springs site and Mona Lisa Site demonstrate that this part of Alberta has been inhabited for approximately 8,000 years.

Nose Hill is a testament to Alberta’s long-standing Indigenous history. More than 40 recorded Precontact Indigenous archaeological sites are known within this City of Calgary park space, most first recorded by archaeologists in 1978 ahead of the creation of the park. The majority of these are camp sites made up of one or many stone circles, but kill sites and lithic scatters are also present. Not only was Nose Hill utilized frequently by Indigenous groups before contact, but it was also extensively used by citizens in the early days of Calgary’s existence as a settler municipality. Animals grazed on Nose Hill, northern areas of the hill were cultivated for crops, and a gravel pit was active on Nose Hill for several years. Despite these modern activities, Nose Hill Park remains one of the largest undisturbed grasslands in the Calgary area. As a result, the archaeological sites of Nose Hill are remarkably well preserved and tell a story of thousands of years of human occupation and connection with this prominent landform.

University of Calgary Staff and Students at Nose Hill Park, Calgary. Source: Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer.
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