Banff uncovered, what the mountains remember.

I've been a busy traveler this fall, and every stop has been a gift, new places, new conversations and new insights into how educators and leaders are engaging with Indigenous education. What sustains and ignites my own learning is taking the time to understand the history of the territories that I visit, and the people who have cared for these lands since time out of mind. Heading to Banff was especially exciting and I wanted to arrive prepared to share my learning about the nations and the territories in which I was entering. To honor this land and the people of the land, I needed to share with those joining me for the conference. While I was learning about the first peoples of Banff, I came across so much that I did not know about this land. So much so that I felt the need to talk about the process of what I did learn.

I am always reminded of amiskwaciwiyiniwak scholar Dwayne Donald’s work with the notion of kinship and relationship denial (2021) when I am learning about the dispossession of Indigenous lands.  Donald argues that Indigenous-Canadian relations are still influenced by the colonial understanding and teaching of relationship denial. This relationship denial as I understand it within his work, speaks to the severing of knowing about the histories of this land and our personal connections to the land, water ways, humans, more than humans, etc. This severing allows for the lack of care, kinship, and relationality to the places in which we live and disconnects us from being in relationship with all that surround us. Donald argues that colonial Canadian education has long taught people to deny meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples, knowledges, and the land. This stems from our shared colonial history and continues to this day through curriculum and teaching practices that naturalize separation and teaching in silos. Denying these connections impacts the place where we all live, the people we are in relationship with, and how we understand and take care of the world around us.

I have spoken about this relationship denial within my book Re-Storying Education: Decolonizing your Practice with a Critical Lens, chapter 6. I also make this connection to the notion of severing when teaching my students in teacher education to the land and the story of this land we all live upon. I have also spoken about this before within my blog post “What about the Lake?”

While I was working on my presentation for the conference, I personally needed to do research about the location (Banff). This narrative of how Banff came to be is not a one-off story of this place known as Canada today, it is one story of thousands of stories found in the foundation of building this nation. These stories of removal, relocation, and dispossession of Indigenous lands are found in all locations across this land known as Canada today, they might be different groups of Indigenous people, but the stories are all the same. This critical piece of dispossession is also missing within the education system, it is not being taught consistently within classrooms, and it is something that we all need to know.

As I began preparing my presentation, I dove into the history of Banff and quickly discovered that so much of it is framed through the stories of the so-called “Great” railway. The sources explained that while the settler government was pushing to extend the railway across the country, everything shifted when they reached the Rocky Mountains. There, they encountered what they viewed as a picture-perfect landscape and quickly set their sights on developing it as a prime destination where tourism and capitalism could flourish.

In order for the railway to be built through the Rockys, the government needed first to sign Treaties with the local Indigenous communities. Since time immemorial, the junction of these rivers, known as Mohkinstsis or “Elbow” in Blackfoot, has been a place of gathering and ceremony, with both practical and sacred connections to the Blackfoot Confederacy, including the Siksika, Piikani, Amskapi Piikani, and Kainai Nations; the Dene of the Tsuut’ina Nation; the Îyârhe Nakoda of the Bearspaw, Chiniki, and Goodstoney Nations and Stoney Lakoda Peoples’. (this is what I have found through my research, please let me know if I have misrepresented any information here). After entering into Treaty with the nations of this region the government forcibly removed Indigenous peoples from their land to make way for the railroad. These communities were displaced far from the Banff area despite extensive archaeological evidence showing that indigenous peoples have lived on and cared for this region for over 6000 years.

The Bow River is a waterway that Indigenous peoples have relied on for millennia for travel, hunting, and fishing. For the Nations of the Great Plains, water was—and continues to be—life, carrying deep cultural, spiritual, and practical importance. Local Indigenous peoples crafted bows from the Douglas firs that once grew abundantly along its banks of the Bow River. In Stoney Nakoda, the river is known as Ijathibe Wapta, meaning “a place where people made bows out of Saskatoon saplings.” In Blackfoot, it is called Makhabn, or “river where the bow reeds grow.” (Again this is from the research I found, if there are things incorrect or missing, please let me know)

In the 1870’s life for the Indigenous people of this area changed forever. After living with and on this land for over 6000 years, settlers came and disrupted their way of life. In 1883 three railway workers came to scope the area in the Bow Valley and came across a series of natural hot springs. These hot springs were sacred areas for the Indigenous communities and held a deep cultural connection for healing.  The railway workers fenced off the hot springs and built a house so that no one could enter the area.  The Indigenous people were not allowed back in their healing grounds and spiritual areas because of the railway workers wanting the area to use it for making money. The railway workers and the government wanted to exploit the area for a tourist attraction. So, unlike other mountain towns built on mining settlements, Banff was founded as a tourist attraction. We can see today that this is still how Banff is seen, as a commodity and not as a relation with the amount of tourist that come through this area.

Since the government named Banff the first National Park of Canada, the overuse of Banff has had significant environmental consequences in this and surrounding areas, including the displacement of wildlife from essential habitats, fragmentation caused by roads and trail networks, and damage to fragile vegetation through heavy foot traffic and soil compaction. Increased visitation also has strained water systems, with pollution and altered drainage affecting rivers and lakes, while vehicle congestion contributes to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Waste management becomes more challenging as millions of visitors generate litter and food waste that harm wildlife and ecosystems. These pressures not only degrade the park’s ecological integrity but also impact culturally significant sites and diminish the sense of wilderness that Banff is meant to protect.

As we can see from this the relationship denial is present in this beautiful location. So how do we reconcile this relationship? How do we give back to those Indigenous communities who lost so much of who they are in this area? Again, this is not the only place in this place known as Canada today that the Indigenous peoples have lost their homes, their ways of life, and connections to the land. How do we reconcile? How do we give back? What are our roles as educators? These are always the questions that I would like to know the answer to.

            My hope from this discussion today is that you will be more curious and think about how you will give back to the land and the people of the land.