Oral History

Chief Allan Adam (2 February 2021)

They brought in the buffalo and they gave all the rights to the buffalo. The buffalo were protected more than anything else, and [it was] pretty much ‘save the buffalo, shoot the Dene.’

Only ACFN was the one that was kicked out. And ACFN members, they spread out and they joined other First Nations. You know when I went up, I became a Chief in 2008, but when I went up to Yellowknife in 2008 or 2009, I forget when it was, but I went up there for a water conference. And when I was talking to Dene people up there one guy told me that his parents were from Fort Chip. I didn’t dig into the story because I knew right away, his parents were probably one of the ones that were kicked out of the Park as well. But they moved up north, and they became part of Wood Buffalo up in that area too. So, you know, and people from Salt River, people from Smith Landing, we’re all members of ACFN pretty much, half of the population from Mikisew is ACFN you know. The history runs deep. It’s like a vein. Right?

Horace Adam (19 March 2021)

Now, at that time, after the Treaty was signed, the federal government took over the National Park, so the Indigenous People didn’t get access. So the Park was stolen. They took it, you know. . . . And it’s so sad for the Indigenous people at that time.

Louis Boucher (1974)

Richard Lightning (RL):⁸² There are many buffalo in the Park. Were your people ever allowed to hunt them before?

LB: No, it is difficult in the Park. A person could starve there. It is difficult for someone to get buffalo meat because there are park officials who guard the Park.

RL: Do you remember when the Park was first made or when the fence was built around it?⁸³ Maybe you could tell me about it.

LB: Yes, I remember. When I first arrived here, they hadn’t brought the buffalo yet.⁸⁴ When the buffalo were brought, I was already married and had two children. They were brought from the south in 1922. But the wood buffalo were already there. That is across the lake from here, they were in the wood buffalo area before when we were trapping there. That place at Peace Point we are now looking at, is the area where I spent thirty-four years. It is upstream on the Peace River, and I trapped in the Buffalo Park. But it was difficult. We used to bring with us some goldeye [fish] which we caught during the fall. We travelled with pack horses when trapping. So there is no reason why I shouldn’t be familiar with the country.

RL: Why was the Wood Buffalo Park established there?

LB: We feel it was a dishonest deal which was made with the Chiefs. When the Parks officials were going to bring the buffalo on to our lands, they [the Chiefs] had said, ‘Yes.’ That is the reason the Park was made. If they had refused, there would be no Buffalo Park.

RL: Do you remember the name of the Chief who they made the deal with?

LB: His name was Woy a Kash. His father was Chief first. His name was Nik Soo. Then it was Pierre Whitehead, but the buffalo had already been moved from the south.

RL: The Park was extended southward, what was the reason for this?

LB: The reason is that people who lived in the new park area were not allowed to go into the old park, not even to camp. Then the Chief, the one after Pierre Whitehead, made arrangements so the Indians could move back and forth from the old park across to the extended one.

Alec Bruno (n.d.)

The Government had promised the trappers that they intended to use this WBNP area, just for ten to fifteen years only. After that they will return the land back to the trappers to use it as they had done for many years before. Eighty plus years later the WBNP is still in existence. Another broken promise to our people.

The Elders often talked about how the WBNP was formed. Many Elders said they weren’t aware of a WBNP being created. The Government officials came and surveyed the boundaries for the perimeter of WBNP and when that was done next came the bison which were barged in from the south. No one consulted or had any input to the formation of WBNP, because of this WBNP many of our members were lost to MCFN [Mikisew Cree First Nation] and others just moved elsewhere.

Many Elders recalled that no government officials ever came to them for consultation or input from the trappers and hunters of the region. So this proves that they, the government, didn’t intend to share this with our people. Trappers and hunters weren’t given any say in the formation of WBNP. We the ACFN are the biggest losers, not only in land but also many members to MCFN.

Our people, [ACFN] members, probably felt like they didn’t exist in reality. Not only did they lose their rights to their traditions, way of life, they were told to leave the area of Birch River. Trappers were the ones that had the bigger loss. They refused to change bands, so they had no choice but to move elsewhere. This was their home base; families were raised from one generation to another.

