Author’s Note: This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford
University Press in the forthcoming book Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Indigenous
Peoples in Canada, 5th edition, edited by Gina Starblanket and David Long, with the late Olive
Patricia Dickason, due for publication in October 2019.
Visions of the Heart, 5th edition, is available through the Oxford University Press website.
The copy provided here is the pre-copyedited draft and may contain slight differences from the
published version.

Abstract: Though Metis people have had a long presence in Calgary and southern Alberta, their
kinship within the Nehiyaw Pwat allied them against the Blackfoot Confederacy: as strangers
politically and culturally, they remained as guests in this territory. For Métis people who live in
Calgary who want to be good guests, the authors suggest an “ethic of reciprocal visiting” that
emerges from Métis visiting culture, where Indigenous guests outside of their home territory are
called to listen to their hosts as a dancer listens to the fiddler and adjusts their steps, engage in
respectful non-interference, and be prepared for correction.

1

Why Calgary isn’t Métis Territory: Jigging Towards an Ethic of Reciprocal Visiting

Daniel Voth, University of Calgary

Jessie Loyer, Mount Royal University

On old time jigging: “you gotta know your fiddlers and you really have to listen. Listening is
your key to dancing. You really have to listen, as soon as there is a change, you got to change
and if he’s playing fast, you got to giver, you know? If he’s playing slow, you can take it easy.
But there’s always that little rivalry between fiddlers and jiggers, because with dancers they like
to tease some fiddlers and say, ‘you know, I’ll keep going man, I am going to play you out’ and
they are always challenging each other and that’s the way it used to be.”
Brent Potskin, Batoche
I Introduction
Territorial acknowledgements have steadily grown both in popularity and frequency over the last
10 years. Before the era of widespread acknowledgements, they were done by Indigenous
academics, activists and their allies to unsettle preconceived notions of what a settler relationship
to land means, and to point out what most people give no thought to; the land under their feet is
the territory of Indigenous peoples. The power of the statements emanated from their rarity (see
also Vowel, 2016); these acknowledgements use words to give thought and form to Indigenous
territoriality, something settler colonial states like Canada have been trying to erase for
centuries. 1 Growing in popularity in recent years, there is now a territorial acknowledgement at
the beginning of many different events including hockey games, university and other public

1

For a deeper discussion on the relationship between settler colonialism and Indigenous relationships to the land,
please see Wolfe (2006); Goeman (2015).

2

meetings, school days, major TV broadcasts, and concerts as well as festivals. While more
research is needed on the power dynamics wrapped up in this now pervasive form of
acknowledgement, the following chapter explores the unsettling questions of whose territory is
being acknowledged and what it means to acknowledge the wrong people. More specifically, the
Métis Nation is acknowledged in Calgary, an action that seems misplaced.
Both the authors have a very personal stake in this investigation. Jessie Loyer is Cree on
her mother’s side from Michel First Nation, and her father is Métis; she grew up in Calahoo,
Alberta. Daniel Voth is a member of the Métis Nation and grew up in Manitoba’s Interlake
region as well as the inner city of Winnipeg, the heartland of the Métis people. Both work in
what is now called the city of Calgary at major universities in the territory of Treaty #7 peoples.
Both universities have developed land acknowledgements that appear in their respective
Indigenous strategic plans. Mount Royal University (MRU), which employs Loyer,
acknowledges the territory it is on in the following way:
Mount Royal University is situated in an ancient and storied place within the
hereditary lands of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Iyarhe Nakoda, Tsuut’ina and Métis
Nations. It is a land steeped in ceremony and history that, until recently, was used
and occupied exclusively by peoples indigenous to this place. (2016)
The University of Calgary, which employs Voth, offers its formal territory acknowledgment in
the form of the following script:
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the traditional territories of the
people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Blackfoot
Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations), the
Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and

3

Wesley First Nations). The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta,
Region III. I would also like to note that the University of Calgary is situated on land
adjacent to where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, and that the traditional
Blackfoot name of this place is “Moh’kins’tsis”, which we now call the City of
Calgary. (2017)
You’ll note that both universities explicitly acknowledge the city of Calgary as part of the
territory of the Métis Nation.
Both of us are from peoples who are not signatories to Treaty #7, and, as will be pointed
out below, both of us are from peoples who were party to an inter-Indigenous alliance that
actively and militarily challenged Blackfoot territoriality and power in the region around
Calgary. 2 So should Calgary be acknowledged as Métis territory? What does it mean to be Métis
in Treaty #7 territory? Our core argument in this piece is that Calgary is not Métis territory and
therefore, Metis people need to have an ethic of reciprocal visiting in these spaces. This
argument is animated by inter-Indigenous relationships rooted in tradition, respect, and openness.
This chapter begins by first defining who the Métis are within a complex, multi-national
Indigenous milieu. This is followed by an historical and political argument for delineating
Blackfoot space from Métis space, and will include an examination of the Blackfoot and Métis
perspectives on territoriality. We then present a theoretical approach rooted in Métis kinship
practices that can inform what we are calling an ethic of reciprocal visiting for Métis people. By
ethic, we mean a set of culturally informed principles that are designed to inform how
individuals move through complex worlds in a good way. In the final section of the chapter we
discuss the demands of our ethic in inter-Indigenous politics and inquire into what ways this
2

In this chapter, inter-Indigenous refers to the political relationships and interactions that take place between
different Indigenous peoples. For more on this please see Voth 2018.

4

ethic can inform how we act in other Indigenous peoples’ territory. The chapter concludes by
asking you, the reader, how you can live well in other peoples’ territory.

II Who are the Métis?
Métis identity has emerged as one of the most controversial questions in Indigenous
politics and Indigenous studies. Métis people, plagued by centuries of racialized impositions on
our peoplehood and personal identities, have been writing back against the focus on race and
racialization in recent years (Andersen, 2014; Gaudry, 2013; Vowel, 2016). If you were to peruse
through most high school Canadian history textbooks or Wikipedia pages you would find that the
Métis people are described as a mixed, or mixed-race people that emerged from unions between
European men and Indigenous women. Much of this stems from a literal translation of the
French word “métis,” which means mixed in English. But this translation has also come to mean
that being mixed means something for the Métis as a people (Andersen, 2010).
Yet, racial mixing alone does not create a people. 3 All peoples of the world are mixed.
The notion of a racially pure people is a fallacy. As Chris Andersen (2014) has pointed out
we can think about and analyze the Métis as an instance of a ‘post-contact’
Indigenous people, one of many instances of Indigenous ethnogenesis that sprung
up in the wake of global imperial intrusions into Indigenous territories. While
historians and ethnohistorians have been happy - eager, even - to note the
ethnogenesis of Métis self-consciousness, virtually none of this analysis has
extended to a comparative discussion of other post-contact Indigenous peoples
such as Comanche, Lumbee, Oji-Cree, and Seminole. (p. 207-208)

3

For the most theoretically robust enunciation of this idea, please see Andersen 2014. Please also see Vowel 2016.

