Reinterment of remains will have to wait

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The planned re-interment of 14 sets of human remains did not take place Nov. 6 near Rocky Mountain House as planned, as a result of objections raised at the last minute by some Metis in the area. They have said consultation was inadequate, but one of the objectors said the methods of reburial and commemoration bothered them as well.

Thirteen of the skeletons were identified as Metis, and one as a Scottish trader. For years they have been stored at the University of Alberta. Since Nov. 6, they have become the responsibility of Parks Canada and are being held at a facility in Calgary.

Dr. Nancy Lovell, chair of the department of anthropology, explained how the consultation that led up to Nov. 6 was conducted.

Last spring, she said, the university contacted everybody it could think of who could conceivably have an interest in having the remains reburied.

On March 11, representatives from the university, along with people from the Metis Nation of Alberta and Parks Canada, held a public meeting to discuss reburial of skeletal remains exhumed in 1970 and held since then at the university, and reburial of artifacts dug up later and in the possession of Parks Canada. Lovell said the meeting was advertised in Rocky Mountain House.

After that, the university wrote and phoned other "potentially interested" Aboriginal groups: "the Sunchild First Nation; O'Chiese band; Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations; Treaty 7 Tribal Council; and Yellowhead Tribal Council," she stated.

Lovell said she personally was unable to attend the next scheduled meeting in Rocky Mountain House between Parks Canada, the university and the Metis local, but she said that was when responsibilities for the ceremony and feast were determined.

"Responsibility for the ceremony and feast rested with the Metis local in Rocky," she said.

The university's responsibility was for the treatment and transport of the remains, according to Lovell.

"The U of A built coffins; the skeletons and their associated grave goods were wrapped in blankets and placed in the coffins; and we had a blessing ceremony before the coffins were closed led by a Metis Elder and Father Jim from Sacred Heart Church [Edmonton]," said Lovell. "Representatives of the U of A then transported the coffins to the Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site by truck."

By the time some guests arrived on the scene, a three-and-one-half drive from the university, word had already come down from the chief executive officer of Parks Canada in Ottawa, Alan Latourelle, that the reinterment would not take place that day. The reasons given were that some people had raised objections and their remarks had been published in several Alberta papers.

Bill Fisher, the field unit superintendent for Banff National Park and one of the Parks staff in attendance, was the one to deliver the news. He himself became aware of the postponement while travelling to Rocky Mountain House a couple of hours in advance.

"We had been informed that some groups may not have felt that they had been fully consulted on the arrangements for the reburial," Fisher told Windpeaker Nov. 21, "and for that reason we asked for a postponement of the ceremony to ensure that those parties felt that their concerns had been considered."

Fisher said "one of them was a past president of the Metis association.

Others Windspeaker spoke to indicated the postponement was largely attributable to Eric Nystrom. "That was one of the individuals, yes," said Fisher. Nystrom is a past president of Metis local 845, which is the local in the Rocky Mountain House area.

Asked what kind of consultation the Metis wanted but did not feel they had got, Fisher said, "I don't know that for sure. We had just received some phone calls that these people, that they hadn't been properly consulted, and so we need to get back in touch with them to find out exactly what their concerns are. . . . . They felt it should be a more high-profile ceremony and other sort of ctivities associated with the ceremony, and we want to get a good sense of why that has to happen in order for this to go forward."

Fisher said his knowledge of the objections comes from media reports and phone calls and that he had yet to meet with the objectors "face-to-face." He added that the concerns were only expressed in the couple of days prior to the planned ceremony. He also said that although he is the Parks official responsible for the area, other Parks staff were "dealing with the more detailed day-to-day operations of getting ready for [the ceremony]."

Fisher said the human remains were discovered when excavation was being done for a gas plant. A second construction project, for a pipeline, took place nearby later which caused an archeological excavation to be done.

"Some additional remains were moved from that site to another site in Rocky Mountain House National historic site, and there were also some beads and trinkets and other sacred objects that were removed at that time and they were in Parks Canada's collection."

He said the planned ceremony would have involved returning all these grave goods to the ground.

The reinterment will take place on federal Crown land, according to Fisher. When the skeletons were found, the land was privately owned, but Parks Canada purchased it "to commemorate the national historic site there."

Fisher said "the wishes of the local Metis association were to have a very quiet, low-key ceremony and the graves would not be marked. That was another difference between what the local Metis wanted and what some of the other people were wishing for."

Tom Werner, the current Metis local 845 president, said initially he "wanted it to go ahead." But he said after talking to Nystrom he understood the objections.

"Like they know those people were disturbed . . . they dug them up in the first place and now just to have them sitting in the museum and all of a sudden to just throw them back into the ground with no concern, eh"

Werner said he personally spoke to the leaders from Sunchild and O'Chiese bands "and both Sunchild and O'Chiese didn't want anything to do with it because of their beliefs and plus there wasn't any First Nations people there."

Werner added his own concern is that the people had been buried with travelling bags.

"If they were buried with travelling bags that means they believed the way First Nation people believe . . . that one woman had a bunch of jewellery with her, buried with her." Werner said if she believed the way Indians believed, "why was that jewellery put there with her? Because First Nations people don't do that. Anything shiny, they don't bury it with people. So I wanted that stuff taken and put somewhere else."

But, Werner said, "Parks Canada said they made a big sacrifice in putting that stuff back, they weren't going to change their mind . . . ." By sacrifice, Werner took that to mean that the goods were "worth quite a bit of money."

He said that Elders on the reserve told him that the reason "that woman got dug up again" was probably because "that stuff was holding her here on Earth and maybe that's why things happened they way they did. They want that stuff gotten rid of."

Werner had ambiguous feelings about the postponement. He said when he heard the ceremony was postponed, "inside I was kind of glad about it." He also said that because so much time had elapsed in conducting the reburial, initially when he heard it would finally happen, "I thought OK, this is going to be a weight off my shoulders. I don't agree with what they're doing, the way they're doing it, but at least these people are going to be put to rest."

Werner added that now the reinterment would likely take place in the spring and it was likely there would be a new Metis local president with different concerns from his own.