TheyBuildBridges

From all of us at TheyBuildBridges…

Miyo-Okawimawak Kisikanisik!

Happy Mother’s Day

Another case of the ‘oral histories’ of our Indigenous People coming to life that reminds me of a quote from Niigaan Sinclair in a similar context.

“The Truth is in the stories Indigenous Peoples tell. The Science just has to catch up.”

From Saskatoon StarPhoenix
A recent archaeological presentation revealed findings that could reshape the understanding of First Nations’ life on the Prairies, suggesting plant cultivation long before European contact.

In 2024, archaeologist Alan Korejbo directed excavation in the Wakamow Valley, an urban park in Moose Jaw, at the Garratt and Davies sites named for former landowners Bill Garratt and Paul Davies.

Assessments, including more than 100 shovel tests, confirmed a high density of archaeological material, building on discoveries made by Davies in the 1950s.

What emerged from the most recent dig went beyond expectations.

“We found that, yes, there was a huge site underneath in the area where they were doing the construction,” Korejbo said during a presentation earlier this month at the Moose Jaw Public Library, noting the valley forms part of a broader archaeological landscape.

Stone-lined hearths, bison bones, and well-preserved pottery fragments, some of which can be reassembled into near-complete vessels, deepen the story.

“This isn’t just a kill site or a butchering site. This is a site where people stayed — families stayed here. Men, women, young and old,” he said.

“People have been in this area around Moose Jaw for at least the last 12,000 years.”

At a separate event this month, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Senator Bill Strongarm spoke about Wakamow as a place of gathering.

“It’s a place where our First Nations got together as they made their way to Cypress Hills … that place has an ample supply of water and game, so that’s where everybody went,” Strongarm said.

Excavations at the Garratt Site were carried out as part of required archaeological assessments tied to a highway slope rehabilitation project. Nearby, in Tatawaw Park along the same river, earlier testing also identified artifacts, reinforcing the valley’s long-standing significance.

Pottery and plant cultivation

Located at what is locally known as “The Turn,” named for the river’s meandering shape through Wakamow Valley, the site has yielded more than 200,000 artifacts dating back millennia.

Korejbo said the pottery may point to connections with groups farther south and east, where horticultural practices were established. It suggests knowledge of plant cultivation was shared.

The pottery found at Wakamow Valley — radiocarbon dated to around the year 1095 — includes designs linked to Blackduck culture, an Indigenous society in the Great Lakes/Boreal Forest region of Minnesota, Ontario and Manitoba distinguished by its earthenware.

Clay pot use often coincides with a transition from hunting and gathering to land cultivation and attachment to a location.

“The pottery here was phenomenal,” Korejbo said of the sites in south-central Saskatchewan, noting that both exterior decoration and interior residue were well preserved.

Analysis of residue inside the vessels identified corn and wild rice, offering insight into the diet 1,000 years ago. Additional plant remains — wild onion, goosefoot, amaranth, grasses such as wild rye, and possible traces of beans — point to a diverse diet beyond bison and other game.

Many of these plants require processing, supporting knowledge of harvesting, grinding, and cooking plant foods.

The presence of wild rice is notable. Korejbo said environmental mapping suggests its natural range may have extended close to Wakamow, raising the possibility it was locally sourced.

Knowledge of plant cultivation is established among First Nations groups to the east and south, including the “Three Sisters” agricultural system practiced by Haudenosaunee and other Great Lakes nations, as well as horticultural traditions in the Dakotas, southwestern Manitoba, and along the Mississippi and Missouri river valleys.

Given long-standing trade connections, researchers suggest this knowledge may have spread along those networks, providing a plausible pathway for plant cultivation to reach the northern Plains.

Number of bone tools ‘unusually high’

Researchers also uncovered a wide range of associated tools, including bone tools, a possible stone hoe, and a mano used for grinding plant material. Several complete and broken bison scapulae were identified, some of which were shaped and may have been used as digging tools.

A radiocarbon-dated bone fragment from a scapula cache dates to around 1073.

Korejbo noted the number and variety of bone tools at the sites are unusually high, with many showing signs of processing, burning, and modification.

“There’s more bone tools here than I’ve ever seen in any other project I’ve ever worked on,” he said, pointing to evidence of tool-making alongside food preparation and daily activity.

These findings suggest localized cultivation. Korejbo said tools such as scapula hoes indicate people may have worked the ground, offering preliminary evidence of a mixed hunting and horticultural strategy.

Even so, he emphasized that further analysis is required before firm conclusions can be drawn.

“We’ve got corn, we’ve got digging tools, and we also know that people on the Plains still knew how to plant (at the time of European contact),” Korejbo said. “To say they were possibly planting things at the Garratt Site, it’s not a far stretch.”

A broader historical context

Historical accounts and oral histories place the valley within wider travel routes used by First Nations moving across the Plains. In the 1800s, Lakota Chief Black Bull is believed to have established a camp at the nearby Davies Site, while the same corridor later became part of Métis travel and trade networks.

Korejbo pointed to records of a Métis trail through the valley, along with a small “hotel” or stopping place dating to the 1840s, reflecting its role as a gathering place along buffalo hunting routes.

The findings arrive within a broader historical context following the signing of Treaty 4, when First Nations were encouraged — and often pressured — to adopt agriculture as a means of subsistence, with the bison population decimated by over-hunting in the fur trade economy.

While treaties promised tools and instruction, delivery was often inconsistent. Later policies further limited a First Nations agricultural economy, such as the Peasant Farming Policy by Indian Affairs in the 1880s, which strictly restricted First Nation farmers on the Prairies to small-scale, hand-tool agriculture to prevent competition with white settlers.