5

What Andersen is pointing out is that a number of Indigenous peoples emerged after fur traders
and other non-Indigenous people showed up in Indigenous peoples’ territories. So, this means
that there are more important factors than mixed ancestry in the making of the identity of the
Métis people.
The Métis people have a very particular language, history, set of economic
engagements, relationships with other Indigenous peoples, culture, and most importantly, a
collective sense of being politically self-aware. This has been outlined well by Adam Gaudry and
Darryl Leroux (2017). These scholars point out that Métis identity has nothing to do with finding
a Mi’kmaq ancestor in the 1600s, or taking a DNA test, or finding a long dead Algonquin, Haida
or Cree woman in your ancestral tree. These things do not make a Métis person. Rather, being
Métis is about belonging to a sociological, political people. From this perspective, the Métis are a
people primarily from the northwest plains. Gaudry and Leroux point out that IndigenousEuropean intermarriages in Quebec and Acadia were part of a program of Indigenous
assimilation, not the awakening of a post contact Indigenous people. Further, the Indigenous
history in those places does not include the rise of a politically distinct, collectively aware,
“Métis” people like it did on the northwest plains (117, 127-130). 4 In contrast, we Métis of the
northwest plains, are a people that waged military and political conflicts alongside and against
other Indigenous peoples. We are a people that are parties to peace treaties made with our allies
and adversaries. We are a people that have our own governments, run our educational
institutions, disagree with each other, take part in collective and individual economic activities,
speak our own language and sing our own songs. All of this we have done, and continue to do, in

4

G

6

our own name, not because we are mixed, but because we were, are, and will continue to be, a
people. Generally, the Métis are one of the Indigenous peoples of the northwest plains.
Defining Métis territory (and, subsequently, Métis territorial acknowledgements) is
complicated. The tools of colonization that defined First Nations territories created visible
reserve boundaries and numbered treaties that are associated with particular swaths of land.
Métis are mappable in a different way. Métis lawyer Jean Teillet highlights this when she argues
that: “contemporary Canadian maps do not show the outlines of the Northwest Métis territory,
indicate important Métis sites, travel routes or show kinship connections…On these maps the
Métis simply do not exist” (Teillet, 2008, p. 36). Instead, Métis kinship connections exist within
a Métis territory that Michel Hogue (2015) calls a “complex and shifting set of Indigenous
homelands” (p. 5). These prairie homelands make up Métis territory. While Hogue is concerned
with how the border between Canada and the US affects the treatment and recognition (or lack
thereof) of the Métis in the United States, his assertion that Indigenous borders prior to the
medicine line 5 were “shaped by local interactions -- of commerce, family, and politics -- within
Plains borderland communities” (2015, p. 8) helps us to understand that while Indigenous
borders shift, they are certainly not arbitrary. Therefore, territory cannot be arbitrarily claimed:
Indigenous peoples have long-standing histories of existing in relation to territories that are not
their own. We now take up this question of non-arbitrary territory in understanding Blackfoot
and Métis people’s engagements with each other, and each other’s homelands.

III Being in a Place Does Not Make it Yours

5

Indigenous peoples have talked about the border between Canada and the United States in a variety of ways. One
of those ways is by referring to its imposition on Indigenous peoples, and the bifurcation of a number of contiguous
nations, as the medicine line.

7

Can just being somewhere make a territory yours? You may have heard of “squatter’s rights,” or
of the tradition in international law that if you can’t defend your territory from outsiders and
incursions then you may not be able to continue to claim it as your own (see Cassese, 2005, p.
81-84). These theories of territory tend to be incredibly self-serving since they are written by
powerful people or nation states with a vested interest in justifying their takeover of other
people’s territory. What if we instead focused on Indigenous people’s understanding of their
space and their own appreciations both of where they are from and were they are not from?
Doing so helps to weave a richly contextualized tapestry of territories and borders between
Indigenous peoples. Much of this tapestry’s context is informed by Indigenous people’s
orientations toward and relationships with outsiders. By understanding how Indigenous peoples
view their and others territoriality, one can better get a sense that, in the area that is now Calgary
and central-southern Alberta, there seems to be a clear consensus of where Métis are from, and
where they are not. Let’s start with Blackfoot expressions of their territory.
The Blackfoot Confederacy includes four peoples consisting of the Siksika, which
means Blackfoot, the Kainai, or the Blood Nation, Piikani, and the Amskapi Piikani. This
confederal political arrangement became one of the key nodes of Indigenous political, military
and economic power in what is currently western Canada and the United States. Historian Hugh
Dempsey (1995) argues that prior to the formation and installation of the North West Mounted
Police (NWMP) in and near Blackfoot territory, the Blackfoot were still largely able to chase out
those who entered their territory to engage in unwelcome behaviour. For example, in the 1870s,
during the height of the trade in alcohol and spirits in Blackfoot territory, Dempsey argues that
the Blackfoot were able to chase out whiskey traders (1995, 100). Whiskey traders are noted by
many elders of the Blackfoot Confederacy to have had a terrible impact on the health and

8

wellbeing of the nation’s people (Hildebrandt & First Rider & Carter, 1996). From an interIndigenous perspective, the Confederacy also did a lot of “chasing out” of members of a rival
political and military alliance that was referred to as the Nehiyaw Pwat, or in English, the Iron
Alliance. The Nehiyaw Pwat included Métis and Cree people along with the Assiniboine and
Saulteaux. Dempsey finds that “[e]ven during the whiskey days, the Blackfoot tribes had been
able to keep most of the unwelcome strangers out of their land. Cree and half-breed hunting
parties [the Nehiyaw Pwat] ventured in at their own risk” (Dempsey, 1995, p. 100).
In the fall of 1875, the encroachment on Blackfoot territory by non-Indigenous settlers
as well as Cree and Métis peoples was a major concern for all nations within the Confederacy.
The Métis, in particular, were reported to be a concern to the Blood Nation since they had
established permanent Métis settlements at Fort Macleod, Fort Calgary and Fort Walsh
(Dempsey, 1995, p. 100). To confront this, “[a]s was the custom when a problem arose that
needed to be considered by the three tribes, a general council was called. Held in the autumn of
1875,” and attended by a large cross-section of the Confederacy’s leadership, the council
produced a petition which stated:
That the Half-breeds and Cree Indians in large camps are
hunting buffalo, both summer and Winter, in the very centre of our lands.
That the land is pretty well taken up by white men now and no
Indian Commissioner has visited us.
That we pray for an Indian Commissioner to visit us at the Hand
Hills, Red Deer River, this year and let us know the time that he will visit
us, so that we could hold a Council with him, for putting a stop to the
invasion of our Country, till our Treaty be made with the Government.

