Banff Bison Conservation Conversations

Jocelyn Bartner

A University of Toronto student. She has strong interest in history, particularly in working class history and in deconstructing common Canadian narratives. She also has a passing interest in art history, fashion history in particular.

In 2018, Banff National Park welcomed thirty-one bison into a soft-release pasture in the Panther Valley. The reintroduction of these bison was a historic moment, as bison had nearly gone extinct in Banff National Park by the 1880s. While an ecological success, the way Parks Canada has framed the bison’s return leaves out the colonial history of bison over-hunting and early conservation efforts. To foreground their contribution, Parks Canada also downplays Indigenous peoples’ activism and involvement in bison reintroduction. I would argue that Parks Canada’s Banff Bison Blog uses language that downplays the history of colonialism in the near extinction of bison and obscures the colonial elements of early Canadian bison conservation efforts.

The blog employs language that portrays the eradication of bison as a natural event of unknown circumstances. Consider the following passage, for example: “For thousands of years, bison roamed the valleys of what is now Banff National Park. They disappeared from this area around 140 years ago, but they left behind clues of their presence that we still find today.”

Language like ‘disappearance’ removes the role of settlers in the overhunting of bison, while the use of ‘clue’ makes the bison eradication seem like a mystery to be solved. It is an attempt to erase the colonial history of bison overhunting and how it affected many Indigenous people that live in that area. The end goal of this erasure sanitizes Banff National Park’s image and its history. This despite the factors that led to the bison’s eradication being well documented history. In a recent article, for instance, Danielle Taschereau Mamers of University of Pennsylvania lists: the arrival of contract hide-hunters, the start of the fur trade economy, the arrival of European livestock, and the displacement of Indigenous nations from other regions. The arrival of new technologies like higher-capacity firearms also accelerated the bison’s decline. Over a century, these compounding pressures decimated the population of bison. Looking at Banff specifically, the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and subsequent wildfires caused by cinders from the trains caused significant habitat loss.According to environmental historians Theodore Binnema and Melanie Niemi, larger numbers of people settling in the nearby area and visiting the park was a further cause of decline. The omission of this history allows Parks Canada and Banff National Park to portray a benevolent image to tourists looking to visit or to learn more about Banff National Park.

Another excerpt from the Banff Bison Blog asks: “What does it mean to have bison back in Canada’s first national park after they were missing from the wild for over a century? The arrival of 16 bison to the Panther Valley is an exciting conservation success-in-the-making for Banff and a new chapter in Parks Canada’s ongoing bison restoration story.”

While Parks Canada foregrounds itself in this passage, the Stoney Nakoda also launched their own bison reintroduction project in the 1970s. Parks Canada attempted to reintroduce the bison in the 1990s as well, although this plan ultimately failed. Journalist Jenna Dulewich reports that Parks Canada did not consult with any Indigenous groups on the 1990s project and did not consider the cultural significance of their return. Much of the recent push for bison reintroduction comes from pressure and activism by many of the Indigenous people that live in the areas the bison once dominated.

In 2014, eight Indigenous groups from Canada and the United States signed the Buffalo Treaty. In the years that followed, a number of other nations and tribes signed on, including the Stoney Nakoda Chiniki and Wesley bands in 2015. The purpose of the treaty is “to honor, recognize, and revitalize the time immemorial relationship we [signatories] have with buffalo.”

 A member of the Kainai Tribe in Alberta and Buffalo Treaty signatory, Leroy Little Bear, has been heavily involved with the reintroduction project in Banff National Park. Daniel Watson, the CEO of Parks Canada in 2017, commented about Little Bear, “Leroy was really instrumental in helping to bring together a community of people who would be able to ask and answer those questions and he was a critical figure in bringing together the Buffalo Treaty – which was a crucial element to this.” (“Little Bear plays role in bringing bison back to Banff”) Despite their critical importance to the project, little of the Bison Treaty or Little Bear’s contributions are mentioned in Parks Canada’s Banff Bison Blog.

Another section of the Banff Bison Blog states, “For over a century, Parks Canada has been an international leader in bison conservation – helping bring bison back from the brink of extinction.” Parks Canada’s bison conservation initiatives are still tied into colonial expansion and anti-Indigenous sentiments and suppression from both Park and Canadian officials. Historically, many of these officials blamed the Stoney Nakoda for the depletion of wildlife, which they used to justify further appropriations of their land. These concerns about the Stoney Nakoda overhunting resulted in Banff National Park expanding substantially in 1902, when it was expanded to 11,400 square kilometres.

 This expansion took nearly all of the Stoney Nakoda’s remaining hunting ground. Much of the conversations at the time were primarily concerned with sports hunting and using national parks. For example, Binnema and Niemi found that Banff was framed as an “unrivalled breeding-ground for the big-game animals of the Rocky Mountains region, and the surplus wild-life population will afford a constant supply of big-game and fur-bearing animals for the adjacent unprotected regions. This is one of the great advantages of such natural reserves.” The focus was on preserving wildlife for sports hunters so they could have animals to hunt outside the protected areas. The conservation laws were also used to further marginalize the Stoney Nakoda by continually expanding the land of Banff National Park into the land they lived and hunted on.

 I argue that by portraying the disappearance of bison as a mysterious natural event, and by omitting the specifics of Indigenous involvement in bison reintroduction, while ignoring the colonial legacy of early reintroduction efforts, Parks Canada is working to convey an image of itself according to which it is, and always has been, a benevolent government organization fighting for the environment. This presentation ignores the history of Parks Canada weaponizing its conservation efforts against Indigenous people, such the Stoney Nakoda.

References:

Binnema, Theodore and Niemi, Melanie. “‘Let the Line Be Drawn Now’: Wilderness, Conservation, and the Exclusion of Aboriginal People from Banff National Park in Canada” Environmental History , Oct. 2006. Vol. 11, No. 4. pp. 724-750.

Mamers, Danielle Taschereau “‘Last of the buffalo’: bison extermination,

early conservation, and visual records of settler colonization in the North American west”, Settler Colonial Studies. Feb 2020. Vol. 10, No. 1. pp. 126-147.

Sandlos, John. “Wildlife Conservation in the North: Historic Approaches and their Consequences; Seeking Insights for Contemporary Resource Management.” University of Calgary. May 2008.

UNews. “Little Bear plays role in bringing bison back to Banff” University of Lethbridge UNews, 6 March 2017. Accessed 21 March 2021. https://www.uleth.ca/unews/article/little-bear-plays-role-bringing-bison-back-banff

Parks Canada. “Archaeological History” Banff Bison 101. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ab/banff/info/gestion-management/bison/info. Accessed 21 March 2021.

Parks Canada. “Banff Bison 101” Banff Bison Blog. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ab/banff/info/gestion-management/bison/info Accessed 21 March 2021.

Parks Canada. “Conservation Legacy” Banff Bison 101. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ab/banff/info/gestion-management/bison/info. Accessed 21 March 2021.

Jenna Dulewich. “Stoney looks to study cultural significance in Banff bison reintroduction” Alberta Prime Times. 21 September 2020. Accessed 21 March 2021. https://www.albertaprimetimes.com/alberta-news/stoney-looks-to-study-cultural-significance-in-banff-bison-reintroduction-2731778.

Buffalo Treaty. “The Buffalo: A treaty of cooperation, renewal and restoration” Accessed 21 March 2021. https://www.buffalotreaty.com/treaty.