Episode 08: The Elder in the Making- Cowboy Smithx

When you attend a theatrical performance, political event, or any modern assembly in Canada, it often begins with someone solemnly reading a prepared “land acknowledgement”. But what do those words actually mean? And how should the listener respond?

This is just one of the questions pondered by Cowboy Smithx, a Blackfoot filmmaker, advocate, artist, and entrepreneur. Cowboy is the founder and curator of the highly acclaimed International Indigenous speaker series “REDx Talks”. A gifted speaker and performer, he’s also a powerful voice from the Piikani & Kainai tribes of present-day southern Alberta. He wants all Canadians to know “the frequencies of the land have been unlocked, the wifi passwords have been figured out, and we have them and we’ve been trying to share them. But we’ve been far too often been brushed aside. And now we have land acknowledgments that help with that brushing aside.”

So how do we bridge the gap between popular misconceptions of indigenous culture in Canada and the reality of the indigenous experience? And what does reconciliation look like? Well, for one, we can stop with the notion of a single “indigenous culture”. He challenges notions of our contemporary understanding of pan-indigeneity, saying “the idea of the pan-Indian needs to be eliminated. We are not monolithic people. The idiosyncrasies are vast, complicated, and sophisticated when we’re talking about the Iroquois, the Mohawk, the Blackfoot and the societies and cultures and language informed by the territory they come from. Look at the landscapes they come from.” Indigenous peoples in Canada are as varied as the mountains, prairies, oceans, forests, and tundra of this country.

I met up with Cowboy Smithx where two rivers meet in the heart of downtown Calgary, the Bow and the Elbow. 150 years ago it was the sight of the first NWMP fort, but for thousands of years before it was a gathering place for buffalo hunting parties. It’s also the sight of a creation story passed down as part of the oral history of the Blackfoot people. Come for a walk, and listen. Cowboy Smithx has many stories to tell.