A Storied Journey of Blackfoot Ecological Knowledge & Sacred Sites
       

This journey was initially inspired by personal conversations –years ago– with Dr. Rosalyn LaPier about her journey following the seasonal routes described by Kainakoan (Blackfoot informant of linguist C.C. Uhlenback) in “How the Ancient Piegan Lived” (LaPier, 2017, p. 47). Her journey was documented in Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers, and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet (2017) and the basis of the Glenbow Museum’s: Niitsitapiisini: Our Way of Life (How we Lived with the Land) virtual museum installation. Dr. LaPier suggested I travel to sacred sites in Canada with guidance from our elders and knowledge keepers. With the generous support of the Canadian American Studies Grant, Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association, Ninna Piiksii (Dr. Mike Bruised Head), Dr. Annie Belcourt, and my family, I was able to attend the 2024 KEPA Conference, journey to nine sacred sites, visit two national parks (straddling the U.S./Canadian border), attend a Siksika cultural celebration, and visit Akaisamitohkanao’pa – The Galt Museum and Archives. I drove from Bellingham, WA (June 22) to Blackfoot Confederacy Territory– in both Northwestern Montana, U.S. and Alberta, Canada–and back (July 1) in ten days. 

There are many lessons learned on this journey about storied, sacred Landscapes, keystone species, Blackfoot Confederacy restoration, and unsettling settler colonialism. But as Eve Tuck (2018) and Sandy Grande (2018) remind us that some of these lessons are not for the academy. In fact, Grande urges us to commit to mutuality that “refuses exploitation at the same time as it radically asserts connection, particularly to land” (2018, p. 61). While I won’t be sharing personal and community knowledge and learnings, I do lean on Blackfoot ways of knowing and being (Bastien & Kremer, 2004, Piiksii et al, 2024) and Indigenous feminist theories of change (Tuck, 2018), such as Mishuana Goeman’s (Re)mapping (2013), Keith Basso’s Place-Worlds (1996), and Lisa Brook’s Mapping Place-Worlds and Place-Making (2008). From these Indigenous feminist theories of change (re)mapping reminds us that research “cannot be detached from material land” (Goeman, 2013, p. 3) and writing this research can provide a “rememberment of a fragmented world” (Brooks, 2008, p.xxii). Building on Basso and Brooks, Eve Tuck captures my hopes for this research as “the building of place-worlds [as a] collective, creative, and generative” process that “is also “a revolutionary act, a re-memory act, in which multiple pasts co-mingle and compete for resonance toward multiple futures” (2018, p. 163).  

Offerings or Recommendations

This leads me to two moments on my drive though Alberta –just days before Canada Day (July 1^st)– which were particularly relevant in response to settler erasure of Siksikaitsitapi ways of knowing and being. One being a CBC radio interview with Ninna Piiksii about Blackfoot and White relationships in Fort McCloud and the other a CBC special with Michelle Good on her book, Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada (2023). The first erased Ninna Piiksii’s most powerful teachings for a more “sanitized” or settler affirming view of Siksikaitsitapi and White relations. And the other highlighted hidden histories and the real possibilities of decolonizing Canadian crown held public land (or Land and Lifeways Back for Tribal Nations). My offering to you– something I heard throughout my journeying at KEPA and on the Land –is that any Siksikaitsitapi information must come from Blackfoot knowledge holders who are speakers of the language, active ceremonialists, and well-respected community members. This includes honoring and ethically sharing (or not sharing) the teachings received. I conclude with one of Ninna Piiksii’s theories of change,

“And that is the biggest colonial change of all time: the government comes to us, and we think about it, and if the consultation is good, we accommodate them, rather than what has been happening since 1867, when Canada became a confederation. The consultation will be from our perspective—our beliefs, our values, and our connection to the land, to the animals, to the water, to the mountains—that is immersed in our Blackfoot ceremonies” (Piiksii et al, 2024, p.3).

Dr. Kristen B. French
(A'saanaakíí)
Professor, Elementary Education
Woodring College of Education
Western Washington University