Niitsitapi' Ways of Knowing: A Path to Healing

Abstract

Lethbridge, Alberta, is on the ancestral lands of the Blackfoot people located adjacent to the Kainai and Piikani reservations. Although Lethbridge citizens witness a flourishing revival of Blackfoot culture after a genocide, there is evidence of severe intergenerational trauma among the Indigenous people. Many Blackfoot people attended St. Mary’s Residential School in Cardston, Alberta, until it was closed in 1984. As a result, they were subject to neglect, malnourishment, illness, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse and continue to live with the psychological effects of their trauma. There is a high rate of Indigenous individuals experiencing homelessness and substance misuse in Lethbridge. The continuous removal of Indigenous children through the foster care system and separation from their community contributes to the ongoing cycle of intergenerational trauma. In Lethbridge, Indigenous leaders are taking the health of their nation’s vulnerable population into their own hands, creating programs centred around Indigenous ways of knowing, in hopes of reconnecting lost spirits to their cultural ways, to begin the path to healing. These programs are promising, a process of decolonization, and they require acknowledgement, support, and financial support to break the cycle of trauma for the Blackfoot people of Southern Alberta.