“We All Lived on the Same Land”: Settler and Stoney Nakoda Voices Meet at Bighorn Heritage Event

A recent heritage storytelling event hosted by the MD of Bighorn’s Heritage Resource Committee brought together representatives from the region’s diverse cultural communities, presenting an integrated view of local history that placed settler land management stories alongside Indigenous perspectives.

The event paired accounts of early forest rangers, ranchers, and wildfire response with Stoney Nakoda memories of Rabbit Lake, highlighting how both Indigenous and settler communities relied on the same land for survival, work, and community life, while experiencing it under unequal political and legal systems.

The first portion of the event focused on settler-era land management through stories of the Ghost Ranger Station. Eric Butters, a third-generation cattle rancher in the region, described forest rangers as central figures in early rural governance.

The cultivation of ranger districts dates back to the early 20th century, following a devastating wildfire season in 1910 and the passage of the Forest Reserve and Parks Act in 1911. Under the policy, rangers lived year-round in their assigned districts, serving as firefighters, wildlife officers, and search-and-rescue responders; a permanent presence in the area made them embedded in community life.

“They went to community events, weddings, and funerals,” said Butters.

His stories highlighted the close working relationships between ranching families and rangers, including cooperation during fires, wildlife conflicts, and search efforts.

“The local ranchers helped the rangers whenever they were needed. I remember my dad talking about a ranger coming down one evening and asking for help because a Boy Scout was lost in the district,” said Butters. “They also helped out with fires from time to time, it was just part of the deal.”

He contrasted that community-based model with the later centralization of forest management operations in Calgary, in the early 1990s, which was met with strong opposition from local residents.

“My dad went into the Forest Service office in Bowness and told the superintendent, ‘You take the rangers out of the Ghost, you may as well take them right to Montreal,’” said Butters. “For that’s all the good they’re going to be to anybody up here.”

Butters illustrated the limits of these centralized operations, recalling a time when he reported a fire and being told the relevant officers were busy in meetings in Calgary. Ultimately noting how the closure of the Ghost Ranger Station marked the end of an era in which rangers functioned as community members with deep local knowledge, noting that today forest officers are more specialized and less visible in the region.

Butters’ remarks underscored how familiarity with the land and the people who lived on it was critical to survival in the area, a theme that carried into the second half of the event.

Later discussions centred on Indigenous perspectives. Alice Kaquitts, a member of the Stoney Nakoda Nation, spoke about growing up at Rabbit Lake and building a relationship with the land through cultural practices and everyday life.

“We were a community. We all knew each other. We valued that friendship, that love. We all looked out for each other, for everyone’s survival. As a child growing up there, when I reflect, it was one of the safest places because the land was our playground. The land protected us, said Kaquitts.

She described Rabbit Lake as a place where families hunted, trapped, gardened, and raised children, while also serving as a refuge during a period when Indigenous ceremonies were outlawed, and their communities were subject to oversight by Indian agents and ministers.

“Our people were very spiritual. The ones that moved to Rabbit Lake were far away from the Indian agent and the minister, where they could practise their own spiritual ceremonies,” said Kaquitts.

She noted how people deliberately avoided enforced Sunday services with the area's Catholic minister.

“They'd wake up early Sunday morning, most of the spiritual people, the older ones, or whoever wanted to go would go out into the woods. A lot of our elderly people just wandered off and didn't come home till late Sunday afternoon when they knew the minister had left,” said Kaquitts

Kaquitts highlighted her mother’s relationship to the land, describing her as a hunter, trapper, and horsewoman whose life was shaped by the same environment discussed in the settler stories, but constrained by colonial policy.

“That connection is what saved me for what was coming after I left there,” said Kaquitts. “If it wasn’t for my resilient mother who was deeply connected to her lands, I don’t think we would be here today because she built the foundation and that resiliency and that connection to the land still empowers our people.”

Following her remarks, her son, Thomas Snow, connected those memories to contemporary political realities, describing Rabbit Lake as a living foundation of Indigenous law and a guide for reconciliation.

“It's a reminder that we were separated from these lands. These lands were stolen from my grandparents,” said Snow. “And so the future of reconciliation is looking at each other as neighbors, recognizing that we are a community that long ago agreed to work together for the betterment of our families, our communities to respect each other's cultures, languages, and access to those lands.”

Snow’s remarks closed the panel by framing the region as a shared landscape shaped by multiple histories, with an emphasis on continued listening, learning and relationship-building.