9

That we are perfectly willing the Mounted Police and the
Missionarys [sic] should remain in the country, for we are much indebted
to them for important services. (HBC Archives Alexander Morris Fonds,
P5284.8; see also Dempsey 1995, p. 100-101).
Importantly, there are several drafts of this petition between the Blackfoot and the
Crown, with one version noting that this poor hunting behaviour on the part of the
Cree and Métis had been happening for four years.
This petition is a Blackfoot expression of their territory. It is a self-expression that
emerges from a political gathering of the Confederacy and is given weight by the governing
body under the authority of the people of that place. It is a statement of collective will to deal
with problematic and troublesome outsiders. The petition also indicates that only some outsiders
such as the NWMP are allowed access to the territory since they serve the Confederacy’s
interests. Stated differently, it is the Blackfoot’s pleasure that these outsiders remain in Blackfoot
territory. This helps illuminate a simple, but often overlooked point in inter-Indigenous politics:
one need not make generous invitations into one’s territory to everyone. Some will be welcome
for a period of time or for a particular purpose, while others will not be welcome. A permanent
Métis presence in Blackfoot territory does not make a Métis claim to the territory they inhabit
legitimate simply because of the permanence of their presence. The Blackfoot are asking the
Métis to conform themselves to the political authority of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Dempsey also records a protest among the Bloods and the other members of the
Confederacy about the hunting behaviour of Métis buffalo hunting brigades in Blackfoot
territory. The Métis were accused of killing buffalo and only harvesting the hides for robes while
leaving the carcasses to rot. This infuriated the Blackfoot, and Dempsey quotes a member of the

10

Fort Macleod community to have said “[t]he Indians look with no favorable eye on these Red
River half-breeds, . . . They say that their medicine is bad for the buffalo, and I think they are
pretty nearly right” (Dempsey, 1995, p. 102). In this moment, the Blackfoot resentment is not
only colouring the way settlers in Fort Macleod view the Metis, but in the process, the exact part
of the Métis Nation that is accused of the transgression is named. In addition, disrespecting the
herds is not just an affront to the people in and near the Bloods at Fort Macleod, it is really a
crime against all peoples, inside and outside the Confederacy, who rely on the herds for their
livelihood. If true, this disrespectful hunting behaviour helps explain why the Métis were not
welcome inside the territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
In addition to Blackfoot perspectives on others in their territory, the Blackfoot also
negotiated the borders of their territories through diplomacy. The act of peace making also
establishes the distinctions between where people are from and where they are not. For example,
there were a series of treaties and treaty breaches between the Cree and the Blackfoot
Confederacy from 1827-1828. The Confederacy had made peace with the Cree, only to see it fall
apart months later, which then required that a new peace be negotiated to take its place. The renegotiated peace in 1828 is reported to have lasted for five years in which “enemy tribes
deliberately [chose] not to hunt in areas occupied by their foes” (Dempsey, 2015, p. 21-22).
From an Indigenous political perspective, this peace was an agreement of respect for other
Indigenous peoples’ territories for the life of the treaty, meaning that the Blackfoot would not
venture out to hunt in Cree territory and that the Cree would not hunt in Blackfoot territory.
These peace treaties therefore give us a glimpse into what was and what was not delineated as
Blackfoot space. Indeed, the treaty suggests that there was a level of agreement about the
boundaries of these spaces.

11

The expressions of tension between the Blackfoot and the Nehiyaw Pwat was part of a
broader public discourse that took place before the large-scale settling of the west. During the
1885 North West Resistance, in which the Métis and Cree launched a military campaign against
Canada, much ink was spilled over whether or not the Blackfoot would join the Métis and Cree
cause. 6 The Fort Macleod Gazette published an opinion piece in 1885 calling for Canada to enlist
the Confederacy in its fight against the Métis and Cree in the north, because “[The Blackfoot
Confederacy] are the natural and bitter enemies of the Crees, and would hail with enthusiastic
joy the prospect of marching against their old enemies” (Dempsey, 1995, p. 178). The Calgary
Herald published a response challenging this call on the grounds that to do so would be as
immoral and un-Christian as pushing whiskey as a solution to troubles with Indigenous peoples.
This paper also covered tensions between the two nations on several other occasions, reporting
that Blackfoot Chief Crowfoot had offered the Crown support in the conflict if needed (Calgary
Herald April 16 1885, p. 2 column 2; see also April 30 1885, p. 1). 7
Interestingly, much of what was opined by the Fort Macleod Gazette was not wild
speculation. While the Métis and Cree attempted several times to forge an alliance with the
Confederacy during the conflict, all the attempts were unsuccessful. Crowfoot would not act
without the other nations in the Confederacy and was pushed into the Crown’s camp by the
Crees, who promised to wipe out Crowfoot and his people if he didn’t back the resistance. Red
Crow, chief of the Bloods, commented that he was more interested in joining the conflict on the
6

There is a great deal of history written about this Resistance, with some historians calling it a Rebellion. Please see
Stanley 1960; Friesen 1987; Reid 2008.
7
Dempsey also finds that while the Cree messengers seeking the support of Crowfoot were welcomed into the
camp, Crowfoot would not act without knowing the minds of the other nations in the Confederacy. While Dempsey
argues Crowfoot was tempted to join the resistance, several factors militated against a Blackfoot alliance. The other
members of the Confederacy were mostly opposed, and Crowfoot was deeply insulted when the Cree suggested that
if Crowfoot did not join them, after the war was won by the Métis and Cree, the victors would march on Blackfoot
territory and wipe out Crowfoot and his people. Shortly after this, Crowfoot announced in public that he would not
join the fight, and would support the Crown militarily if necessary (Dempsey, 1972, p. 171-189).

12

side of the Crown, and if the NWMP “would give the word they would be ready at any time to
fight the Crees” (Dempsey, 1995, p. 177). Bull Shield informed the government to “[g]ive us the
ammunition and grub and we’ll show you how soon we can set the Crees afoot and lick them”
(Dempsey, 1995, p. 178).
While all of these interactions paint a picture of Blackfoot expressions of their territory
and relationships with outsiders, a counter political entity to Blackfoot military, economic and
political power was also starting to emerge from this rich contextual inter-Indigenous tapestry. In
the 19th century, the Confederacy took part in the making of war, peace, and treaties of trade and
safe passage with other peoples on the plains. Much of that activity was with, or oriented to, the
Nehiyaw Pwat. Robert Innes (2013) describes the Nehiyaw Pwat as a political, social, military
and economic alliance among different Indigenous peoples that was woven together by kinship
ties. The Plains Cree, Métis, Assiniboine and Saulteaux peoples that made up this Confederacy
all had kinship links that pulled them together and forged responsibilities of mutual support.
These nations came together for shared self-defence, and to advance the goals of the alliance. As
we can see, these goals frequently brought them into conflict with the Blackfoot Confederacy. 8
Innes (2013) has studied the kinship ties that stretched across overlapping territory and
which gave rise to this alliance. Indeed, Innes points out that the alliance provided key strategic
benefits in a region with adversaries like the Confederacy and the Sioux. He argues that “[b]y the
early 1800s, Plains Cree and Assiniboine bands, augmented by a few Saulteaux and Métis bands,
had formed a formidable military alliance. Stonechild, McLeod, and Nestor have called this the
Iron Alliance. Their main enemies, according to Milloy, were the Gros Ventre, Blackfoot, Sioux,
and Mandan/Hidasta” (Innes, 2014, p. 60). Covering some of the key conflicts between the two
8

The Great Sioux Nation was another node in the fabric of northwest Indigenous political life, but they are beyond
the scope of this chapter.

