Conference session

The focus is an overview of my research study on the history of Cree people’s use of traditional remedies and healing practices as contributing to their good health and survival in northwest Saskatchewan in the 20th century, as treaty agreements were negotiated and finalized and colonial policy resulted in life changes. This is a new initiative, and a work in progress that would benefit from feedback and dialogue for scholars, academia, and the general public. The session’s intended outcomes are: 1. Addressing questions of legitimacy. Indigenous Elders’ authority is recognized and amplified through this research. The researcher frames her research with a Cree-specific research ethics model that may help other researchers doing research in Cree communities. 2. Challenging common depictions of Northwest Cree people as passive victims who easily entered into treaty 6 adhesions without resistance, proving that the Cree of the Northwest prairie-woodland area actively contributed to the health and well-being of their people and protected sacred spaces of their territories used for taking care of health. 3. Offering an important historical context for the present, given that First Nations people are known to have the poorest health outcomes in Canada despite having many medicines and practices to rely on. (Daschuk, 2013; Kirkmayer et al., 2009; Morse et al., 1991; Petawabano et al., 1994; Waldram et al., 2006; Mosby and Galloway, 2017). The focus helps to untangle the complicated history of settler colonialism in relation to traditional knowledge practices and in Indigenous sacred spaces.