There’s a sacred place in southern Alberta where Blair Many Fingers goes to reconnect with the land and share the story of his ancestors.
It’s called Áísínai’pi, or “where the pictures are” in Blackfoot, and it’s home to more than 200 pieces of rock art created by the area’s Indigenous people over thousands of years.
“When Indigenous people come here, and Blackfoot people come here, they reconnect with their way of life,” Many Fingers told Unreserved.
“They hear those stories, that knowledge that’s embedded within those symbols, and they feel this metaphysical connection — not to the land or on the land, but with the land.”
Alberta is known for its outdoor adventuring. From the Rocky Mountains to the Badlands, you could be hiking along glacial lakes in the morning and searching for dinosaur bones along great, towering rock hoodoos by mid-afternoon.
But advocates like Many Fingers say there’s more to be discovered when we make room for the rich Indigenous history, much of which predates colonization by thousands of years.
At Áísínai’pi, some of the markings date back to 4000 BC. They represent the Blackfoot way of life, including their warrior culture, hunting practices and reminders of how to pray.
In one panel a buffalo falls head down as though going over a cliff. Many Fingers, who is Blackfoot and works as an interpreter for the park, says those markings depict the workings of a buffalo jump — a method of hunting where herds of buffalo were driven off cliffs and harvested at the bottom. It shows how the Blackfoot people perfected the buffalo jump, which was an efficient method of hunting during the time when buffalo roamed freely through the valley.
The buffalo jump is an efficient way of hunting, and something the Blackfoot credit to the teachings of the Wolf People. This story was given to narrator Blair Many Fingers by an elder at a time when his family needed a teaching about how to work together and love one another.
Many Fingers says the stories and knowledge embedded in the land are a way back to culture for those impacted by colonization and the residential school system.
The impacts to his own community have been dire. A May report released by the Alberta government stated that opioids are claiming lives in southern Alberta communities at more than eight times the rate of the rest of the province.
“Our stories, our songs, our ceremonies, our languages were fractured, and we can see the results of that in the opioid epidemic, the people on the streets struggling through addiction. All our families, our relatives are going through that. And a big part of it is a loss of identity and a loss of who we are as Indigenous people,” he said.
For Many Fingers, Áísínai’pi serves an important purpose for past and future generations.
“We’ll never forget who we are as Blackfoot people as long as we continue the tradition of leaving our marks here,” he said.
Getting travelers out of ‘dinosaur mind’
Drumheller, Alta., is known for its dinosaur fossils. Once a tropical paradise, the valley, known as the Badlands, is home to ancient bones. And with ongoing discoveries, it continues to be a world-renowned tourist destination for dinosaur seekers and lovers.
One of the town’s crowning features is the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, which it says brought more than 500,000 people to the valley last year alone.
Lynn Fabrick wants visitors who come for the dinosaurs to also leave with an appreciation for some of the Indigenous stories of this place.
Fabrick is Cree Métis and has lived in the valley for over 40 years. In that time, she has worked to bring in events and art installations that create a visible reminder of the Indigenous presence here.
“Our visitors, when they come into the valley, they’re ‘dinosaur mind.’ So with having some visible structures or art pieces or ceremonies that they can take part in or see, then they start to ask more questions,” she said.
On occasion, she joins local tourism group Wild West Badlands Tour, which provides bus tours in the area. The tour stops include significant sites for Indigenous people and others that reflect the valley’s booming coal mining era.
During the tour, Fabrick tells visitors that Indigenous people made the first dinosaur fossil discoveries. At the time, however, the massive bones would have been described as giant buffalo bones. The buffalo is a relative to Blackfoot people, and Fabrick says because the bones were revered, they were left in the valley.
“They knew to leave them alone. Don’t take them up. Pray to them, respect them and honour them.”
Fabrick says she is encouraged by the questions that come from visitors who take the time to hear some of the Indigenous stories and perspectives in Drumheller.
“That’s really what it’s about, is having people ask questions and get the truths because that’s how reconciliation starts, is by knowing the truth and knowing about the history here,” she said.
Blair Many Fingers, a Blackfoot interpreter working for Alberta Parks, provides tours around Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park. It’s a national historic site on the Milk River, about 150 kilometres east of the Rocky Mountains. For the Blackfoot, it is a sacred area — a living cultural historic site.
Restoring nature through medicine walks
While the Badlands are an attraction on their own, the Canadian Rockies create their own allure, ever-present on the horizon. Helping with the call out of the valley is Jordan Ede, who invites travelers to learn about the nutritional and medicinal uses of plants around Banff, Alta.
“I think a lot of times people leave with, you know, a deeper appreciation for the area that we’re in,” said Ede on a walk through Cascade Ponds.
Banff National Park is Canada’s oldest national park and attracts more than four million visitors each year who hike its boreal forest, canoe its glacial waters and, from bicycle to snowboard, take in its mountain views.
Ede runs tours for Mahikan Trails, a tourism company started by his mother Brenda Holder, a knowledge keeper and medicine woman from the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation near Jasper.
The medicine walks are a mix of science and story. For example, Ede might share how the high vitamin C content of pine and spruce needles prevented scurvy among our ancestors.
Or, stepping over the soft forest floor, he might explain how moss made for an effective diaper for babies on the move.
“Moss would be used in something called a Moss bag … a backpack made out of animal hide. And the moss would be picked and dried, and you’d put it in the backpacks and then women would put their babies in it.”
Ede says moss, when dried, can hold up to 20 times its weight in water.
“So it made a diaper and it’s antiseptic so the babies wouldn’t get diaper rash.”
Ede says Banff’s forests are nature’s pharmacy, and sharing that knowledge is a way to promote greater respect and care for the land among travelers.
“Maybe they take that message back home with those same goals with wherever it is that they’re from,” he said.
This story is part of a travel series from Unreserved called Unmapped. The series invites us to look for the Indigenous presence in some of the most iconic travel destinations around the world. Meet the people who are nurturing community and raising the visibility of Indigenous pasts, presents and futures.