hiSTORY

"Study the past if you would define the future."

~Confucius

We began to explore the story of this place, our community, and the people who have helped to make it was it has become - the city of Calgary.  We wondered though, what was here before this place was Calgary?  What stories lived on the land long before the first settler built his home and the town began to grow?  

There were many different beliefs about the past:

"I think it was a desert with no trees and all sand."

"I think you would have seen mountains and lots and lots of grass."

"I think there were cowboys living here."

"I think there was just nothing but land."

"I think there were First Nations people living here."

Looking at the word history itself we noticed that it has the word STORY in it.  What is the power of story in history?  Does history change depending on who tells the story?  How can we learn from stories of the past?

After researching Calgary's past as a city and locating old photographs, it soon became clear that there were two perspectives, two cultures, and two experiences in the shared history of this land we live on.  One perspective being that of the Blackfoot First Nations who lived on this land long before Calgary was a city, and the other of the first pioneers who settled this land in and around the urban community.  

We loved learning about life in Blackfoot territory, the traditional ways of knowing, the stories and songs of generations, and the strong sense of community of these people.  We represented our learning about life "before contact" in a variety of ways including building, visual art, and storytelling.  

The buffalo continued to appear in our research of the First Nations and their traditional way of life.  We were fascinated by the many ways the buffalo provided for the Blackfoot people and were disturbed to learn that they were almost hunted to extinction by the Europeans who moved into the prairies.

"Why did the Europeans kill so many buffalo?"

"Why couldn't the Europeans live the way they wanted to and 

let the First Nations people live the way they wanted to?"

"Why did the Aboriginal people have to stop using the land?"

These were only a few of many insightful questions classmates in our learning community wanted to find answers to, so that we might better understand the relationship between these two groups of people and their cultures. 

We explored the story of Treaty 7 and the people who were involved in the agreement.

We thought Chief Crowfoot was a smart guy!  We also thought that some parts of the treaty seem unfair and that there were definitely pros and cons that came from the contact of two very different cultures.  

After contact between the First Nations and the North West Mounted Police, we learned that the Europeans wanted people to move to this part of Canada to start farming.  There were advertisements sent far away trying to convince other people to come to the prairies.  It was pretty cool to realize that some of these early pioneers who came on the train to Calgary were our ancestors! 

 After so many stories, pictures, discussions and other learning experiences we were so excited to go to Stampede School to learn more about the history of Calgary and the important role the Calgary Stampede has had in our city for over 100 years!