Canadian Mennonite
Volume 13, No. 15
Jul. 27, 2009

Mennonite Church Canada Learning Tour

Listening with respect

First Nations seek to reinvigorate treaty relationships

By Aaron Epp

The Skyboys and the Sunrise Dancers, a drumming and dancing group from Stobart Community High School in Duck Lake, Sask., share their talents at Shekinah Retreat Centre.

“How much are you willing to let this [experience] change you?” That was the question posed by First Nations leader, Harry Lafond, during the Mennonite Church Canada Aboriginal Learning Tour that took place June 7-9, following this year’s assembly in Saskatoon. Lafond is the executive director of the Office of the Treaty Commissioner, an organization that aims to reinvigorate the relationship between treaty First Nations and the government of Canada by building on the relationship created by the treaties.

Standing in the lodge at Shekinah Retreat Centre, 50 minutes north of Saskatoon, Lafond spoke to the 20-plus tour participants about how treaties—documents in which the First Nations people signed over their land in return for certain concessions, such as annual payments and farming supplies—have gone unfulfilled, and how that affected the people who signed them. Of particular note was Treaty 6, which was signed in 1876 and which represents most of the central area of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Lafond spoke of how the history of the treaty is traditionally taught in schools, versus how the oral history of the Cree people reveals a broader understanding of what happened.

By signing Treaty 6, the Cree did not ask to be taken care of, Lafond said. Rather, they wanted the right to make their own living in harmony with the European settlers. Legislation over the years has silenced the voice of First Nations people, he continued. The challenge today is to imagine how treaties can be honoured in a way that benefits both sides.

“We have a lot of unfinished business, and we shouldn’t walk away from unfinished business,” Lafond said. Instead, people need to dialogue and ask the question: “Where is the opportunity here?”

Tour participants, who came from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, were exposed to this unfinished business. They were also exposed to the opportunity Lafond spoke of during a visit to Stoney Knoll, a slightly elevated area of land outside Laird, Sask. which was given to the Young Chippewayan First Nation as part of Treaty 6. Because they were nomadic people, they never settled on the land. Although it still belonged to the Young Chippewayan, the government gave the land to new settlers 20 years later. These settlers included Lutherans and Mennonites, who were not aware of the injustice that was done.

On Aug. 22, 2006, the descendents of those settlers met with representatives from the Young Chippewayan to exchange stories, play games and sign a memorandum of understanding. The memorandum acknowledges that “the Young Chippewayan band respects the current ownership of the land by the settlers and, in return, the Mennonites and Lutherans pledge to support the Chippewayan’s ongoing struggle to get compensation for this land.”

“We are all treaty people,” said Gary LaPlante, a representative from the Young Chippewayan who spoke to the tour group. Even today, First Nations people and European Canadians are implicated in what happened more than 130 year ago. The memorandum came about because the Young Chippewayan wanted to honour Treaty 6 and not spill blood. They recognized that Mennonites and Lutherans also have a spiritual connection to the land.

“[We] don’t want to take away what you have worked for, but we want to settle the issue in a peaceful way,” LaPlante said. “We must work together. We must live together.”

That sentiment was shared by Maria Campbell when the tour group visited her home at Gabriel’s Crossing, near Batoche, Sask. A respected Métis author, playwright, academic and elder, Campbell told the group, “The most hurtful thing [for First Nations people] is not being able to be ourselves.”

Campbell is a descendent of Gabriel Dumont, a Metis leader best known as the man who led the small Métis military forces during the Northwest Resistance of 1885. At Gabriel’s Crossing, she hosts workshops that can include up to 100 people. During the workshops, people share stories, learn and create art. As a result of time spent at Gabriel’s Crossing, artists have recorded albums, produced plays, written dissertations, books and short stories. Those who have gone on to such success come back to Gabriel’s Crossing as teachers.

“All of us believe that education is the key to change,” Campbell said.

Organized by MC Canada in partnership with the ministries commission of Mennonite Church Saskatchewan and Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan, the Aboriginal Learning Tour was created to foster greater awareness of the challenges and responses of ministry in the First Nations and Metis context.

The tour also included a visit to the Duck Lake Regional Interpretive Centre, which houses a museum of artifacts relating to First Nations, Métis and Pioneer history from 1870 to 1905; input from Act Now, an anti-racism group from Stobart Community High School in Duck Lake; a performance by a group of traditional First Nation dancers and drummers from the high school; a visit to Batoche National Park, the site of the last battlefield in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885; and a visit to Fort Carlton, which was a Hudson’s Bay trading post from 1810 to 1885.

Reflecting on her experience during a phone interview a few days after the tour, participant Rita MacDonald said the biggest thing she learned was something that was simultaneously new to her and something she has known for years: “I need to listen.”

“Everyone has a story. I need to listen with respect, without preconceived notions, [and] with an open heart and mind,” explained the retiree, who resides in Rosthern, Sask.

MacDonald added that she feels she needs to be “more intentional” in her learning when it comes to First Nations issues, because the more she knows, the more she will listen.

Neill von Gunten, who co-led the tour and also directs MC Canada’s native ministry program with his wife, Edith, says he is encouraged by the idea of tour participants doing more research into these issues on their own.

“I hope they felt the spirit of graciousness of the [First Nations] people they heard stories from,” he said in an interview after the tour. “I also hope they felt the heartbeat of a nation through the drum, because it was there—you could feel it.”

With files from Deborah Froese and Karin Fehderau.