In 1899, Treaty 8 was signed between the federal government and the First Nation People. Our people were promised that as long as the sun raised, river flows, and the grass grows, the people will never be interfered with as to where they lived and maintained their way of life, traditionally their land will never be taken away from them. Yet twenty some years later our people were told to leave their respected area and relocated elsewhere. As I see it the government had eradicated our people from their homeland just to be replaced by bison. This is unacceptable at any given time—the government had more concern for the animals than they did for our people.

Fredoline Deranger/Djeskelni (19 March 2021)

Wood Buffalo [Park] is not what we expected from the newcomers, because before Wood Buffalo, the Dënesųłıné, from day one, looked after all the Europeans when they came into Canada. They had . . . poor clothing, no roads, no machines at that time. So the Dënesųłıné went ahead and clothed them and fed them and looked after them for over 200 years. Yeah. So that’s a common knowledge amongst the Dënesųłıné people of our country. . . .

They [the government officials wanting to create a park] came out of the blue. There was never direct dialogue between the [Park] people coming in and Dënesųłıné from Lake Athabasca. For 200 years we supplied them. We did everything for them. And they never consulted us.

Jimmy Deranger (24 March 2021)

In this passage, Jimmy refers to oral histories he had heard from Elders he interviewed as part of the Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research in the 1970s.

Now some of our Elders are saying that that land [in the Park annex] is ours—you [Parks board] should just give it to us. There’s no need for us to negotiate it. We let them use it for X number of years, and the use has expired. Now give it back to us. And they haven’t even compensated them [the Dene people who were displaced].

They [the government] said they were going to give it back. That’s what those Elders said. They were going to give it back after they used it for a certain period of time. So they should just give it back, we don’t need, we shouldn’t have to negotiate that land, that’s ours in the first place, to negotiate it back. If we’re going to negotiate, we should negotiate for compensation. But the premise of negotiating something that’s already yours is pointless. They knew it was our land to begin with, the Treaty said it was our lands. The Elders said it was our lands. The Creator said it was our lands. And now they want us to negotiate back because of something legally. What makes sense to all of us, I think that they should compensate us for using the land for those number of years.

When I was with the TARR, Indian Association of Alberta Research Project, I was hired as a researcher, to interview Elders. I talked to Elders of both bands [ACFN and MCFN] because some of the Elders of Mikisew were Dene Elders. But they were Mikisew after the Park. Before that, they were Dene Elders. And they remembered what the officials who were representing the National Park, how they wanted to bring the buffalo in, and when they were bringing the buffalos in, and how long they were going to be on the land. And all that was done by like, sort of individual or families that were trapping in there or were using the land in Wood Buffalo Park. But there was no large assembly of them together. Got to our place and said—the official didn’t say that, ‘I have gathered you here today, because we want to use that land for buffalos.’ They didn’t say that; they just went to camps, I think. They went to the camps and then they told them. And like, the Shortmans, who are Mikisew, they were supposed to be Dene people, and the Ratfats, Peter Ratfat, and Pierre Ratfat and Claire Ratfat, were supposed to be Dene people but they were in Wood Buffalo Park [at the time of the membership transfer in 1944]—now Mikisew. [The] Vermillion [family] was also in Wood Buffalo but they were Dene. Then there was the Simpsons, some of the Simpsons were supposed to be Dene but there was Wood Buffalo Park. And some of the Denes were supposed to be Dene, but they were at Wood Buffalo Park too. ⁸⁵ So that’s what happened, like you know at that time when the Elders were talking to me and Salman Sepp, he was Wood Buffalo too, he is Dene.

So when the people [government officials] that came to talk to the Dene [the Indigenous residents], they were saying that buffalo was declining down south and they wanted land for the buffalo. And they could use that land for a number of years. And First Nations people in that region, in the area, on the land, can just go on doing what they want to do.

But after they [the government] got the land, things changed, yeah? They developed policies saying that ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ And, they [Dene leaders] were trying to tell the officials that it’s not what the first official said.

And now, we’re saying this. Then that’s when the treaty question came up, when they were first saying that because the Elders at the time [of the TARR interviews], probably remembered some of the things that the government said on behalf of the government, between them, the Northwest Territories was then the Government of Canada [at the time of Treaty]. And then [Dene Elders] told them [the government officials], the Treaty says this: that if the land that’s going to be opened up for forestry, agricultural mining, settlement, and other use, that the said Indians of that region, the said Indians of that land, were going to be consulted, and they [the government] needed the consent of them [the Dene people]. Before that, you can just go take it.

