Question Period Note: Transfer of Bison Skull from Banff National Park to Siksika First Nation

Transfer of Bison Skull from Banff National Park to Siksika First Nation

• Parks Canada is committed to managing national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas in a way that recognizes and honours the histories and cultures of Indigenous peoples, and the special relationships that they have with traditional lands and waters.
• Banff National Park lies within the traditional territories of the Treaty 6, Treaty 7, and Treaty 8 First Nations and Métis National homeland. In the spirit of reconciliation and renewed relationships with Indigenous peoples, Parks Canada works with all of these Nations.
• In recognition of the spiritual, cultural and historical significance of the bison to the Siksika First Nation and their assertion of Banff National Park as part of their traditional territory, Parks Canada provided a bison skull to the Siksika at their request. Parks Canada also provided a bison skull to the Stoney Nakoda Nation in 2011 on a similar basis.
• It has been Parks Canada’s practice to provide natural items of cultural importance to Indigenous nations who assert traditional territory in Banff, for ceremonial and educational purposes, when they are requested and if the items are available.
Stoney Nakoda concerns about Transfer of Skull
• Parks Canada aims to refine protocols for the care, management and repatriation of cultural items from Banff National Park in collaboration with all interested Indigenous groups.

• Both the Siksika and Stoney claim Banff as traditional territory.

• In 2003, the Stoney Nakoda filed a Statement of Claim (amended in 2004), seeking Aboriginal rights and title, and Treaty Rights to lands and resources in the lower SE portion of British Columbia, all Treaty 7 lands in Alberta, and the SW portion of Saskatchewan. The Stoney assert they were misled about the “spirit and intent of the treaty-making process”. This litigation is still active.

• On November 16, 2019, the Siksika held a ceremony on their reserve to ‘welcome’ a 2,400 year-old bison skull from Banff National Park to the reserve. The skull was provided to the nation by Parks Canada upon their request.

• The Stoney Nakoda First Nations informed Parks Canada that providing the skull to anyone other than the Stoney Nakoda fails to acknowledge their 2003 Land and Title Claim. They have expressed concerns to both the Park Superintendent and Parks Canada’s President and CEO.

• It has been Parks Canada’s longstanding practice to provide natural items of cultural importance to Indigenous nations who assert traditional territory in Banff, for ceremonial and educational purposes, when they are requested and if the items are available. Such requests are responded to in the order that they are received.

• This is the first request of this type that has been fulfilled by Parks Canada in Banff since June 11, 2011, when a bison skull was provided to the Stoney Nakoda Nation for ceremony and relocation to the Morley Reserve.

Question Period notes as provided by the Department to the Minister’s Office