BATTLEFORD - The Ridge in Battleford has been a place of history and tragedy over the last century and a half.
It’s the location of the former Government House, the former Battleford Industrial School and a nearby grave site for those who had attended the residential school.
Now, it promises to be a hub of activity in future years.
The Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nation recently purchased the property and buildings on The Ridge that had been owned by the Oblates, and now they are putting into motion a vision for the future -- one that respects and builds upon the past.
That future involves reconciliation and telling the story of their First Nation and of the history of The Ridge itself. The plans include potentially setting up a cultural centre and art gallery, as well as having the location be a hub for economic development activities including trades training as well as for COVID-19 wellness and recovery.
Implementing that vision in just a short period of time is MGBHLM Economic Development. It was created two years ago by the First Nation with Gloria Lee as the CEO and with Grant Beaudry initially brought in as the business development officer. Beaudry has since moved up to become the CEO.
It was MGBHLM Economic Development that learned that the Oblates were looking to sell their holdings at the Ridge.
At the time, there was interest expressed in The Ridge from several potential buyers, which much interest coming from First Nations.
The Oblates had been “dead set against selling the land to a First Nation,” said Beaudry. “Until he met me.”
The reason it took so long to sell, Odishaw explained, was because they recognized the Ridge was a special place — a place of history.
“This was the Capital of the Northwest Territories,” said Odishaw. “The spirit of this place was a special place.”
Beaudry said that when they heard the site was going to be up for sale, Chris Odishaw of Battleford Furniture introduced him to the resident Oblate, Fr. Maurice Schroeder.
After meeting with Fr. Schroeder, Beaudry was invited to meet the Bishop and Archbishop to discuss why he wanted to buy the land for his Nation.
Beaudry told them that he wanted to do was buy the land in the spirit of truth and reconciliation. He wanted to preserve the site. There would be an interpretative cultural centre, and perhaps an art gallery that could include the art of his father, the late Henry Beaudry.
The vision is for the place to ultimately be a place of healing, where First Nations and non-First Nations could come together.
“I would have this as a place of healing, a place of dialogue,” said Beaudry. “Not debate, dialogue. We can’t do (anything) about the past but we can come together and work together for the future to make sure this never happens again.”
The idea is for it to be where First Nations and non-First Nations and the Catholic and Anglican Churches could come together and “start a dialogue, a place of healing, not a debate.”
“I can’t go and say to a priest ‘you’ve done this to our people.’ That’s the past. We’re not responsible for what our ancestors did but what we are responsible for is what we do for the future.”
Former capital, former residential school
The Ridge had been the location of the Battleford Industrial School, an Indian residential school that operated at the site. Not far away is the Battleford Industrial School Cemetery which is the location of graves — mainly of children who attended the residential school.
Beaudry said that during his visit to The Ridge, he laid down tobacco and “it’s like I could hear little children … at that time I knew there was graves behind here, but in my mind I felt so sad and compassionate for them because these are 72 kids that never made it home to their parents. Imagine, you having their own child, sending them off to school and them never having it back home to you. So I wanted their story told.”
In his meeting with the bishop and archbishop, he also spoke about the Mosquito First Nation’s history.
They were a Nakota nation, who had come up from the United States after the Battle of Little Bighorn and had migrated into Canada, first to Cypress Hills and eventually located in northwest Saskatchewan in the Eagle Hills area. They were a signatory to both Treaty 4 and Treaty 6.
Their First Nation had been involved in the 1885 rebellion in the Battle of Cut Knife, as well as in the last mass hanging in Canadian history at Fort Battleford of eight Indigenous individuals.
“Two of those were from our First Nation, and they were asked at the gallows if they wanted to speak; they chose to sing the victory song instead of speaking,” Beaudry said.
Beaudry said they wanted to capture all of that history in the cultural centre. In the end, the Oblates made the deal to sell the property, and it was sold to MGBHLM in July 2020.
To get the cultural centre and art gallery off the ground, MGBHLM are applying for a grant so they can develop conceptual drawings on site drawings for where to put roads, where they would get the infrastructure for water and how much it would all cost. They are also reaching out to elders and knowledge keepers to learn what they want to see at the Ridge site.
“It’s our sense of giving back to our Nation,” said Beaudry.
The cultural centre vision is to hire and start an interpretive guides program, and gather all the artifacts and develop it into a curriculum. They also want to put a visitor information office on site and develop tours for visitors to the Ridge.
“The Battlefords are rich in history, and for me, nobody really does an all-encompassing or both sides of their stories,” Beaudry said. “We just want to tell our story from our perspective as a Nakota Nation.”
A cultural experience
One of those on the MGBHLM Economic Development board is Odishaw. He sees the potential for the site at The Ridge to provide an experience to visitors similar to what is seen in Hawaii with the Polynesian Cultural Centre.
“You can experience a luau and the dance and the flame throwing,” said Odishaw. “You can spend a day there, you come out of there feeling like you’re a Hawaiian. You have an understanding of it, and for the kids it’s wonderful … so why not here at The Ridge have this cultural experience?”
Odishaw said they want people to come to The Ridge “and experience a pow wow. We want to experience a sweat. We want to experience the art. We want to experience the story of the residential schools and the treaties and the last mass hanging. And not just because it’s bad. It’s good — it was the ‘last’ mass hanging,” Odishaw emphasized, noting it hasn’t happened since then.
“So we want to celebrate the changes and how we’ve gotten to this time and place.”
The intention was for Mosquito to “take our story and we’re going to share it with the world, and we’re going to build that experience.”
Tourism is not the only vision for The Ridge. In economic development, MGBHLM First Nation has seven companies, and the vision includes having The Ridge be a hub of various economic, training and wellness-focused activities.
One of those ventures now set up at The Ridge is a training centre, to train potential workers for the trades.
“There was an industrial school here,” Beaudry points out. This was an opportunity to “turn that into a positive and do that capacity building, and partnering with Saskatchewan Indian and Student Technology and delivering programs here at the site, and do that capacity building for our people.”
The idea is to prepare those participants for the next step, which is employment.
“They would be contributing to our own society. We need addictions workers, we need carpenters, we need electricians, we need plumbers, we need all the trades in our nation but also the professional careers, the professional development in our nation.”
Also being set up on The Ridge is The Ridge Wellness Centre, a place where people could come to self-isolate from COVID-19. That was set up through funds from Indigenous Services Canada and Health Canada.
Beaudry said that in October, Phase One of the wellness centre will be complete. Once it is up and running it will have 24 rooms.
MGBHLM also has a partnership with Corrections Canada, where they plan to build ready-to-move homes on site. That partnership was kicked off with a grand opening in Battleford in September.
In just two years MGBHLM Economic Development has grown to 77 employees, 65 of them from Mosquito First Nation.
There are other proposals in the works, and Beaudry said they plan to continue to work with the Town of Battleford, the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce and other First Nations to work to build the future at The Ridge.
“The future’s bright here,” said Beaudry. “It’s my honour to be CEO here —- there’s a sense that the Spirit is leading us here.”