The legacy of those unmet promises continues with the 2025 federal “cows and plows” settlement for failed agricultural commitments made between 1871 and 1921 under Treaties 4, 6, and 10. Compensation to resolve 53 claims totalled more than $6.9 billion.
By Aaron Walker, Local Journalism Initiative.

About 20 years ago, when our oldest kids were in Elementary School, I was asked to ‘help’ with a presentation on Indigenous Culture for the School in honour of National Indigenous People’s Day….with less than a month’s notice and no budget.

Out of love and concern for our kids who were experiencing Racism from time to time, I planned a full day of activities starting with a general assembly where students would watch Pow Wow dancers share their gift of Dance to the beat of a live drum group from Onion Lake (my home nation) Emcee’d by my cousin Grant Whitstone.
And I asked my family if they would want to contribute by hosting a Cultural station that the groups of students would pass through every 25 minutes or so.

My Wife, our eldest daughter, my Mother, two my sisters, my two brothers, two sisters-in-law, all stepped up to provide and teach….for free, no hesitation.

The only presenters that were paid honorariums that day were my Aunt and cousin from Frog Lake, and my cousin Grant and the Pow Wow singers and dancers ) who were all youth. We decided we couldn’t ask any one of our presenters from the reserves to come without paying them something. That was my brother Earl’s idea, and so he and I covered the honorariums for our out of town guests.

I share this because this is who I’ve always known our Indigenous People to be…loving, generous, and engaging. This is who I was taught to be by my Mother, and the Elders in my life.

We’ve been doing Educational Indigenous Cultural sessions of all sizes, ever since.

However, with each one, I always felt a heavy weight of ‘risk’, and maybe anxiety because of what the history of my life as an Indigenous kid has told me about myself. As one who has experienced racism from as early as 4 years old, all the way through to as recently as last month (I’ll be 56 next week) there has always been this anxiety, sense of risk and doubt that what I have to share or say wouldn’t be received well.

But for what might be the first time, that wasn’t the case yesterday in Barrhead. I felt confident going into it … it was remarkably different.
Our beautiful daughter Elaina and I were invited to bring the Blanket Exercise to the annual NEAHL (North Eastern Alberta Hockey League) General meeting.

Yesterday’s session was a spin off opportunity for us from a Blanket Exercise my Wife and I were asked to do for Vermilion Minor Hockey earlier this year, due to a very public, viral racist incident locally.
My level of comfort I believe, was due to the heart, courage, conviction and commitment of Hockey leadership at multiple levels to organize this opportunity. They wouldn’t want me to credit them this way, which speaks to the good people they are, but Sean Tennant, President of Vermilion Minor Hockey, and Randy Martin, President of NEAHL inspired in me, a determination and courage that took a lot of the usual weight of doubt or anxiety off of my shoulders.

We are so thankful for the 60 people in Hockey Leadership in the North Eastern Region in attendance, with 24 participants in the circle, and 36 as spectators, we shared in a very impactful day that I pray resonates through NEAHL, the thousands of young hockey players, their parents, and in their homes and social circles.

In summary….
Share the Truth in Love

Challenge Racism with questions that keep the discussion open ended.

Without condemning the perpetrators. (This does not mean there shouldn’t be consequences)

With deep gratitude,

Mosom Kevin

This is very well expressed… but not exclusively applicable to our educator friends.
Everyone can … and should learn more of the Truth of who our Indigenous People are.

How do educators bring Indigenous perspectives into the classroom? 📚 In this episode of Talking Teaching, Anishinaabe visiting scholar Professor Jan Hare, from the M’Chigeeng First Nation and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of British Colombia, shares stories, reflections, and guidance with Dr Sophie Specjal PhD. 🎧 Listen now https://go.unimelb.edu.au/5x62

Many Indigenous Warriors like Francis were not widely known or celebrated, until this age of Reconciliation.
I am thankful as they laid a foundation for the advances in Reconciliation we know today, by living out the Indigenous Worldviews of warriorhood in fighting to protect their families, communities, and yes…even the country that would resist and refuse to stand for them, for the rest of their lives.

Ninanaskomon🧡

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Aj4rJKdTL/?mibextid=wwXIfrn ies

Meet Francis Pegahmagabow.
One of the deadliest snipers of World War I — and one of the most forgotten heroes in history.

He had 378 confirmed kills.
He captured over 300 enemy soldiers.
And he became the most decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian history.

At night, while others hid, Francis crawled alone into No Man’s Land.
He waited.
Silent. Still.
Invisible.

When enemy soldiers appeared, it was already too late.

Francis was an Ojibwe man, raised in a country that treated his people as second-class citizens.
Yet when war came, he volunteered anyway — to fight for a nation that didn’t fight for him.

On the battlefield, he was fearless.
As a sniper and scout, he moved where death was certain.
Shellfire. Barbed wire. Darkness.
He walked through it all like it was home.

But his bravery wasn’t just about combat.

Again and again, Francis crossed open killing fields to rescue wounded soldiers and bring back supplies under fire.
For this, he earned the Military Medal — not once, not twice, but three times.
Only 39 Canadians in the entire war ever did that.

By the war’s end, Francis Pegahmagabow was a legend.

But when he came home, the country he saved refused to treat him as an equal.
Indigenous veterans were denied benefits, land, and respect.

So Francis fought again.

This time, not with a rifle — but with his voice.
He spent the rest of his life standing up for Indigenous rights, demanding fairness for his people.

Francis Pegahmagabow survived one of the deadliest wars in history.
And then he spent his life fighting a second one — for justice.

A warrior in war.
A warrior in peace.
Never forget his name.