13

spheres of political and military power, Innes argues that “Between 1810 and 1870, hostilities
between the Cree/Assiniboine/Saulteaux/Métis and the Blackfoot confederacy increased until the
defeat of the Iron Alliance [by the Blackfoot] in 1870” (Innes 2013, 61). This was by no means
the end of military hostilities, as we can see from the number of fights and petitions after 1870.
In this light, the hesitancy to rush into supporting the 1885 Resistance in the north and
the eventual promise to oppose it makes sense. The willingness of the Métis and the Cree to
come together to fight Canada in the north was likely helped by their longstanding kinship
alliances in the Nehiyaw Pwat. For the Blackfoot, these were the same political and military
adversaries they had been engaging for a long time in order to keep them from imposing
themselves on Blackfoot territory.
Another way we can understand territoriality is to look at how the Métis talk about the
boundaries of their own spaces. For example, in a letter that appeared in the Nor’Wester
newspaper, a prominent paper published in Red River, a well-respected member of the Métis
community by the name of George Flett discussed the potential of Red River people getting into
the gold mining business in the Rocky Mountains. In describing the best way for folks in Red
River to get to the mountains, he said “[t]he most direct route would be through the Blackfeet
country. Mr. James Sinclair crossed the Mountains twice by this route, and from parties who
accompanied him, I learn that the road is a good one. But the thought will suggest itself, - How
could we get through the Blackfeet? They are hostile and dangerous. My answer is, - If we do
not trouble the Indians, they will not trouble us. Our object should be to find the Indian camps on
our route, and once there we would be safe as within the walls of Fort Garry” (Nor’Wester 22
January 1862, p. 1 column 2).

14

There are several points we can pull out of this passage. By way of context, this was
published in a paper whose readership was mostly Métis people, and was a type of advertisement
that called people to take up this mining endeavour. In this light, Flett was aware that any Métis
people reading his letter would have the same question he was asking about getting to the Rocky
Mountains: what about the Blackfeet? Notice he doesn’t ask “what about the Assiniboine, or
what about the Crees?” He only addresses one other nation directly and sets out to assuage his
reader’s fears. What does he mean by saying first that the expedition should not trouble the
Indians, and then that Indian camps should be found, and once there he and others who
accompany him will be “as safe as within the walls of Fort Garry?” While it’s not totally clear,
there are at least two possible ways to understand Flett’s comments. First, he is not referring in
the second half of that sentence exclusively to Blackfoot camps. Earlier in the letter Flett says
“[t]hat we have every faculty for enabling us to make such a trip to advantage, is easily proved.
We are, many of us, well acquainted with the country – we can converse with the inhabitants the
Red Men, in their native tongue – we are familiar with Indian habits and traditions, - and we
would not, under the circumstances, be scared by even the dreaded Blackfeet. We can live
comfortably on such a journey where strangers would almost infallibly starve” (p. 1 column 1).
Flett was confident that they could spend time in camps with other members of the Nehiyaw
Pwat in which they would find friends, kin and safe haven. Second, the tenor of Flett’s words
may be an indication that if the Métis were clear that they would be moving through with no
intention to stay or hunt in Blackfoot territory that they would be welcome to camp alongside
Confederacy parties. Lastly, Flett was clearly communicating a sense of being from somewhere
else. He along with all the Métis people reading his letter were aware that they were not from
Blackfoot territory. They were from Red River and other parts of the northwest, and since

15

Blackfoot places are not Métis places Flett knew that he and his Métis readers needed to govern
themselves differently when moving through those spaces.
This is not to say there is no history of Métis people in Blackfoot territory. All one need
do is think of all the conflicts and fights noted above and it becomes clear that there is a long
history of Métis people being in Blackfoot territory. However, some historians have sought to
tell a different story of Métis presence in central and southern Alberta. Heather Devine has
argued that there are Métis families in Blackfoot territory and that “[t]he earliest Métis trading
families in central Alberta were descended from Northwest Company and Hudson’s Bay
Company engagés who married into Blackfoot communities and established the family ties
necessary to conduct business unmolested. Four families that fit this profile include the Birds, the
Munros, the Salois, and the Dumonts” (Devine, 2010, p. 29). For Devine, these four mixed
European and Blackfoot, or other Indigenous heritage families show a Métis presence in
Blackfoot territory.
She notes that James Bird was the son of an HBC Chief Factor and a Cree woman (who
Divine does not name). Bird lived his life in Blackfoot territory, “marrying a Peigan woman,
Sarah, in 1825.” Hugh Munro lived his life on the plains and Devine reports that he died on the
Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. Joseph Salois married a mixed-blood woman, Angelique
Lucier. The mother of famed buffalo hunter and 1885 Resistance military leader Gabriel
Dumont, was Josette Sarsi, or Sarcisse, from Tsuut’ina Nation (Devine, 2010, p. 29-30).
Devine’s work outlines some important points about both the definition and contours of
the Métis Nation, and the way that definition gets taken up in questions of territoriality. Devine
uses these examples of racial mixing to assert that “[f]rom this nucleus of individuals, all of
whom had established an early presence in Central Alberta by the 1820s, grew a loosely knit

16

community comprised of a minimum of fifty Métis families living in the general vicinity of
Central Alberta by the 1870s. As an old man, Jimmy Jock Bird used to boast of being the first
resident of Calgary, having occupied Old Bow Fort in the 1830s” (2010, p. 30). However, this is
an assertion that relies on uncompelling views of Métis politics and identity. Devine’s four
families appear to be more individual instances of mixed bloods spending their lives in Blackfoot
territory than families that are part of the politically self-aware Métis nation in Blackfoot
territory. More to the point, it isn’t clear whether or not these families would have been viewed
by themselves and others as Blackfoot or Tsuut’ina. 9 For example, what happens to the Dumonts
if we note that Gabriel Dumont was born in the Red River Settlement, the heart of the Métis
Nation rather than in a Blackfoot or Tsuut’ina community? What happens if we shift our gaze
away from the mixed-race heritage of these families and think about how they moved in,
between and through the political collectivities that make up the Indigenous world on the
northwest plains? Indigenous people from the 19th century through today have varied kinship ties
to other nations, including European nations. By focusing exclusively on mixed heritage in her
analysis, Devine paints a picture of mixed-race being everywhere. And she would be right about
that. Anyone could look anywhere and find mixed-race people. But did she find Métis political
collectivities? Her analysis cannot be used to make conclusions on this. A “loosely knit
community” might be a start, but it is not a place to finish. While there is no shortage of Métis
presence in Alberta, the question remains as to whether Blackfoot territory is also Métis
territory? We would argue that it is not and should not be conceived of in that fashion.
Other historians have also examined the development of permanent Métis spaces in
Blackfoot territory. As mentioned above, Dempsey points out that after the arrival of the NWMP
9

Devine’s own language here is interesting. Note that she describes these families as marrying into Blackfoot
communities. They are not marrying into Métis communities because the Métis are not from Blackfoot territory.

