Photo by Jennifer Malloy
A light breeze ripples across the South Saskatchewan River as my three-year-old son dips his paddle into the water. With the wind at our backs, the kayak glides forward effortlessly, allowing me to lean back and let the sun play across my face. The river winds sinuously through the valley, and as our boat meanders toward Wanuskewin Heritage Park, I reflect on the traditional and historic waterway beneath me.
Our journey to this sacred Indigenous site follows the Northern Plains Nations who came before…
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
A light breeze ripples across the South Saskatchewan River as my three-year-old son dips his paddle into the water. With the wind at our backs, the kayak glides forward effortlessly, allowing me to lean back and let the sun play across my face. The river winds sinuously through the valley, and as our boat meanders toward Wanuskewin Heritage Park, I reflect on the traditional and historic waterway beneath me.
Our journey to this sacred Indigenous site follows the Northern Plains Nations who came before me: Nations who gathered here to hunt, to live, to thrive. This is a place where bison—once wiped out in the 19th century in the wake of colonization—have recently returned. And with them, a sense of hope has returned, too.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
It was a similar hope that inspired Candice Evans-Waite, a former nurse and our guide for the day, to found The Local Adventure Company. The Indigenous, female-led tour company offers a variety of water and land-based tours in the “Paris of the Prairies,” a dream that became a reality for the Métis entrepreneur after a year’s-long battle with cancer, carrying the hope that, one day, she too would return to the land.
“It was when I got better, not if,” Evans-Waite reflects as she sets her kayak down next to the river, the same shoreline she used to gaze at from her hospital window during her recovery from a stem cell transplant.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
My son and I have the honour of joining her inaugural kayak tour from downtown Saskatoon to Wanuskewin, a significant Indigenous heritage site and home to an archaeological dig.
Artefacts dating back thousands of years continue to be found here, including four rare buffalo ribstones, ancient stone petroglyphs etched with designs closely linked to the bison and the hunt, as well as the tools used to shape them. This discovery by Dr Ernie Walker, Chief Archaeologist and Wanuskewin co-founder, is a powerful reminder of a time before colonization and the history of this meeting place, when the land was guided by its original stewards and alive with culture and tradition.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
As we continue our journey, I feel the pulse of that tradition in the squish of sand between my toes when we pause to stretch on the beach, and in the way the water taps against the kayak like a heartbeat from the past. Being on the water with Evans-Waite provides a lens to the land that I may not have noticed otherwise. She brims with strength as her kayak slices down the river, leading us forward. Her resilience is reflected in her deep knowledge of the river and her intimate connection to nature.
And just like Evans-Waite, the waterway thrums with life, surging forward. Through her guidance, I take in the gentle ripple of leaping fish, the sweep of herons overhead, the swish of grass in the wind. Holding my son close, away from modern distractions, we lean into nature, feeling the slip of water through our fingers and the tickle of the breeze.
After two hours of paddling, a journey that even a kayaking beginner could enjoy, our fleet of four boats pulls into Wanuskewin. As we step onto the land, the past begins to whisper in my ear. It’s a whisper that becomes a song, and our steps become a dance as we begin our journey to the centre of this gathering place in the Opimahaw Valley (meaning Man Who Floats in Cree). There’s an energy in the land that surrounds the water here that I haven’t felt replicated anywhere else I’ve been. It draws me in quietly, like the ripple of a hidden spring, a reminder of the peaceful power this river valley holds.
It’s a feeling that was nearly lost when the buffalo disappeared from the area 150 years ago, after more than 6,000 years of sustainable hunting. A history still marked by the nearby buffalo jump. In 2019, six buffalo were reintroduced to the park, a number that has since grown to 55. Without the return of the buffalo, the ribstones would never have been uncovered thanks to the natural behaviour of the creatures who engaged in “wallowing” (rolling in grass, creating dust pits), which disturbed the land enough that the sacred artefacts were eventually revealed.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
“Bison played a very important role in the culture, the belief system of our people,” says Leroy Littlebear, a Kanai Elder speaking from a screen above me as I explore the detailed and intricate museum displays of Wanuskewin. “Songs, ceremony and stories all revolved around the buffalo.”
He reflects on what happens to a culture when you remove its keystone. Like the buffalo, it vanishes. The tangible connection to tradition is lost.
“It was like one of our relatives coming home,” reveals Littlebear, referencing the return of the buffalo to Wanuskewin. And just as the buffalo’s return restores connection to the past, efforts on the river today help create connection for the future.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
It’s that belief that led Evans-Waite to establish a Community Give Back Program where The Local Tour Co. partners with local non-profit organizations to ensure that even those who do not have the means to paddle can have the opportunity to do so. With each $20 donation, you give a child or youth in need or in care the chance to enjoy a two-hour kayak lesson.
At Wanuskewin, it becomes clear just how central children and youth are to the future of the culture and traditions of the Nations. When we arrive at the visitor’s centre, the St. Francis Dance Troupe takes the stage to perform traditional powwow-style dances for an audience of schoolchildren. Even my son’s usual bursts of frenetic energy are no match for the performance; he sits calm and still, captivated by the feathered headdresses and the ripple of rainbow ribbons that adorn the dancers. The Crow Hop is first performed to honour the crow during its mating season, then three young dancers join together in an intertribal dance, moving clockwise to pay tribute to the sun.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
These performances are at the heart of what has brought this sacred space back to life as a modern-day gathering place. Just as it once belonged to no single Nation, today it welcomes everyone. Here, non-Indigenous youth can learn about Indigenous culture, while Indigenous youth connect with their history through the wisdom of their elders.
“It’s an example of how Wanuskewin is a beacon of hope,” says Andrew MacDonald, co-executive director. “This is a place of peace, a place of gathering, a place of cooperation. It’s the beauty and essence of the Northern Plains culture.”
I watch my son dart in and out of a teepee—one of the many displays of Indigenous culture—his playful nature enthralled by the conical tent that has deep cultural significance. Perhaps too young to understand the implications of this space but still connecting to the tradition in a way that I never got to experience growing up.
Photo by Jennifer Malloy
The welcoming environment, strengthened by community involvement and guided by elders, remains at the heart of all that happens at Wanuskewin. “It’s walking two worlds, two eye-seeing,” says Naomi Carriere, an Ojibway and Cree research and development specialist, describing the guiding principle of looking with one eye to Indigenous ways of knowing, and with the other to Western knowledge. It’s indicative of the reconciliation movement, the hope that the land and the differing perspectives of the people who live here can co-exist and learn from the other. “It’s always been that way here,” says Carriere. “There’s a feeling of responsibility as people who occupy space here.”
It’s that same responsibility I carry with me as I leave: an obligation not only to acknowledge and reflect on the past, but to help shape the future. My hope is that one day, my son will dip his paddle into this river without me. And when he does, I hope he feels not just the pull of the current, but the pull of the past guiding him forward.
READ MORE: Adventure, Indigenous, Paddling
Jennifer is a Calgary, Alberta-based writer with a love for travel and the outdoors. She is hoping to pass this love of exploration to her son and encourage other parents to do the same.
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