About the Authors

Grandparents of ii’ taa’poh’to’p

Within that oral Blackfoot Piikani system of making relatives, I am acknowledged as a ceremonialist who will run the Sun Dances, or the Thunder Pipe ceremonies, or other ceremonies, such as those of the Brave Dog Society. I’ve also had the privilege of caring for a few bundles that I’ve transferred on to new owners. Once you’ve transferred on a bundle, you become a ceremonial grandparent to that individual or to that group of individuals. And then you’re recognized as an Elder, according to our traditional criteria. But I would call myself a ceremonial grandparent. In our traditional community, that’s how I’m recognized. And I’m also a teacher, and I’m still facilitating our ceremonies.

Reg Crowshoe

After completion of the Indigenous Strategy, Elder Reg Crowshoe bestowed the honour and significant responsibility of grandparent or Elder of ii’ taa’poh’to’p on the four co-chairs: Dru Marshall, Jacqueline Ottmann (Steering Committee co-chairs), Shawna Cunningham, and Jackie Sieppert (Working Group co-chairs). As Kim Anderson writes, “one cannot overstate the role of elders in traditional Indigenous societies” (2011, 126). Elders are respected because they “are teachers of history, traditions, language, and philosophy. They are also keepers of the law, nurturers, advisors and leaders in ceremonial practices” (Mosôm Danny Musqua, quoted in Anderson 2011, 126). Elders have earned authority and responsibility for “generational exchange: elder generations pass on power and knowledge toward life to younger generations” (Anderson 2011, 127) since they have gained deep understanding of bimaadiziwin (life) or mino-bimaadiziwin (good life). In many Indigenous circles, grandparents have corresponding responsibilities.

The gift bestowed to us by Elder Crowshoe was also a tremendous responsibility. We are the keepers of the ii’ taa’poh’to’p story, its origin, growth, and release. As we do in this book, we have shared this story from our perspectives and provided details of the spirit, intent, and actions that led to the formal strategy document. Our responsibility as grandparents is to nurture and advise when called upon, even from our positions and places outside the University of Calgary. Through ii’ taa’poh’to’p, we will always be connected to this university.

We accepted the responsibility that Elder Crowshoe gave each of us by stating the authorship of this book as “the Grandparents of ii’ taa’poh’to’p.” This collective authorship also recognizes the difficulty that we had with “Western” practices of publication related to multiple authorship and the seeming erasure of some of the authors by the application of “et al.” in citations. This goes against Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing and contributes to the colonial-directed and -driven lived experiences of Indigenous peoples in which erasing and silencing were primary goals. Authorship order is given in the chapters, but this also was not an easy process for us. As ii’ taa’poh’to’p inspires systemic change, perhaps the declaration of issues such as authorship will lead to creative solutions.

Reg Crowshoe

My name is Reg Crowshoe. My Blackfoot name is Awakaaseena, which is Deer Chief in our language, and that was my grandfather’s name. I’m from the Piikani Nation in southern Alberta. My father is Joe Crowshoe or Aapohsoy’yiis [Weasel Tail]. Aapohsoy’yiis was an Elder and a Bundle Keeper from the Piikani Nation for many years. He held on to the Short Thunder Medicine Pipe Bundle, and he ran the Sun Dances and was instrumental in bringing back the Brave Dog Society and the Chickadee Society. I think without his teachings we would have lost a lot of our culture. I’m happy to have been exposed to his teachings. He was over one hundred years old when he passed away. So I benefited from his knowledge. My mother’s side of the family was from the Nez Perce Nation in Idaho, and Chief Joseph, who fought the US Army all the way up to the Canadian border and brought his people’s children to the Canadian side; the children were taken and hidden by the Piikani. When the Indian Agent asked who this new group of people claiming to be Piikani were, our people gave them the only name they could think of that related to the children; they gave them the last name of Warrior. So today we still have the family name of Warrior in my mother’s family.

For white man’s knowledge, I was brought to the St. Cypriot Anglican Residential School on the Piikani Nation when I was young. But before I went to school, I spoke my language, and I believed in my grandmothers’ and grandfathers’ ways. When I went to residential school, I was totally lost because the written system did not reflect my oral belief system in any way. But I have to admit that I got an education through residential school. It wasn’t good, but I learned how to read and write, and that’s still helping me today. I completed my high school, and I went to the University of Calgary for a while, but we were still being monitored by an Indian Agent. My mind was focused on freedom and not education at that time, so I felt like I needed to run away from university. Later I joined the RCMP. Once I was stationed in Pincher Creek, I moved back to my community and started working with the Piikani Nation. All along, I continued to learn from looking after the old people. I started working with Indigenous governance and cultural processes. I travelled extensively and met with Indigenous peoples around the globe and learned about common hardships and traditional governance structures. I decided to write a book to capture oral governance practices and parallels. I co-authored a book published by the University of Calgary Press titled Akak’stiman: A Blackfoot Framework for Decision-Making and Mediation Processes (Crowshoe and Manneschmidt 2002). I have contributed to numerous other publications and video/film projects that include the Piikani perspective on justice and sentencing circles, science, sustainability, and organizational strategies. In 2001, I received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Calgary.