And they were supposed to be compensated because it’s their land to begin with. But that always never happened. Because how they did it was, they didn’t do it properly, I don’t think they did it properly from what the testimony was of the Elders then, when I was doing the treaty research.

Dora Flett (19 March 2021)

They said they’d have the park for 100 years. It’s over 100 years now, so it’s time to give it back.

Leonard Flett (30 April 2021)

Yeah, they were removed from the National Park, I guess because the Park was established. And the Indian Agent, or the Parks Canada, went to my parents. That was my mum I guess—my dad wasn’t even there, my dad was from a different reserve kind of deal. Kind of up the lake, I mean, up the river at Poplar Point . . . I think it wasn’t right to her.⁸⁶ She didn’t have a voice—she was just a kid, right? And my grandpa was there and my grandma.

Scott Flett (17 March 2021)

Yeah, I heard that too, I heard it’s [WBNP] supposed to be built because the buffalo. When they made the Park, [it] was north of Peace and the buffalo start migrating south of the Peace into Lake Claire and that area. And they [Parks officials] said they’re just going to borrow that area for a while for the Park. And the big dispute even with the Park boundary . . . so a lot of people are in dispute over the Park boundary. It was the Chip and stuff. But that’s what I heard back—that’s what they said—[the Park] is supposed to borrow [the lands] just for a while and that’s how they told the people.

Felix Gibot (1974)

FG: It is like the Buffalo Park, when it was first established. I will tell you about it too. It was during the time a herd of buffalo was moved up here. They were taken far in the north country. Two seasons after that they made their way into our land. Those were the plains buffalo. When they came upon our land that is when the Park was established [expanded]. The Chief was asked, ‘The buffalo entered your land. What do you think?’ He replied, ‘I don’t know.’ The Park official who was in charge, as there had been buffalo up north before, said, ‘What do you think about the idea where they are going to include your land in the Buffalo Park, are you willing?’ The Chief replied, ‘No.’ Park official: ‘Will you lend it out or give it up?’ The Chief told him he would lend it out, ‘but I can’t give it to you people. I’ll just lend it to you.’ The Park official told him that of all the buffalo that wandered into his land, the Indians could use them for a livelihood. They would multiply and they could live from the buffalo. If the Indians were experiencing difficulty, they could approach the Park officials and he would take charge. He told the Indians that they could kill them at their discretion whenever it was necessary, not anytime. I myself worked in the Park for a long time. We used to slaughter buffalo for the Indians and the missionaries.⁸⁷ That was the agreement on the Buffalo Park. But after a while it seems they [parks officials] didn’t think that way anymore. If someone is caught killing a buffalo, he will get a 6-month sentence. That is not what they had agreed upon.

RL: They’ve already broken their promise.

FG: Yes, they broke their promise, after they made an agreement. My uncle was once lacking for food. They were very hungry out in the bush. They killed a buffalo. They were arrested and had to go to jail in Saskatchewan [Fort Saskatchewan].

RL: Did that legislation come from Ottawa?

FG.: Yes, the Park officials are hired through the government.

RL: Is anybody allowed to hunt buffalo today?

FG: Recently, 200 buffalo were slaughtered for the Indians.

RL: Does this happen every year?

FG: No, not every year. Some time ago, they slaughtered some. That was about three winters ago. It was only recently they slaughtered 200 for the Indians and Métis and Chipewyan.

RL: That land which you say is yours, does it enter the Park boundary?

FG: Yes, our land was made to be part of the Park. It is like something sitting in the middle of a plate. They do whatever they want with the Park. They never consult us, they own it.

RL: Thank you for talking to me.

FG: This discussion I just finished is all truth because I have seen it. I would be happy if my conversation could be heard somewhere. I thank you very much for talking to me. I wish to thank anybody, Indian or white man, who may listen to this conversation.

Ray Ladouceur (18 March 2021)

Well, those days a lot of those people that was in the Park here, the Dene, they didn’t want a park, eh? Because it was their land. But when the white man came there and made laws, of course as the buffalo is down, trying to save the woodland buffalo. . . .

Yeah, prairie buffalos, they brought them in from the south. But the woodland buffalo always was there. Yeah, they pretty near cleaned out those woodland buffalos that’s when they brought the prairie buffalos in. Oh, it helped people you know, but a lot of people had to poach to get a buffalo to feed their family. What else are you going to do, you know? You know you try to get something to feed your family, their family can’t starve to death because there’s thousands of those prairie buffalos, you know. That’s what happened to woodland buffalo, I know. There was quite a few thousand, but what else did they have those days? They had to get those buffalos to feed their family.

