Parkland returned to Little Red River Cree Nation
Band councillor hopes for increase in funding given rise in area, population
EDMONTO N Ninety-five years after Parks Canada swallowed a Cree village into Wood Buffalo National Park, the federal and provincial governments have returned the land to the Little Red River Cree Nation.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Henry Grandjambe said Friday. The Little Red River band councillor has lived near the traditional hunting and trapping lands his whole life.
The land in question is around the community of Garden River — also called Garden Creek — which occupies 37 square kilometres along the Peace River, an 820-km drive north of Edmonton.
About 400 people live in Garden River, which is one of three communities in the Little Red River Cree Nation. When Parks Canada created the massive Wood Buffalo National Park in 1922 to protect one of the last bison herds in northern Canada, Garden River was included inside the park boundary. No one interviewed Friday knew why.
Little Red River Chief Gus Loonskin said people in the community have been discussing the transfer of the land back to the band for decades.
On June 19, a federal Liberal government bill to amend the Canada National Parks Act, which altered the western boundary of Wood Buffalo National Park, received royal assent.
Return of the land “would represent a small but vital step toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples,” federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said in the House of Commons last February.
Once out of the national park, the land belonged to the province of Alberta. The lieutenant-governor signed two provincial orders in council Wednesday that grant land ownership and mineral rights to the Little Red River Cree Nation “for the purpose of creating an Indian reserve.”
Grandjambe, 66, said his father told him families have always lived along the Peace River near Garden River, and would move further inland during trapping and hunting season.
“Parks (Canada) didn’t really support the community being there,” he said.
People whose ancestors were born in the village retain hunting rights in the area, he said.
The land will now become part of the Little Red River band’s reserve, and Grandjambe hopes federal funding will increase, given the official increase in population and land area.
Parks Canada and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada did not respond to questions by press time Friday.
The office of Alberta’s Indigenous relations minister would not comment Friday.
The residents of Little Red River are excited about the return of land, Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen said when speaking to the bill in the House of Commons last February.
“They’ve probably waited for this for a while, so I’m hoping this gives them a sense of closure,” Viersen said Friday.
Grandjambe said the push to reclaim the land was championed by some older residents who died before they saw the deal go through.
“I think they would be very happy for their family members and their grandchildren,” he said. “I think they would have a good rest finally to see a positive outcome for the community.”