I had a chance to learn and understand both written and oral systems and to find the parallels between the two, allowing me to extract oral systems and tools that we need to share with and teach our young people so that they can understand and carry on our culture. My passion is cultural preservation, protection, and renewal of our ways. I have worked with many organizations on cultural interpretation/translation to find parallels to transform systems and make relatives.

Dru Marshall

My name is Dru Marshall. I am also known as Nipomaki Innskii Aki [Chickadee Song Woman], a name that Elder Reg Crowshoe gifted to me during the launch of our Indigenous Strategy. I was the provost and vice-president academic for the University of Calgary when we developed the strategy and during the first years of its implementation, and I served as the co-chair of the Steering Committee for the strategy. I am an educator, a leader, coach, daughter, wife, sister, and an aunt. I am originally from Winnipeg and have spent almost all of my life on the beautiful big-sky country of the Canadian prairies. I was fortunate to have parents and grandparents who encouraged me to do and be anything that I wanted to do and be, even when many others in society did not believe that young girls had multiple options. My mother was a nurse and taught me to value and appreciate the differences in people regardless of nationality, race, gender, colour, sexuality, or any other defining characteristic. My father was an undercover detective with the Winnipeg Police Force, and I learned early on how disadvantages in upbringing can have consequences later in life.

The development of ii’ taa’poh’to’p was a transformative experience for me. I was in awe of the dedication and commitment of our co-chairs and Traditional Knowledge Keepers to reconciliation and indigenization efforts. They served, and continue to serve, as excellent role models for me and others. Learning is important to me, and I learned many lessons during the development of our Indigenous Strategy. I consider myself an educated person but was stunned by my lack of knowledge of Canadian history, particularly as it relates to Indigenous peoples. How could I not have learned about residential schools and the resulting intergenerational trauma in history classes? I recall how proud I used to feel about being part of a country that did not have the overt racism that you might see in other countries. In fact, I learned that the covert racism toward our Indigenous relatives is much worse in many ways. Until recently, Canadians have refused to acknowledge the impacts of colonization on Indigenous peoples and accept our roles in reconciliation to address the pain, suffering, abuse, and intergenerational trauma that have resulted. As a result of the learning acquired developing this strategy, I feel a deep sense of responsibility to support our journey together as we walk parallel paths in mutual respect and a good way.

Jacqueline Ottmann

Aniin nidinowaymahginuk (Greetings, my relations). I am also known as Mizowaykomiguk-paypomwayotung [Thunder Rolling Over a Large Landscape] (gifted to me as an infant by Elder Silverquill), and I am Anishinaabekwe from Treaty 4, nochikinnozāoning (Fishing Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan). The late Chief Allan Paquachan and Marjorie Paquachan (Kayseas) would address me as nitanis (daughter). Henry and Marjorie (Kitikaywinnie) Kayseas and Andrew and Helen (Desjarlais) Paquachan would call me nōhsis (granddaughter). I grew up with five younger brothers (ničimēnsuk) (Fenton, Keith, Giles, Jeffrey, and Kevin) who identify themselves as providers, or hunters, for our community.

My grandparents had a lifetime of education but experienced varying degrees of schooling. Nimosôm (my paternal grandfather) Andrew spent many years attending Gordon’s and Elkhorn Indian Residential Schools, whereas my nookoo (maternal grandmother) Marjorie did not attend these schools and thus had a strong connection to the nakawe (Saulteaux/Plains Ojibwe) language, culture, and traditional practices. I spent a lot of time with my nookoo Marjorie in my early years. I remember being in the garden with her, walking through the bush while she picked medicines, and responding to her request to sit still while the thunderbirds moved past us. Now I have many responsibilities: mother of two gifted young adults (Cole and Shawkay), wife/partner of Pat, daughter, sister, auntie, leader, and teacher. These responsibilities are informed by Anishinaabe ways of being, knowing, and doing.

I have always valued education, largely because my parents valued and were passionate about it. Education, from this perspective, would include schooling in a provincial system in addition to the learning that comes from the everyday lessons of life. Prior to entering Kindergarten at age four, I spoke only Saulteaux, as did most everyone in my community. My parents spoke English only when required. I remember being not only nourished by, and feeling strongly connected to, my family and community but also perplexed and concerned by the challenging realities that we, as First Nations Peoples, encountered on a recurring basis.