17

in Blackfoot territory “the Crees, Half-breeds, and white men were streaming into the country
unchecked. Some of the half-breeds . . . even established permanent settlements at Fort Macleod
and at the newly-built posts at Fort Calgary and Fort Walsh” (Dempsey, 1995, p. 100). While
Jimmy Jock Bird may have boasted about being the first resident of Calgary, settlers also boast
about those things all the time. Such boasting exposes an uncomfortable fact for the Métis: their
hunting activities and permanent settlements in southern Alberta have long been safeguarded by
the NWMP, the same coercive arm of the settler state that protected early settlers. The benefit
that the Métis gleaned from their relationship with the NWMP was best captured in
communication between the Blackfoot Confederacy and Col. Macleod of the NWMP. Dempsey
writes
Angry at the repeated invasions by their enemies [Crees and Métis,] and
the massive buffalo slaughter, a delegation of Blood and Blackfoot chiefs
when to see Colonel Macleod, who had been appointed the new
commissioner of the police. They told him that if his men were not in the
country, the Blackfoot would destroy the half-breed hunters (Dempsey,
1995, p. 102)
Macleod recorded in a letter that Red Crow of the Bloods along with other Blackfoot leaders
recognized that “now that we [the NWMP] have come into his country he finds that from all
sides his old enemies, who he dare not attack, are under our protection pressing upon him”
(Dempsey, 1995, p. 103, emphasis added). Indeed, the nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy
were well aware that in the late 1870s they had Cree and Métis hunting brigades hunting in their
territory from the Belly River all the way to the Bow River, or roughly between Lethbridge and
Calgary, and could not remove them as they once would have done.

18

You can find a Métis presence in Calgary without Jimmy Jock Bird or his boasting. But
the reason that the Métis are still there and were not chased out by the Confederacy is because an
armed force of settler police protected the intruders, and all involved parties knew it. The Métis
knew that without using settler police as a shield that they could not establish themselves in
space that was not theirs. Proximity to settler white power was used to advance Métis goals that
could not otherwise have been advanced. The proximity took several forms, the first being
geographical proximity to settler military power and the second being a conceptual one linked to
a proximity to whiteness. It is important to remember that some contemporary Métis people have
benefitted from the ability to keep outward manifestations of their Indigeneity secret. Certain
proximities to whiteness (not racially, but socially) mean that for some, the ability to disappear
due to shame was possible. 10 This, too, is a privilege. However, instead of exercising that
privilege as a weapon for one’s personal gain, we wonder if it is possible to use it to advocate for
shared Indigenous concerns? The next section will develop a framework that will help engage
this question. The northwest plains was not a place with border checkpoints staffed by
Indigenous border guards checking people’s passports. Rather, borderlands were fluid,
overlapping territories. Still, there was a clear sense of where a people were from as well as
where they were not from. There was a sense of what was needed when traveling away from
one’s territory into the territory of another or other Indigenous nations. Some people in the Métis
Nation had, and continue to have, kinship ties both through marriage and other forms with
people in the Blackfoot Confederacy. But those kinship ties do not allow Métis people to claim
Blackfoot space as Métis space any more than Blackfoot people with Métis kinship ties can

10

For an interesting examination on this topic as it pertains to Métis people please see Adams (1975) or Hartmut
Lutz (1991)

19

claim Red River as Blackfoot space. What we need in all of this is a thoughtful way of engaging
other peoples when we are away from our home territories.

IV How to Jig in Treaty #7 While Being a Good Guest
Both authors have been dancers, growing up at Métis dances or being performance jiggers.
Jigging is a dance done in many different Métis communities, and one can often tell where
someone is from by the way they jig. But getting together to dance is not exclusively about the
dance: jigging is wrapped up in and animated by a number of social activities that give form to
spaces that are Métis, and spaces that are not. So how might we jig in Treaty #7 territory? In the
previous section we examined the delineation of different Indigenous spaces by looking at the
politics, and battles between the Nehiyaw Pwat and Blackfoot Confederacy. This section takes a
different approach and engages cultural and gendered forms of understanding space. As such it
lays out the beginnings of a theory of living well in places that one is not from and is informed
by the growing scholarship concerned with wahkotowin. Kinship shapes Métis political and
social life, though kinship is much more than ancestral, blood ties. The very specific ways that
Metis social relationships are created, defined, and maintained inform the structures of
relationality for Métis movement and territory. These relationships are complex, strict, and
defined, which makes kinship not so much an anthropological or genealogical list of cousins, but
part of the body of the law and practice of wahkotowin. This law provides Métis people with
guidelines of how to behave when in relationship with family, extended family and non-family,
including how to be a good guest.

20

Brenda Macdougall’s definition of wahkotowin 11 notes the wide swath of relationships
that the law relates to:
As much as it is a worldview based on familial – especially inter-familial –
connectedness, wahkootowin also conveys an idea about the virtues that
an individual should personify as a family member. The values critical to
family relationships – such as reciprocity, mutual support, decency, and
order – in turn influenced the behaviours, actions, and decision-making
processes that shaped all a community’s economic and political
interactions. Wahkootowin contextualizes how relationships were
intended to work within Métis society by defining and classifying
relationships, prescribing patterns of behaviour between relatives and
non-relatives, and linking people and communities in a large, complex
web of relationships. Just as wahkootowin mediated interactions between
people, it also extended to the natural and spiritual worlds, regulating
relationships between humans and non-humans, the living and the dead,
and humans and the natural environment. (2010, p. 8)
One of the benefits of Macdougall’s discussion of wahkotowin is that it helps us understand the
Nehiyaw Pwat as a political framework. In this light, the aggressive relationship between the
Nehiyaw Pwat and the Blackfoot Confederacy stemmed from a shared understanding of
Blackfoot as non-relatives to Métis people. Indeed, in the Cree language, spoken by many Métis,
the Blackfoot are referred to as ayahcininiw, which in english means “strangers.” Blackfoot
territory is more aggressively defined as ayahciyinînâhk, which means enemy territory. In
11

wahkotowin can be spelled in a variety of ways. We have chosen a standardized spelling here, unless a source has
indicated otherwise.

