Historically, the Banff-Bow Valley has been a place of importance for numerous Indigenous communities. Most significantly, the Nakoda peoples have made a home in the mountains and surrounding areas for centuries and have reserve lands there today. The Valley has provided a way of life for Nakoda communities for several hundreds of years, supplying sources of food and medicine as well as fostering spiritual and cultural opportunities.
The Nakoda peoples were once members of the Sioux Nation and Assiniboine groups, then split and moved west, breaking into 3 bands (Chiniki, Jacob, Bearspaw) and occupying the Banff-Bow Valley.
As Europeans arrived with the fur trade, rivalries emerged between local Indigenous groups over control of the fur markets. Then, as european-canadians supposedly tried to help the Indigenous communities through “civilizing” attempts, they instead simply asserted their own ethnocentric, colonial values upon Indigenous bodies and lives which created lasting destructive consequences. In the 1870s, missions designed to improve the lives of Indigenous communities applied assimilation techniques as they built settlements and churches in the Banff-Bow Valley. Missionaries moderated between governments and Indigenous peoples, leading to the Treaty 7 agreement, which posed a great deal of confusion for Indigenous peoples due to language barriers and cultural misalignments between the European-Canadian government and Banff’s Indigenous communities.
Following Treaty 7, the reserve system was implemented, along with forced schooling for Indigenous children, and inadequate food rations. Hunting, fishing, and gathering were gradually made impossible in the process of eradicating Indigenous ways of life.
In spite of the damaging consequences of colonialism in the Banff-Bow Valley, the Nakoda began to reassert their presence in the valley thru involvement in local tourism economies and Banff Indian Days sporting festivals in the 20th century.
Mason, C. W. (2014). Spirits of the Rockies: Reasserting an Indigenous Presence in Banff National Park. University of Toronto Press.
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