Chief John Hunter,  Ubi-thka Iyodage, Sitting Eagle, and Leah Rider Hunter
from a series of hand-coloured vintage prints of fourteen portraits

On this website I have not included, for sale, Byron Harmon’s beautiful and moving Indigenous portraits which he took throughout his time in the Canadian Rockies. Although he printed, displayed and sold them himself, it doesn’t seem appropriate today when reconciliation between Indigenous people and their former conquerors is such an active and needed undertaking in Canada.

The Indian Act of 1876

The Canadian Government adopted policies of cultural assimilation of Indigenous people in the nineteenth century, resulting in the Indian Act, which limited or forbade traditional cultural and spiritual practices and languages, forced Indigenous children into mandatory Residential Schools whose goal was assimilation, restricted access to traditional forms of hunting, fishing, and crop cultivation in favour of European methods of farming, and disenfranchised both men and women. A pass system controlled movement on and off reservations. These restrictions continued well into the twentieth century.

Banff Indian Days

One spring, in the late 1890’s, when Banff Springs Hotel was newly completed and the trans-continental Canadian Pacific Railway was in its infancy, flooding derailed the tracks, trapping tourists in Banff. Guide and outfitter, Tom Wilson, suggested to the hotel that he bring some of his friends from the Stoney-Nakoda Reservation to entertain and educate guests with their traditional dances and ceremonies, plus some sporting events. This idea was so popular it resulted in an annual Banff Indian Days celebration which was held in Banff each July until 1978.

An Indigenous Celebration Organized by the Iyãhé Stoney-Nakoda Nation

Banff Indian Days was a bittersweet opportunity for Indigenous people to return, briefly, to their traditional land and show the world their culture. Although there were various Banff sponsors and promoters over the years, Banff Indian Days were largely organized by the Iyãhé Stoney-Nakoda Nation, who lived at Morley, [now Mînî Thnî], in the foothills between Banff and Calgary. They invited neighbouring Indigenous Nations, who also had traditional hunting grounds in the mountains, to participate. These three to five day annual events, which were relatively free of Pass restrictions, were used to gather in the mountains with friends and relatives.

Celebrating Indigenous Culture and Customs

The events were designed to bring recognition for, and understanding of, Indigenous culture, subverting the stereotype of the primitive, uncivilized savage. Parks Canada went along with this arrangement, using the public goodwill it generated to promote a narrative that Indigenous people were enthusiastic supporters of National Parks, rather than dispossessed legitimate claimants for some of this land.

Banff Indian Days have been resurrected and are now organized and presented by the Iyãhé Stoney-Nakoda Nation.

If you wish to view Byron Harmon’s portfolio of Indigenous Portraits,
please email Carole here.

Land Acknowledgement

I live and work in Halfmoon Bay, on the Sunshine Coast in Canada, on ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish people, specifically the shíshálh Nation, self-governing since 1986.

The photographs in this website were exposed in natural areas now known as National and Provincial Parks in Alberta and British Columbia, also traditional tribal lands of Indigenous Nations of the Canadian Rockies and adjacent ranges. The growing awareness of the interconnected Indigenous and settler history of these lands is humbling. In the spirit of reconciliation, alive today in so many negotiations, I express my gratitude for the centuries of land stewardship by Indigenous Nations in what I think of as Canada. Thank you for the wisdom of Indigenous land management which is helping transform the destructive land practices of early colonialism and modern capitalism. May we come together in harmony in protecting and depicting these sacred places.

Carole Harmon