21

Macdougall’s definition of wahkotowin, this complex web of relationships also governs the
patterns of behaviour we have with non-relatives (2010, p. 8). Wahkotowin does not position
relationality as universal and equal, which means that it does not propose that we are related to
everyone. For those who are not related to the Métis, there are expected behaviours through
wahkohtowin, as any kinship system has limits. Because the Blackfoot are not kin to Métis
people, the Nehiyaw Pwat has no territory in the land of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
As part of the Nehiyaw Pwat, the Métis had clear expectations of how to be in
relationship with others, but particularly, how to be a good guest. Macdougall captures this well
when she argues “[t]he Métis, like their Indian and fur trader relations, lived in a social world
based on reciprocal sharing, respectful behaviour between family members, and an
understanding of the differences between themselves and outsiders. The Métis were part of the
economic structure of the fur trade, facilitating its success by embodying the principles of family
loyalty, accountability, and responsibility” (2010, p. 44-45). Reciprocity, mutual support,
decency and order, or what Macdougall calls “values critical to family relationships,” influenced
“the behaviours, actions, and decision-making processes that shaped all a community’s economic
and political interactions” (2010, p. 8). In negotiating space, Métis people are guided by
boundaries based on this reciprocal sharing and understanding of outsiders.
The long-term presence of Métis in southern Alberta means that Métis people that have
lived here have had generations to become responsible guests. How do Métis people live as good
guests in the territory of our non-relatives? Though we may not be relatives to the Blackfoot, we
do have a relationship to them as our hosts and to this land where we live. Remember, we noted
above that the Blackfoot were calling on Cree and Métis people to affirm Blackfoot authority in

22

this land. Because that call has not changed with the passage of time, how do we as Métis people
now act in good relationship with the Blackfoot?
wahkotowin can inform an ethic of visiting on the land; being in relationship with the
land also guides other behaviours. As Jean Teillet argues, “constant visiting on the land
continually renews the relationship between the people and the land. It is a large vision and
mobility is the Métis way of renewing the relationship to their friends, family and land. In this
way, there is little distinction between terms such as residence, home and community; terms that
are heavy with meaning for outsiders” (Teillet, 2008, p. 39). This is a holistic and balanced
sensibility within wahkotowin. Maria Campbell takes this idea further and highlights various
reciprocal relationships within wahkotowin: “Human to human, human to plants, human to
animals, to the water and especially to the earth. And in turn all of creation had responsibilities
and reciprocal obligations to us” (Campbell, 2007, p. 5). There is a distinct reciprocity in the way
that Métis culture emerges directly from the land as the land is changed by Métis emergence:
“Métis society emerged and gained strength because of its connection to indigenous worldviews
that were predicated on the children’s ancestral connection to the lands of their female relations.
Over time, the region itself was transformed into a Métis homeland not only by virtue of the
children’s occupation of the territory, but also through the relationships with the Cree and Dene
women and fur trader men from whom they were descended” (Macdougall, 2011, p. 44).
wahkotowin structures the very creation of the Métis nation: it is kinship with other Indigenous
nations, their non-human relatives, and the land that forms the foundation of Métis culture.
Because reciprocal responsibilities to the land are the foundation of wahkotowin, Metis
political and economic decisions about the land, about hunting rights and pipelines must also
contend with how we recognize and engage the territory of other Indigenous peoples, even in the

23

areas where we are guests. As history shows, the Métis have not always lived up to their
obligations as good guests in this respect – recall from above the buffalo hunting brigades and
their wastefulness that disgusted the Blackfoot. How then do we do better? Christie Belcourt’s
work sees people needing the earth and the earth as needing people and gives us a framework of
care to help us understand how we can be a good guest on the land (Hogue, 2017): a recent art
piece by her is titled: “The Earth Is My Government” (Belcourt, 2018). We are directed by
wahkotowin to maintain an active relationship with the land, not in terms of stewardship but as
an enriching reciprocity.
The concept of enriching reciprocity is well articulated in the work and teachings of
Métis and other Indigenous women. This chapter opened with an examination of the Blackfoot
perspective on territoriality though a number of writers have rightly criticized this perspective as
hyper-masculinist. Jennifer Brown resists the “patrifocal” reading of Métis texts by looking at
the way mothers pull their children to them and view the familial tie as a core component of their
lives (2011). In this way, Métis women transmit Métis culture. Brown notes that it is largely
female-headed family units that begin to contribute to an emerging Métis sensibility as
Indigenous people (Brown, 2011, p. 42). Once we shake Métis history from its masculinist
moorings, we can more clearly see the way that kinship as, rooted in wahkotowin guides Métis
ideas about reciprocity. By focusing on women’s orientations and teachings on wahkotowin,
rather than on its connection to the great battles of the past, it becomes clear that the protocols
for visiting are a cornerstone of Métis culture and contribute to a more robust and hopeful set of
guidelines for being a good guest.
The centrality of maternal Métis culture sits firmly with elderly Métis women. It is
important that old women tell and retell stories, for doing so serves as a mechanism of sharing

24

information from one generation to the next as well as a means of explaining what behaviour is
and is not acceptable. For example, one story was told to remind everyone about the law against
incest and its consequences:
The old ladies used to tell those stories. They would be telling the kids the
stories, but everybody was sitting around because you are all in the same room.
My dad would be working at snowshoes with my uncles, too, if they were
there. They were hearing it over and over; by repetition, it was really engrained
in everybody’s head. It reminded us that those things were wrong. And
everybody was getting different things from different places. Like the story
tells you what a mother is supposed to do if this happens. She didn’t do
anything when she suspected him for the first time. She could have prevented
it. So the story tells you all of this, and when you hear it over and over again
you start to think about it (Anderson, 2011).
This quote captures that Métis women are instructors, carrying cultural values and educating
others about Métis values, storying and re-storying beyond leisure and into instruction. As well,
the stories told by elderly Métis women have a function of outreach beyond cultural transmission
and affirmation. Stories that educate about wahkotowin are told to children as the primary
audience and to the secondary audience of adults in the community who overhear these stories
throughout their lives. And importantly for our purposes in this chapter, stories are also intended
for an audience of non-relatives, those outsiders and visitors to the community: “If you were a
strange man coming to visit for the first time, the message was, ‘Watch it, young man. This old
lady has been around the block and knows what the laws are’” (Anderson, 2011). The telling of

25

these stories ensures that the boundaries of domestic life are strict and that listeners also
understand the basis of laws for political identity.
In addition to stories, reciprocity also extended to spaces within Métis communities. For
example, we see a gendered split in physical spaces that can inform our understanding of
respecting different realms: “women and men held different spaces. These environments were
respected to the extent that it was considered inappropriate to go into another group’s territory
because it could interfere with the authorities and powers within that group” (Anderson, 2011).
Held within this notion is not simply the way that spaces are gendered, but also how it is a
political act to maintain the borders within different realms. What seems to be happening here is
a commitment to non-interference in gendered boundaries, and this non-interference can be
extrapolated into a need to uphold political boundaries with other Indigenous groups, extending
from the way that balance and well-being are “contingent on respecting boundaries” (Anderson,
2011).
To recap, reciprocity with the land and the people living on it, and a commitment to
non-interference outside our spaces form essential components of building a reciprocally
grounded ethic of being a guest with and over the land. Being a good guest means not claiming
the spaces of others as one’s own, respecting the traditions and authority of those peoples in
whose territory you are in, and working to not undermine or attack the authority of other peoples.
It is important to note that these ethics require practice and negotiation. Guidelines around
gender are not oppressive binary gender roles, but instead create balance 12. Maria Campbell
states that it was “inappropriate to go into another group’s territory because it could interfere

12

Though this particular story may seem to reify cishet categories despite a discussion of balance, queer Cree
thinkers who consider kinship clearly outline this concept of care beyond these normative categories. See, for
example, Nixon (2017) or Wilson (2015).

