Treaty 6 marks 150 years as Fort Carlton hosts four-day commemoration

This week marks the 150th anniversary of the signing of Treaty 6. To commemorate the historic agreement, Fort Carlton Provincial Historic Park is holding a four-day event.

The signing of the treaty took place over several weeks in 1876. First Nations and the Crown entered into Treaty 6 at Fort Carlton on Aug. 23, at Chief Beardy’s campsite on Aug. 28 and finally at Fort Pitt on Sept. 9 of that year.

Read more:

• Sarah Mills: Any talk of abolishing the Crown in Canada must start with First Nations
• Public safety agency formalizes wildfire partnership with Sask. First Nations
• Beyond the river: The secrets growing in Gabriel Dumont Park

The signed treaty had several unique features compared with the previous five treaties, including protections against disease and starvation, as well as the medicine chest clause.

“It provides health care, but it also protects Indigenous medicines, Indigenous health care,” said Sheldon Krakowski, the Office of the Treaty Commissioner’s director of research and archives.

Additionally, Treaty 6 increased treaty agricultural benefits to assist First Nations in their transition to agriculture, Krakowski said.

Even with all these provisions, though, parts of the agreement were deeply problematic.

According to Krakowski, the Crown “had a strategic plan to distance the Chiefs from the treaty text,” focusing only on the benefits during negotiations.

“The treaty text has a clause that’s known as the surrender clause,” Krakowski said, referring to the surrender of land rights.

“That was never discussed” with First Nations leaders, according to Krakowski.

It wasn’t only that the Chiefs didn’t understand the clause was in the treaty, but also that “the Crown purposefully misled them into thinking this was a relationship-building agreement,” Krakowski said.

Adding to this, Treaty Commissioner Dr. Kathy Walker said the Indian Act was passed the same year the negotiations were taking place.

That act “was a direct violation of what was agreed to as part of treaty. So yeah, right from the get-go, there was a violation of them,” Walker said, referring to the First Nations that signed Treaty 6 in good faith.

The mandate of Walker’s apolitical office is to educate and strengthen the treaty relationship and bring people together.

“We have to remember that it wasn’t just First Nations that agreed to treaties. It was also the Crown,” Walker said.

While Chiefs have done their part to honour Treaty 6, according to Walker, First Nations leaders are still working to have their “treaty rights upheld and implemented.”

It’s up to the Crown to honour its obligations and promises, “because treaties were really supposed to be about benefitting all citizens, all treaty people,” Walker said.

The first step toward honouring what’s laid out in Treaty 6 requires learning its history.

For Walker, the more people learn, the more these rights will be upheld.

“We’ve seen people who didn’t know anything about our shared treaty history, who, once they learn about it, they really feel that responsibility to take action in terms of treaty,” Walker said.

Fort Carlton commemoration

The commemoration of the historic agreement gets underway Thursday at 8 a.m.

From Aug. 20 to 23, attendees at Fort Carlton Provincial Historic Park will be able to see the original Treaty 6 parchment, attend an elders and knowledge keepers treaty forum and a women’s forum, and participate in a traditional hand-game tournament, among a host of other activities.

The culmination of the four-day event will take place Sunday with the unveiling of the Treaty 6 150th commemorative monument.

According to the Office of the Treaty Commissioner’s website, these four days give people the chance to reflect on the treaty’s history, honour its intentions and reaffirm their commitment to implementing them.

—with files from 650 CKOM’s David Kirton