Amy Peters (left), Faika Satterthwaite (centre) and Anita Crowshoe are three of about 30 participants in the Walk for Common Ground. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

walking together

Walk for Common Ground urges Albertans to honour treaty responsibilities

Jun 8, 2019 | 2:36 PM

A committed group of around 30 people made it to Red Deer Friday, marking the halfway point of a walk from Edmonton to Calgary which urges Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons alike to find what brings us together.

The Walk for Common Ground began at the Union of Healthcare Professionals (HSAA) convention on May 31, and will wrap up June 14.

Over the course of the walk, participants are stopping in at churches, colleges and local union halls to engage folks in education and reflection on the meaning of treaties signed in the 1870s.

Faika Satterthwaite, HSAA Calgary board member, says the walk is an initiative of the union’s social justice committee.

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“Indigenous people have struggled for centuries with the rights laid out by the treaties, rights for living and relationships, and we felt very strongly about making this a known fact as opposed to being ignored and unspoken,” she told rdnewsNOW Friday evening at St. Leonard’s Anglican Church.

“We need to honour the treaties as they were shaken on back in 1876 and 1877. They have welcomed us settlers into their land in hopes to be strong together in peace, so we want to start working towards that. We hope we can be the ignitors of better understanding and better treatment than how they’re treated right now.”

On the racism and discrimination towards Indigenous people that persists, Satterthwaite believes some people don’t care because they’ve never experienced it.

“When people look at me, I’m one of the white family, but when I arrived here in Canada as a settler, I would start speaking and they’d catch on to my accent and ask my name. They’d say I have an accent, and I’d say I was born and raised in Turkey and that I came here for post-secondary education. Racism was thrown at me,” she recalls of her early years here during the 1970s.

“I took that extremely personally at the time. I didn’t think people would hate me, but they gave themselves no opportunity to get to know me, to understand, have a conversation, or hear my stories.”

Walkers warmed up after a cold and wet trip from Lacombe to Red Deer on Friday, June 7. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

Anita Crowshoe, a member of the Piikani Nation (Treaty 7) near Lethbridge, describes the state of things as two rivers crossing, whereas they must run parallel.

“The real message behind this walk is that if we’re thinking from our generation to seven generations ahead, we want to be thinking in a way that affords them the life we benefitted from,” she says, pointing out the promise of the treaty which states its provisions will last, “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows.”

“When we look at Indigenous-Settler allies, we’re all treaty people. Being treaty people means we’re going to walk together and we’re going to figure this out. We have to.”

Crowshoe adds the anger of some on each side, “is noticeable to the point where if we feed it, we’re not going to be able to look at solutions.”

Some of those solutions are staring us right in the face, according to Amy Peters, a representative on the walk for Mennonite Church Canada.

“Education – the fact that schools on reserves are receiving a whole lot less money than other schools are, and the same with medical care; Indigenous people have to fight a lot more for medical care compared to the rest of us,” she says.

Peters, who is in her 30s, remembers there was little to no curriculum that revolved around treaties when she was younger.

“In part, the statement ‘We are all treaty people’ is about education and realizing that these treaties that were signed in the past were signed on my behalf. It is my responsibility just as much as anyone else’s to ensure that they are upheld,” she says.

“We signed these treaties, both sides did, and while you can make lots of critiques about them, what it comes down to is that we are willing to live together, so how are he we going to do that today?”

Not lost on the walkers, who marched 24 kilometres on Friday to reach Red Deer from Lacombe, is that they did so in snow and rain.

“There was a little bit of chaos and some strategizing, but I do think there is a piece of it that says this is important enough that we were going to keep going, no matter what the weather is.”

The Walk for Common Ground follows the Pilgrimage for Indigenous Rights from Kitchener to Ottawa which took place in 2017.

For more information, including where the group will be next and how you can support the walk, visit www.TreatyTalk.com/commongroundwalk.