26

with the authorities and powers within that group” (Anderson, 2011), with the phrase “another
group” here meaning men and women; there are echoes in the way that the Nehiyaw Pwat and
the Blackfoot Confederacy negotiated boundaries in southern Alberta by considering each
other’s power and authorities as animated by their territories.
Boundaries are both affirmed and negotiated when visiting happens, with men, women
and elders physically occupying different parts of the home. Anderson (2011) shared the
memories of one elder who remembered how different groups of people, guided by clear kinship
protocols, would use space in the home in different ways while visiting: how the use of outdoor
space expanded into a communal arbour for shared meals and socializing, elders in a tent,
women near the kitchen, men in her father’s log cabin in the bush. Men, in particular, respected
these protocols and did not come around the house. “As Maria remembered, ‘Those rules were
really strict. We never went in that shack of my dad’s. That was a men’s house. And the men
never came into the house for meal time if it was summer. If they were around the house, they
were on the side where the arbour was.’” (Anderson 2011 p. 102). Note that these gendered
spaces have strict (flexible if necessary) rules, but that visiting happens in a negotiated
communal space like the arbour. In places that are not our own territories, communal spaces like
the arbor exist as places of negotiation and visiting, and other spaces are more like the houses or
tents, with specific groups of people animating the spaces.
But what happens if these rules and boundaries are transgressed? It is important that an
ethic of reciprocal visiting also include an appreciation for the space and time needed for
negotiation, and the opportunity for correction. People make mistakes. Intentional or
unintentional, malicious or benign, political interactions across spaces are messy and full of
conflict and disagreement. An ethic of reciprocal visiting doesn’t mean we always get it right.

27

Instead, it commits us as a people from somewhere else to receive correction thoughtfully and to
re-commit ourselves to living well in places we are not from.
This become clearer if we think about what it is to be a child in the Métis nation. In
these gendered spaces, “children would move back and forth between the women and elders,
with the youngest typically staying close to the elders.” (Anderson, 2011, p. 102). Métis children
are parented by their community and visiting was and remains integral to instilling an ethic of
reciprocal visiting. Anderson argues “[g]rowing up in a small community where children were
welcomed into every home, we learned how to relate to one another. When invited to visit ‘for
tea,’ if we made a mistake, adults gently corrected our behaviour.” (Anderson, 2011, p. 113).
This quote illustrates a number of things: first, that visiting culture helps do the work of
maintaining the relationships that guide Métis culture, second, that boundaries of home are fluid
for children, and third, that correction is a feature of visiting. Being a good guest is often about
learning from the experience inherent in making mistakes, or getting it wrong, and demands we
be humble when receiving correction. For all of us who live outside our home territories, this is
an important reminder to listen and receive correction from our hosts. But the notion of an ethic
of reciprocal visiting need not be a solemn, burdensome act.
Visiting in Métis tradition is also an act of joy. Métis visiting has always been tied to
parties, balls, and an all-around good time. For a long time these principles were interpreted in
racist ways by settlers as laziness. One MLA in Saskatchewan complained that the Metis were
always having picnics: “They do little but spend their time having picnics and galloping their
horses around” (Anderson, 2011, p. 114). This outsiders’ perception of visiting as laziness rather
than as a kin-focused ethic ignores the way that being together on the land is a subtly political
act, affirming kinship relationships while sharing the workload needed for life on the plains. In

28

the 19th century, Bishop Taché commented that “the most striking fault of the Half-breeds
appears to me to be the ease with they resign themselves to the allurements of pleasure. Of lively
disposition, ardent and playful, gratification is a necessity to them, and if a source of pleasure
presents itself they sacrifice everything for its enjoyment” (as quoted in Ens, 1996, p. 46).
Perhaps most compellingly, Metis visiting culture provides a model for playfulness and
rowdiness as a basis for negotiating, transgressing, and maintaining boundaries. Visiting culture
doesn’t just revolve around shared work, but also games, gambling, dances and parties. Métis
dances have always been a feature of Métis culture, with hosts sometimes not realizing they were
hosting until guests showed up at their door (Anderson, 2011). What others incorrectly perceived
variously as the behaviour of common peasants or quaint lazy barbarians was in fact an
important activity of building, renewing relationships of space, and bonds with kin, non-kin, and
the land.
If we return to jigging as a Metis methodology, we might start to see how this ethic
comes together. Jigging requires your steps to be coordinated with the music played by the
fiddler. This note about a good jigger staying in time with the fiddle player helps us consider that
even this dance, one that is flashy with fancy steps, is governed by negotiation and coordination
between the jigger and the fiddler: “A good dancer is always ‘in time’ and ‘in sync’ with the
melody of the fiddler’s rendition of the “Red River Jig”; that is, when the fiddler begins the
second part of the tune, the dancer begins his or her varying steps. Ideally, the dancer is no
sooner or later than the exact moment that the fiddler begins the lower notes within this section”
(Quick, 2017, p. 49). For dancers who might encounter fiddlers with a different way of playing
this tune, the coordination must be assessed quickly. If we think about jigging in Blackfoot
territory, those Métis people moving through it must tune our ears to the twang of a different

29

fiddle. We are required to adjust how we jig, and the way we jig to these new tunes that are not
from our home territories. To not do so would be deeply insulting to our host “fiddlers”, and as
all jiggers know, fiddlers are boss. Jigging is a social dance but it’s more than that: it can inform
Métis people about how to listen; champion jigger Brent Potskin says, “Listening is your key to
dancing. You really have to listen, as soon as there is a change, you got to change” (2005).
Jigging shows us that correction does not simply refer to scolding children, but that in
this ethic of reciprocal visiting adults may also have missteps and need to find their footing. The
point of thinking about jigging in Blackfoot territory is that it encourages Métis people to engage
in ethics of relationality that are both informed by their own philosophical foundations and by
the traditions from the territory they are visiting.

