today, walking through mile after mile of pasture (10 miles today), we found about a dozen teepee-rings. Four days ago, when I stopped to answer my phone, there by my boot was an arrow head.
Everywhere we go, along with the history of ranchers and pioneer farmers, of North West Mounted Police, there are traces of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre, Dakota and Lakota and Bkackfoot people who have lived here for so long, but are here no longer. They were pushed off the land by John A Macdonald, as official policy.
It’s hard to be Treaty 4 and not see the other side here. Although it felt so easy to imagine those empty hills with their rings alive again. This is a pilgrimage of remembrance, of so many layers of life. Tonight camping in the yard of the Lacelle family and thankful for their incredible hospitality.
somethinggrand 