They [the Dene people] had no choice. No choice after they brought in the other animals, now the prairie buffalo are totally different. They brought in quite a few thousand of those buffalos. I don’t know, two, three thousand into the Park. And then that’s why they increased them [the Park boundaries]. Some [of the buffalo] headed more further south, near Birch Mountain area here, the herd that they brought. But they migrated, some of them migrated to try to go back south.

Leslie Laviolette (22 March 2021)

I mean how many buffalo, two barges full of buffalo that they dropped off at Hay Camp, and mixed in with the real bison that were here for a long time. And that, this Ronald Lake [wood bison] herd here, I think there’s about 300 original buffalo that have been here for a long time, got away from that herd. These ones migrate by themselves. And I think they became a—there’s a little park there now they can’t hunt or do anything to them.⁸⁸ So that’s where we fought for. Cause those were original buffalo, the real bison.

Big John Marcel (18 March 2021)

Well, as far as I know, when Parks took over, and then when everybody had to get out of there if you don’t belong to the Park, you know, they were burning houses and everything as far as I know. Parks did that.

Frank Marcel (n.d.)

From what I understand, the Government just went ahead and grabbed as much land as they needed for their own use—no input from the locals. People were not notified of the changes they will face because of this WBNP creation. They just came and took our traplines without telling us anything. Most of the trappers in the area of Birch River, Birch Mountains, and Peace River area were all ACFN members.

Keltie Paul and Edouard Trippe de Roche (25 November 2020)

KP: The park superintendents [each] had different ideas. Every time you get a new superintendent in, he’s got a different idea based on probably another myth of what the Park is. At first, you know, people in Canada were saying, ‘well, we have to save the Native populations.’ And then, ‘we have to save the buffalo. And this is how we’re gonna do it.’ And it’s all based on nonsense. I would call it bureaucratic nonsense. That was based on a myth, total mythology, it has nothing to do with anything.

So they moved the people around, they moved the bison around, and very much you can kind of see parallels between moving the bison around and moving the people around to try to control everything. And they also have different ideas. One superintendent might think ‘well, it’d be [a] really good idea to have the Park for trophy shooting the buffalo. We get a whole bunch of money from rich Americans, and we let them shoot our buffalo and then they take a head home.’ Honest to goodness, this is what some people thought. And then the next superintendent will come in and he’d go, ‘well, you know, this isn’t what we’re here for. We’re here to preserve and protect the bison. And then that means that we have to come down on the Native people,’ because they were kind of treated like the wolves. I don’t know if you know this, but this has been causing controversy over on the other side, about the wolves and the caribou? So they treated the Native people like wolves. They said, ‘okay, you can’t, you’re not supposed to hunt bison here, you don’t hunt bison there.’ The only thing was that if they got outside the Park, which is another story entirely, then they could shoot them and eat them if they were free of disease.

So, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say, is there was, there’s been a lot of different superintendents coming in with very many different ideas. There’s been a lot of epochs: the conservation epochs, the preservation epoch, and the management epoch. And in each of those three time periods, there’s all these people coming in with very different ideas, and remember, superintendents get replaced, then somebody goes to another national park, etc. And when you have a regime change like that, you get a whole different somebody coming in with a whole different idea about what they should be doing. But I think the basic thing was that they were basing it on bad data . . . 

ST: Do you know if there was any point where government officials were looking for input from the community when they created the Park?

ER: There is no consultation then.

KP: Nothing. They plopped everything down. Just—they had no consultation; they didn’t say anything to anybody. They really considered that—when you look back on it—and all of the things that they were doing with, I would say, for the Native People, not with the Native People, the expansion of the residential school, based on that data, everything that they were doing back there, they’re justifying by saying, well, it says here . . . so they went with, I guess, prevailing mythology of the time, which was not well formed, not well executed, certainly not researched. And based on [that], I would call it hearsay. . . .

In a lot of ways, they sort of put the bison very much ahead of the people. Their livelihoods, their belief system, and ways of knowing, the ways of knowing that was passed on to their children, their culture, everything.

Ernie “Joe” Ratfat (19 March 2021)

ER: They brought up other ones [the plains bison]. They’re smaller buffalo. Yeah.

