By Joyce Green

Op-Ed Commentary

This year, local online news website e-KNOW published three op-ed columns that need some reflection by all us “locals.”

On January 10, the Spirit of the Rockies Festival Society announced that “Sam Steele Days” would henceforth be “Spirit of the Rockies.”  On January 29, local pundit Gerry Warner published an op-ed opposing the change. On March 6, Warner again published on this topic, urging people to refuse to change the festival’s name.

I was surprised and disappointed that Warner was making his arguments thusly.  On other matters he has been a thoughtful voice.  On this one, he is solidly in the space of settler triumphalism, and, like so many others, does not in fact know his history.

In “Indian Country” – a space I inhabit – there was a fair amount of irritation at the articles.  I assumed there would be responses appearing, but so far, the concerns haven’t made mainstream media.  Thus, my commentary now, as Cranbrook leans into “Spirit of the Rockies.”

Warner writes, “Don’t you think it’s important to keep the record straight when you’re tying the name of Cranbrook to some of the most momentous events in the history of our fair city? It’s these events and history that form Cranbrook’s mythology … Let’s get real” (Warner 2023b).  He argues that the festival name “Sam Steele Days” was chosen to recognize “an outstanding leader with statesmanship qualities who along with another leader [Ktunaxa Nasuk’in, or Chief Isadore] with similar qualities.  He goes on to propose that Isadore and his “vigilantes” were “pacified” by Sam Steele, thus avoiding war between Ktunaxa and the newcomers seeking gold and whatever else they could find on Ktunaxa territory.

Every assumption in these sentences can be challenged, but let’s keep the focus on the notion of Sam Steele as diplomat who, with Isadore, avoided a war.  Steele was sent to this territory to ensure it was safe for white settlement – that is, for land theft from Ktunaxa.  He and other early luminaries facilitated the enforced confinement of Ktunaxa to miniscule reserves in this, ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa – Ktunaxa territory.  All of this was facilitated by the National Policy of Sir John A. Macdonald, cops, and the threat of military force.  There were no negotiations worthy of the name.  Similar events happened across Turtle Island.  The rest, as they say, is “history.”

Funny how history gets written in soft focus, favouring those who are dominant.  Here in ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, things don’t look quite that rosy.  Steele doesn’t look like a statesman to us.  (Nor does Baker – neither father nor son, both of whom benefited from land theft from Ktunaxa.) There could be no vigilantes where Ktunaxa were exercising Ktunaxa law and politics in their relations with a bunch of land thieves and others, who also expected to erase Ktunaxa sovereignty.  And so on.

Ktunaxa have never given up sovereignty, territory, or jurisdiction – nor have Ktunaxa accepted the imposition of the Indian Act, the Canadian state, and the province of B.C. which now purports to own Indigenous lands as “crown lands” and titled private property.

The truth of those politics is not much in evidence in the education or cultures of the white settler state.

Even the name of the town is a form of erasure:  Cranbrook, the English farm/community of Colonel Baker (his name is everywhere, gracing streets, schools and even a sacred mountain, ʔa·kin̓mi) reminds people of places from elsewhere.  Ktunaxa know that this town is on the area known as ʔa·kisk̓aqⱡiʔit – “where two trails meet on the prairie” (some say it refers to where two creeks meet, but this is the name I will use, told to me by a fluent elder).  That prairie is Joseph’s Prairie – named for a prominent nasuʔkin from ʔaqam, whose local territory this is.  ʔaqam was called “St. Mary Indian Reserve” by the Indian Agent and the settler locals.  Ktunaxa were “given” names by priests and others to replace their own names.

Naming is another form of erasure of Indigenous people.  Replacing Indigenous names with new names, from elsewhere and after white notables, is a Canada-wide practice.  It amounts to white folks pissing on Indigenous place names that come from ancient and honourable stories.   As though we could be erased, replaced, by those privileged by the state and its governments; whose descendants still hold Indigenous lands, resources, sovereignties, and who still fail to recognize where they are and at whose expense.

I was born and raised in ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, and graduated from the exceedingly white “Mount Baker” high school in Cranbrook a very long time ago.  Where the hell were the Indigenous students, you may wonder.  There is a story in that, too.

Every year that I watched that parade, both then and now, it was an evident display of white supremacy – even if Ktunaxa were invited to throw in a float and wave at the multitudes.  The fake scouts, marching by in their western drag – who do you imagine they were “scouting” for?  The RCMP – the paramilitary force that has always and continues to be a danger to Indigenous lives.  The business owners, trolling for customers and good will, while never hiring Ktunaxa – and not always serving them with courtesy, either.  And the incessant invoking of “our” history, supposedly reflected in the Sam Steele spirit.

White supremacy means that the institutions of the state and its social order are designed by and for white folks, and not for others.  White supremacy has legitimated the over-running of ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, without the consent of or reparations to Ktunaxa.

White supremacy has bred a toxic local form of anti-Indigenous racism, which infects my social, commercial and personal relationships in my own territory.  For example, I recall that when my mother proposed that the Ladies Auxiliary of the Legion donate money to Street Angels, another woman raised her voice to say “absolutely not.  We give them everything.”  You can figure out who the “them” is – although she had it wrong.

It is Ktunaxa who have had everything taken from them and given to the preferred citizens of the settler state. The belief by many white folks that Indigenous people get “everything” from the good hardworking white folks is one of the many foundations of local racism, but there is more.  Too much more to go into here, but I do recommend people spend some time checking their assumptions against the historical record through Ktunaxa and other Indigenous eyes.

Let’s get real, indeed. Change the name.  Change the racist culture of this community.  Recognize where you are, at whose expense, and work on that relationship.

Joyce Green is Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of Regina, and has served as Chair of the Reconciliation Committee of the Canadian Political Science Association.

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