Preface
Elder Alice Rigney
I wasn’t aware that my granny, Ester Piché, who was born in 1897, lived at House Lake (Birch River).1 In fact I didn’t know about this place at all. You see, I was raised in the Holy Angels Residential School in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, from the age of five. During those years I lost all contact with my family and history. I didn’t ask [my family], as the topic of where my grandparents lived was never discussed. I couldn’t talk to my parents in my Dene language, as this was taken away in the Mission.2 I never asked about where, how, or who was my lineage.
It was my older brother Pat who awoke this awareness of my granny and the conditions in Wood Buffalo National Park. She was forced to leave her home and family, leaving everything behind. She was Dene and did not want to become a Cree member. She left with other families and relocated to the Delta.3
This move must have been difficult, but my granny was a strong Dene woman and hardships were not new to her. She endured, and I remember her as a strong, resilient woman. But my years knowing her were too short. What the Wood Buffalo National Park did was cruel and unforgiving, and this continued for more than one hundred years—I honour my brother Pat for bringing this issue to us. My brother’s determination to undo this wrong is now in the open and I, along with ACFN, am forever grateful for him. He was a “force to be reckoned with.” I am proud to call him my brother and opening the door to spaces where reconciliation can take place.