Indigenous tourism presenting new opportunities in Saskatchewan
The potential of indigenous tourism to create new opportunities for Saskatchewan in the international tourism market was a prominent discussion point during a tourism conference in Swift Current.
Tourism Swift Current hosted the 9th annual 49° x 110° Spring Conference at the Living Sky Casino Event Centre, May 2-3.
The conference started with Tourism Swift Current’s annual general meeting and a social event, May 2. There was a full program of presentations on May 3 that provided local, regional and provincial perspectives on tourism. Two presentations featured initiatives that involve indigenous communities.
Christian Boyle, the owner of the Saskatoon based strategic consulting agency Glyph Creative Strategy, spoke about the first indigenous tourism corridor in Saskatchewan that is currently being developed for the export tourism marketplace.
Dale Mosquito, a band councillor from the Nekaneet First Nation, spoke about his community’s involvement with the Indian Relay Race, an event hosted by Cowtown Productions in Maple Creek.
The inaugural Indian Relay Race took place last year as part of the Showdown in Cowtown event in Maple Creek, which also includes bull riding.
“Indian Relay Race is a fairly new event to bring people together and to bring them to our area,” Mosquito said during an interview after his presentation. “We thought it would be a good drawing card and we were lucky enough that some of our members have actually seen it and now on social media it's just a click away, but we thought what a great event, that it would bring together what we're trying to perpetuate in our area, which is working together with diverse groups.”
The Indian Relay Race continues a tradition of neighbourliness and cooperation between the communities of Nekaneet and Maple Creek, which have been holding the annual Battle of the Little Big Puck hockey game for 37 years.
“For Nekaneet, we promote culture,” he said. “In the southwest corner of the province there's only one First Nation. Now with our Treaty Land entitlement, there are other First Nations that are actually coming in there, but for us our neighbours are our friends. So we just get to promote something that we hold special. Other communities so far maybe don't have that relationship. So maybe they can look to us and say if they can do it, maybe we can as well too.”
An Indian Relay Race celebrates indigenous horse culture through an exciting event of speed and skill. Each team consists of three horses, one rider, and three helpers. The rider must switch horses during the race and ride all three before reaching the finish line, which results in a lot of action.
“It's thundering, the horses are racing, it's exhilaration for the crowd,” he said. “You're right into it, you're right there, just like any other event, it's just right across the fence, but here you have the whooping and the hollering.”
Maple Creek’s inaugural Indian Relay Race took place last summer and drew a very large crowd to the Showdown in Cowtown.
“What we had to do was actually hold back on the actual start of it, because there was just lines and lines and people that came in,” he recalled. “It was highly attended not just by our corner, but I think everybody that heard about it came.”
The event’s success resulted in nominations in two award categories for the 2018 Saskatchewan Tourism Awards of Excellence. Showdown in Cowtown was a finalist in both the category for community event of the year and indigenous tourism experience.
This year’s Showdown in Cowtown, which will include the 2nd annual Indian Relay Race, takes place July 18, and Mosquito is expecting there will be an even bigger crowd. He felt indigenous tourism can play a role to help First Nation communities to maintain and share their culture.
Christian Boyle of Glyph Creative Strategy believes Saskatchewan has the potential to become an international destination for those who want to experience the culture of the northern plains indigenous people.
“Indigenous tourism is actually on the rise globally,” he said during an interview. “The Conference Board of Canada just did a really interesting study that's showing it's outpacing even traditional recreation leisure-based tourism in Canada, which is in itself in a massive growth cycle.”
According to this report the direct economic benefits (GDP) of the indigenous tourism sector in Canada grew 23.2 per cent from $1.4 billion in 2014 to $1.7 billion in 2017, while overall tourism activity in the country increased by 12 per cent.
Boyle is closely involved with the development of the first indigenous tourism corridor in Saskatchewan, which is a partnership between the Whitecap Dakota First Nation, Wanuskewin Heritage Park, and Beardy's and Okemasis' Cree Nation.
“The overall goal is that we are looking to develop Saskatchewan's very first packaged indigenous tourism experience that will be sold on global tourism export market places,” he said. “In fact, this may not just be indigenous tourism, but this may be Saskatchewan's first packaged tourism experience that will be purposefully designed to be sold on global export tourism market experiences.”
This indigenous tourism corridor will be launched after the completion of the 155-room Dakota Dunes hotel and conference centre at Whitecap Dakota First Nation in 2020.
“There's some real critical mass happening now, because an indigenous nation stepped forward with a real investment in tourism infrastructure, and that's what really got the ball rolling,” he said. “That's all credit due to Whitecap Dakota First Nation for their vision of developing a resort product.”
This is also an opportune time to focus on indigenous tourism due to the changes that have been taking place globally in the tourism industry. Traditionally the industry followed a sightseeing model, but there has been a shift.
“Millennials are now pushing on the spending power here, and they're interested in experiences,” he explained.
“They're actually looking to get down at the community level and engage in experiences that they can't have at home and those are food experiences, authentic culture experiences. They want to meet people, they want to have something that they find powerful and transformational and they want to take it home with them.”
This change can help to level the playing field for indigenous communities, who can offer experiences to tourists without the need for huge financial investments that were part of the traditional approach to tourism.
“You can develop a beautiful experience for a low cost, as long as you harp on the quality and you design it purposefully and make it an authentic experience,” he said. “You just need a partner to help on the service side. So I think that's what's opening the doors now.”
He cautioned that some key things need to happen to ensure the success of an indigenous tourism venture.
“The absolute critical key is creating capacity in the communities for training, employment and entrepreneurship,” he said. “If we can bring that level of service into the community so that they can start building this economy within their own communities, that will create generational care for what we design, because it will be theirs.”
Consultation with an indigenous community is also essential to ensure the long-term sustainability and success of a project.
“You cannot go forth with any kind of tourism focused project without consent from the indigenous community,” he said.
“Those stories are theirs to tell, that's their culture that will be represented. So you need to address that immediately and seek that mandate from the community to get consent to design and then as you're designing, they need to be consulted the entire way through to make sure that the experiences that you're sharing are appropriate, and relevant and they wished to be shared.”
Boyle felt the lessons learned from this initial project to create an indigenous tourism corridor in Saskatchewan will be a benefit to future initiatives to promote indigenous tourism.
“If other First Nations in partnership with other communities would like to do something similar, they can work with us,” he said.
“We'll make sure that they don't repeat mistakes that we have made. We'll make it easier, because that's what we're looking to do. We're actually looking to replicate this model. We need that critical mass. We need these hubs all across the province in order to achieve that goal of being recognized internationally for our indigenous tourism.”