I earned my Bachelor of Education degree in May 1989 from the University of Calgary and then went back to the university in 2004 as a faculty member in the Faculty of Education (now the Werklund School of Education). I spent thirteen years there teaching, researching, publishing, establishing national and international scholarly networks as a faculty member, and undertaking various leadership roles. Co-chairing the Steering Committee with Provost Dru Marshall and working with co-chairs Shawna Cunningham and Jackie Sieppert, Elders Reg and Rose Crowshoe and other inspiring Elders, and the committed organizing teams and volunteers to bring ii’ taa’poh’to’p into reality were pivotal experiences for me. I will be forever grateful for this opportunity.

Shawna Cunningham

My name is Shawna Cunningham. I am also known as Mai’stóó pi’kssakii [Crow Spirit Woman], a name gifted to me in 2014 by Elders Reg and Rose Crowshoe, whom I have been blessed and honoured to know since childhood. I am Métis, with historical and ancestral ties to the Edmonton (North Saskatchewan) River Valley, St. Albert, Lac Ste. Anne, and the Lesser Slave Lake region. I had the great privilege of being born and raised in the heart of Blackfoot country—in southwestern Alberta, along the foothills and the shadows of the Rocky Mountains—a landscape that I love and a place that is forever part of my being.

My Métis-Cree-settler heritage and the place in which I was born and raised are part of my cultural, intercultural, and intergenerational identity. I come from a family of educators. I have devoted my career to Indigenous inclusion in postsecondary education systems and my heart to helping create a learning environment in which Indigenous people feel welcome, safe, and respected. I envision universities as places where Indigenous students, communities, and knowledge systems can thrive without interference or prejudice.

I have a long history with the University of Calgary. In 2000, I was hired as the director of the Native (Student) Centre (now the Writing Symbols Lodge) and served in that role for seventeen years. In late 2015, I was appointed by the Office of the Provost to the Indigenous Task Force Steering Committee and was one of the co-chairs of the Working Group that helped to develop the University of Calgary’s Indigenous Strategy. In 2017, shortly after the launch of the strategy, I was appointed as the director of the strategy and have continued to work on the implementation of ii’ taa’poh’to’p.

Working together on the development of the Indigenous Strategy was a profound collective journey and continues to stand out as one of the highlights of my career in postsecondary education. I remain grateful to the university for giving me the opportunity to be involved and for providing us with the space and time we needed to co-create this strategy in a good and respectful way. The spirit of ii’ taa’poh’to’p carried us on parallel paths that unfolded naturally, were guided through ceremony, and were supported by university leadership, the campus community, and the surrounding Indigenous communities. During this journey, we committed to a creative process in collaboration with community; our journey was grounded by mutual respect, common goals, and a commitment to building and maintaining good relatives.

Jackie Sieppert

My name is Jackie Sieppert. I am also known as Oot’soo Piik’sii [Shore Bird], a name that Elders Reg and Rose Crowshoe gifted to me in 2018. I am a social worker, an educator, a father, and a grandfather. I am also the product of homesteader families, settlers who came to Canada with hope and gratitude for the opportunity to build new lives. They were as hard as the soil that they tilled, absolutely driven to create a bright future for their children, and the hardest-working people whom I have ever known. As a child in the Hand Hills of southern Alberta, I revered my grandparents. I believed that they taught me everything I would ever need to know in life. In most ways, they did.

As an adult, though, I now know that there were things my homesteader families did not teach me. I have learned that, like all of you, I am a treaty person. I have learned that I knew nothing of Indigenous communities or the historical relationships that we have had with those communities. I have learned as a social worker that we continue to see Indigenous peoples marginalized and over-represented in our corrections and child welfare systems.

Most of all, I have learned about the impact of loss and the legacy of residential schools. As a father, I have experienced the relentless, unforgiving loss of a child. Yet I am here to say that I have no capacity to imagine the loss endured by Indigenous families who saw their children removed from them without notice or reason. Families who were not allowed to see their children. Families who witnessed the conscious process of assimilation that stole their children’s love, culture, identity, and future. Families who learned that their children were abused in so many ways. This is why—as a social worker and father—I am so passionate about ii’ taa’poh’to’p. I am an ally who cares deeply about creating hope and new futures for those children and their families.

Being an ally has been essential to my career at the University of Calgary, now over three decades long. During this period, I have been privileged to be a faculty member in the Faculty of Social Work, and between 2010 and 2020 I served as its dean. It was while I was in this leadership role that the provost asked me to join the Indigenous Strategy’s Steering Committee and to co-chair the Working Group tasked with developing the strategy itself. Looking back, it was a transformative experience. I remain engaged on this journey and hope to earn the honour of being called a neighbour of Indigenous communities.