How Alberta is facilitating the repatriation of Indigenous artifacts

In the late 1980s, Lewis Cardinal was among six Indigenous men who ran 4,400 kilometres from Edmonton to New York City in the wintertime to retrieve Cree Chief Big Bear's grizzly paw sacred bundle.

To this day, it's housed in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. But the elders' teachings offered during that seven-month quest live on.

"What they told us is that this run is not about returning the bundle, but it's about sending a message to all these young Indigenous people … to return back," Cardinal, an educator and storyteller from Sucker Creek First Nation, located in northern Alberta, said in a recent interview.

"It's time to return back to the ceremonies in order to help them heal."

On Saturday, as celebrations across Canada honour National Indigenous Peoples Day, calls to return sacred artifacts scattered around the globe are being renewed.

A letter-writing campaign, launched by the Alberta Museums Association, urges the federal government to show leadership regarding the soon-to-be auctioned off collection of the bankrupt Hudson's Bay Company.

A spokesperson for the Department of Canadian Heritage said it is actively monitoring HBC's upcoming auction, mindful that some items "may be of great significance to Indigenous Peoples."

The federal government has no overarching legal framework to guide the complex process of repatriation, but Alberta stands out as an example

"Alberta is actually the only jurisdiction in Canada that has enacted legislation about repatriation of sacred and ceremonial artifacts," said Jack Ives, a retired University of Alberta anthropology professor. He helped craft the First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Act, which passed in 2000.

Ives said a careful, deliberate pathway is needed to ensure the right groups are consulted and items end up where they're supposed to. In a black market, he added, they could be worth millions.

Since the legislation passed, more than  2,000 sacred objects have been repatriated to First Nations from government collections at the Royal Alberta and Glenbow museums, in consultation with communities.

Museum culture has shifted, too, with an emphasis on amplifying diverse, authentic voices, cultivating understanding and building community, said Meaghan Patterson, executive director of the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM).

"Sometimes they're identifying objects, they're telling stories, and then they're deciding what they'd like to have returned to the community," Patterson said.

A case in point is the Manitou Stone — or Manitou Asinîy, as it's known in Cree. The 145-kilogram meteorite was repatriated from a college in Coburg, Ont., east of Toronto, in 1972 after 160 years.

Once housed in the RAM's geological section, the Manitou Asinîy now has its own protected space, mimicking its original earthly home that overlooked the Iron River near Hardisty, Alta., about 175 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

The scent of sage and sweetgrass also lingers in the space from cleansing and ceremony.

But Cardinal, of Sucker Creek First Nation, says true progress won't come until repatriation is addressed on sovereign footing between Canada and First Nations.

He said the shift also requires a fundamental change in language.

"Rematriation is the most appropriate term that we have now," said Cardinal.

Repatriation focuses on returning objects to their place of origin. But rematriation goes deeper, seeking to also restore matrilineal perspectives.

"Rematriation is going back to that sense of balance and rhythm because that's what Mother Earth teaches us," he said.