ST: And that’s when they made the Park bigger, too?

ER: Yes.

ST: Did they ever tell anybody that’s what they were going to do?

ER: No, they just—they don’t tell people back then. They just do whatever they wanted to do. Well, we had no say, when it came to government things, we had no say. They just did it.

Alice Rigney (16 March 2021)

I did hear something about a commitment for 100 years [that the lands were being leased for the Park], which is coming up next year. And it sure would be nice to find the document if it does exist and present it to the Parks. And never mind the apology, just give us back our land. . . .

And they did that, you know. They were there and bringing those diseased prairie buffaloes here, I mean they were diseased because of their travel from Wainwright or wherever it is, and then on a train and then on a barge to here, you know, to put them in the Park. I remember going to Hay Camp in the Park, my sister actually lived with a park warden there and how they used to corral them, and they used to slaughter so many and that was for, they would ship them south. The hides would be sent south for tanning [as part of the commercial slaughter in the 1960s and 1970s]. But the buffalo there were not slaughtered for the people, for the community here.

Mary “Cookie” Simpson (11 March 2021)

CS: There was no consultation at all. That word didn’t even exist a long time ago [for talking to Indigenous Peoples]. They never came to my grandpa or my uncles or my father, and they never ever did say, ‘hey, we’re going to be expanding, we’re going to be bringing buffalos in, and we’re going to take this land.’ That was their [the Indigenous Peoples] traditional land and they just lost everything . . . 

ST: And one other thing that we’ve heard about when the park was made, we’ve heard from a couple of Elders, that they were told that the Park would be just temporary?

CS: Yes, yes. That’s what my dad always said. He said, ‘when are they gonna leave anyways?’ he would say, ‘because it’s only temporary.’ And that’s what they said when they first brought the buffalo in, when they first made the Park. They said it was just temporary and the land would go back to them, to the people. And that was it. He always said that, and my uncles always said that too . . . they’re all gone now. But they [the Elders] would talk about it, and I would sit there and listen to them. That was one of the main things they said when we talked about the Park, was that it was just on loan.

ST: And do you know how long it was supposed to be before they gave it back?

CS: No, I never heard them say a date.

ST: So that means that all that land right now, that’s up there that Parks Canada has, it’s all loaned, it’s not theirs?

CS: That’s right. It’s not theirs. They just took it. They just took it, and they never even gave anything to the Aboriginal People that were living there. They never give them nothing. They told them they couldn’t shoot the animals. They couldn’t shoot the buffaloes that they brought in. They didn’t even get reimbursed for nothing. They just took their land and that was it. You know, they’re just so evil.

Beverly Tourangeau (21 March 2021)

The Park had, from my understanding, from what the Elders have told me that have passed on, they had a 100-year agreement. The Park signed an agreement, a 100-year agreement. Well, that should be coming up soon. I think it was 1929 when they signed that 100-year agreement. But, from my understanding, the Park was established in 1922. You know, that agreement [that the Park lands would be returned to the people after the 100 years had passed] should become an absolute.

And, because the Park did this, they established the Park without consulting with the Native people. You know, they should have consulted with the Native people. Now they have eleven different First Nations [who are members of the Park’s Cooperative Management Committee]. They’re called Indigenous Partners, and ACFN is one of them. And they’re from Alberta and NWT. But, in the beginning, they never consulted with First Nations or with anybody in Treaty 8. They just established the Park. And they had released the buffalo in 1929, by Buffalo Landing by Hay Camp, Stony Island. That’s how little I know. But from what I heard, people were kicked out of the Park and out of Birch Mountain, but I was told by an Elder there’s lots of ACFN graveyards in by Birch Mountain.

Leslie Wiltzen (21 January 2021)

Leslie discusses the oral histories shared by his uncle Elder Pat Marcel about the impacts of losing access to harvesting areas in the Park after the 1926 expansion. A portion of this interview is available as a digital audio recording online.⁸⁹

When [the Park] was expanded, [that] was when the Dene people, the Chipewyan people of Fort Chip, were really affected—through the expansion, because the original boundaries of Wood Buffalo National Park were the Peace River. The Peace River north was the original boundaries when it was formed in 1922. And it was not until the bison crossed the Peace River into the Peace-Athabasca Delta that the Park boundaries were expanded to its present-day borders.