V Towards an Ethic of Reciprocal Visiting, or, How Not to Be an Asshole Outside Your
Territory
As Simpson (2017) argues in As We Have Always Done, Indigenous people have a body of
theory, tradition and laws that are more than simply cultural practices. An ethic of reciprocal
visiting, seen through jigging or gendered spaces, is a theory of being in the world in relation to
others. This theory informs our behaviour when we are in the territory of other Indigenous
peoples. Metis traditions of visiting our kin and those who are not our kin can shape how we
move respectfully through territories of other peoples.
Being Métis in Calgary gives us lessons that may be helpful for other Indigenous
peoples navigating complex spaces: to be an Indigenous guest outside of your territory requires a
navigation of space and a commitment to understanding your own protocols of visiting as well as
the protocols of your host nations. Reciprocity undergirds it all. What are we doing to enable

30

Indigenous resurgence where we live? For Indigenous folks living outside of our territories, we
need to educate ourselves and listen closely to the music around us. What agreements existed to
enable our presence in these spaces? We move through the territories of our non-relatives and
need to be reciprocal: what can we do to be better guests? What is being asked of us?
As Indigenous people living outside of our territories, we have a responsibility to be
gracious guests and to affirm the needs of Indigenous peoples in the territories where we live. In
their investigations of Métis misrecognition in spaces where there is no Metis territory, Gaudry
and Laroux (2017) and Thistle (2016) note the way Métis claims to non-Métis territory are
actively harmful to the other Indigenous peoples fighting for their authority to be respected. For
Thistle, Métis territorial acknowledgements in Toronto harm Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and
Wendat territory claims in that area. And for Gaudry and Ledoux, the demands of fake Métis
organizations in the east 13 have undermined Mi’kmaq treaty rights in the Maritimes. This lateral
violence can occur when Metis guesting isn’t gracious and instead takes up space, visibly.
But doesn’t visiting also imply that you go home at some point? Much of the frustration
that the Blackfoot Confederacy had with the Nehiyaw Pwat was that they set up a permanent
presence in Blackfoot territory, and as noted above, used the NWMP, the coercive arm of the
settler state, to do so. If this ethic of reciprocal visiting is to be respectful and tuned to the
Blackfoot and the land, it requires the establishment of a new political relationship.
Relationships between the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Nehiyaw Pwat were fraught
with tension and filled with acrimony. But that doesn’t mean that needs to continue. What if we
opened up new dialogues as Métis people with the Blackfoot and other signatories to Treaty #7,

13

Gaudry and Leroux (2017) discuss the way some settler organizations make claims of being Metis through
genealogical revisionism: believing a distant ancestor to be Indigenous. This then gives rise to fake Métis
organizations, with no connection to living, or contemporary Indigenous peoples or communities.

31

and asked to build a new set of revisable treaties that would allow us to continue to visit in their
territory? Doing so would come with risks, because the Blackfoot and other Treaty #7 peoples
may say no. We would then have to confront that, and if we are living an ethic of reciprocal
visiting then we would need to leave or at least accept that we are bad visitors and unwanted
guests. But engaging these acts of respecting territory and authority allows for moments of
correction that should have happened a long time ago. When the Métis were forcibly moving into
Blackfoot territory, that was a moment for correction, humility and more thoughtfulness. The
Blackfoot asked us to respect their authority, and in response we were bad guests for
undermining Blackfoot authority as we poorly negotiated those boundaries and demarcated
spaces. A new political relationship informed by an ethic of reciprocal visiting can change those
relationships and ultimately build an inter-Indigenous politic that is rooted in support for your
hosts and the sounds of your host’s fiddle.

VI Conclusion
We have argued that a good way forward in inter-Indigenous relationships would be to root them
in a commitment to reciprocity with the land, the people living with it, respectful noninterference in spaces one is not from, and a commitment to listen to the tune of your host
fiddler. But that’s not where it ends. As we pointed out above, Indigenous people may be
tempted to use a settler logic that emphasizes long standing presence in a place supported by
settler military power to help absolve them of the need to act ethically in other people’s
territories. This needs to be resisted, and at the same time, those primarily settler logics also need
to be confronted by settlers. Settlers must confront their own daily practices that strip away
Blackfoot authority and the authority of the land in Treaty #7. The Métis ethic of reciprocal

32

visiting and all the complexities it entails might be a good starting point for both other
Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous peoples to think about how they live in the territories of
Indigenous peoples. It is an ethic that is rooted in theory and legal protocols and presents us with
a call to action.
In our introduction, we noted how territorial acknowledgements often misrepresent Métis
presence in Calgary; the complex diplomacies between Indigenous nations are silenced by
formulaic and inaccurate acknowledgments, which undermine the resurgence of Indigenous
protocols around visiting. We now return to the question: should Calgary be considered Métis
territory? Based on Métis relationships to land, no. So how then do we be Métis in Calgary? By
renewing cultural protocols and living an ethic of reciprocal visiting and listening to our hosts.
This may mean becoming absent from territorial acknowledgements in Calgary in order to make
space for our host nations. It may also involve actions that are not prescribed, but learned
through careful reflection: what are your obligations to your hosts, and what practical steps can
you take to uphold Indigenous resurgence in the spaces where you live and work?

Questions:
● Can an ethic of reciprocal visiting reshape inter-Indigenous relations in your
context? Why or why not?
● Though we have focused on what it means to be Indigenous in other Indigenous
peoples’ territory, these spaces are also shared with many non-Indigenous
people. What is required of non-Indigenous people to live well in Indigenous
peoples’ territories? What are some of your daily practices that strip away the
authority of the Indigenous peoples in the territory you live in?

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● Maybe you think the authors are wrong about Métis territory in Calgary.
Keeping in mind the structure of analysis in this chapter, what evidence would
you need to see to believe that Calgary is Métis territory?
● Métis kinship protocols can include and exclude. Develop a list of the way that
kinship is including and also excluding people in the chapter. Are there ways
that this is happening that the authors missed or underappreciated? Where else
do you see kinship being enacted?
● We start the chapter with a discussion of misplaced territorial
acknowledgements. What happens when we get these territorial
acknowledgements wrong? What harm can this cause?
● As Métis people, we don’t speak for Blackfoot in this chapter. Yet turning to our
hosts for their perspectives is necessary. How can Blackfoot ideas about visiting
and hosting teach us about being better guests?

Suggested Readings

Gaudry, A. (2017). Métis Are a People, Not a Historical Process.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/metis-are-a-people-not-a-historical-process/
Gaudry’s Canadian Encyclopedia article discusses Metis peoplehood in an accessible way.

Drops of Brandy, and Other Traditional Metis Tunes. 2002. Gabriel Dumont Institute.

34

This is a comprehensive collection of Metis fiddle music: a four CD set, with over 150 fiddle
tunes performed by 12 master Metis fiddlers (Gilbert Anderson, Trent Bruner, Richard Callihoo,
Henry Gardipy, Emile Lavallee, Albert 'Hap' Boyer, Garry Lapine, John Arcand, Mel Bedard,
Richard Lafferty, Homer Poitras and Ed Lafferty), paired with a book of sheet music,
biographies of fiddlers, and a discussion of the culture of Metis fiddling.

Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN)
The work done by NYSHN upholds kinship principles and protocols in a contemporary world,
educating Indigenous youth by other Indigenous youth. Their programming includes, for
example, full-spectrum Indigenous doula training that incorporates the balance of wahkotowin
rather than strict gender binaries.

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