And that’s when we were really affected because although we were on, as our Treaty says, ‘the Chipewyan Indians of the Athabasca, of the Birch, the Slave, the Peace, and the Gull,’ were already on the Peace and were all already on the Slave . . . and that expansion of the Park, from the Peace River boundaries to its current-day boundary, that’s when it really affected [the Dene]. That’s when everybody was forced [to leave]. And, you know, talking with my Uncle Pat and oral history that I have, that he had written, it explains that. It explains really a lack of desire of the Dene peoples to go [to leave their territories in the Park] originally because . . . you know, hunting in the Park and the Delta, that was a good area for providing food and a living for families of Dene people. And then with the expansion, now they had to go out and leave that area of the Park where it was good hunting. They had to go into areas where there was more non-Aboriginal hunters and trappers coming down the Athabasca River from more southern populated areas, expanding into their traditional territory. So when they were given the option [to transfer], when they were asked to leave, Uncle Pat said that was the harder part for them. They knew it was going to be rougher on the outside [of the Park boundaries] because the furs had been depleted by non-Aboriginal trappers coming down. So, resources and, you know, if you’re hunting along the river system . . . you’re hunting for fur-bearing animals, but you’re also hunting moose, you’re hunting all the animals that you need to survive. And you get a large group, like a First Nation group, where there’s many families to feed, I mean, one moose doesn’t go far. So they knew that there was going to be hardship, and it’s in those oral histories. That’s what he told me, that they were really reluctant to leave, but they were forced to leave, they weren’t given the choice.

And that’s what I recall from the stories, is that they knew there was going to be hard times in the years that followed. After they were forced to leave the Park were very, very, trying times for the people, the Chipewyan people of that area, because food was scarce, furs were scarce and just being able to provide food for your family was difficult. . . .

You know, the question that’s always, always on my mind is, we go back to that expansion of Wood Buffalo National Park, and for some reason, the Chipewyan people took the brunt. It’s our traditional territory, like I said previously, we’ve got documentation that verifies that Dene people have been in that area for tens of thousands of years. It is truly traditional territory.

Anonymous Fort Chipewyan Elder (7 February 1974)

One Elder had told me of this. His name was Pierre Whitehead. He was a Chief. The land was loaned to the government for the buffaloes. This was mentioned to me by Philip Gibot. It seemed to me that the land was given to them, but apparently it was just loaned to them. After five years, the population of the buffalo [in Buffalo National Park in Wainwright] grew in size. It was at this time the [federal] government had, as the provincial government for the land south of the Peace River, for the Wood Buffalo National Park. Now that land is also filled with buffalo as far as the twenty-seventh Baseline.

Anonymous ACFN Elder (11 March 2021)

A long time ago, there were two parks, a long time ago. That first park they made is across Peace River [north of the river]. And, when they brought in buffalos, 1925, 1930 maybe, then they took the other park in the Delta [south of the Peace River]. That’s the old-timers—they call it the old park and new park. They [the government] wanted to bring buffalos here, to the Delta. And then the story is, what they said, my Elders, they said they would borrow it, they were going to give it back. They never gave it back yet . . . and they borrowed, took over the Park. They took a big one.

They borrowed it, so they have to give it back. You borrow, you have to give it back. That’s the stories anyway.

Anonymous ACFN Elder (16 March 2021)

Yeah, it’s not fair at all. You know what I mean? Our people never went to the Parks after that [after the expansion]. [In the] ’60s and ’70s, my mom, I mean my dad and my brothers never went hunting there. You don’t even dare go across the river. You know what I mean? [My family would] jump on their dogs and they went to north shore. We weren’t allowed. We weren’t even thinking that way. That’s how much they brainwashed the Indians there. We could go to north shore, but I mean on the rivers, on the Park side, we never did go there.

So like, I don’t know nobody, even today, I will not go to the Park. I wouldn’t even think of going to the Park. You know what I mean? Yes, I mean all our family, nobody goes to the Parks. Nobody. Even today, I wouldn’t even go to the Parks. I’d rather go up to our [ACFN’s reserves] country. Like my dad won’t talk about it but, they will not do it, they will not go. We had our own area to go, us guys, but we never shot a buffalo. Our family never saw the buffalo, put it that way. Because no one knows in those days, eh? And most of controllers were white. They didn’t care how us Indians [were] those days. Right?