Drawing on the power of worldview and place to gain ground for reconciliation

Elvin Wyly's forum article has prompted several lines of thinking for me, three of which I will follow in this commentary. First, is the diversification of the Settler colonial population of Canada's cities. Wyly's juxtaposition of the White European production of the Settler city with the transnational, immigrant-newcomer spatial reproduction of the Settler city, is a poignant note on the context of colonization, and what it may mean for efforts at decolonization. The second piece I want to consider is the relationship between space and time in generations past, present, and future that constitute place. Third, I will discuss what is arguably the bedrock of reconciliation; namely, the restitution for lands and resources taken from Indigenous nations. My goal for the remainder of this commentary, following from these three lines of thought, is to suggest that we need to engage earnestly in public conversations about worldviews and how they are interwoven with place. After a conceptual discussion, I will apply an example from Saskatoon, my home city, to bring some of this discussion to life, before returning to the necessity of restitution for the urban land and asset base taken from Indigenous nations.

The actions of worldview, place, and planning

When I refer to worldview, I mean, generally speaking, how we know the world around us and its relation to the cosmos; the values, beliefs, expectations, and attitudes that ground our individual and community practices or relationships; and our actions to sustain and reproduce it. Place is fundamental to worldview, providing the “roots” to securely interact with the world and to understand one's position in it (Relph, 1976: 38).

Hirini Matunga (2013: 18) offers a perspective on Indigenous worldviews: “Indigenous worldviews and values are based on a deep and abiding physical and spiritual connection as kinfolk with their place, land, territories, environment, and resources since time immemorial. These worldviews and underlying values reinforce the inextricable link that exists between the community and, via the medium of ancestral land, their ancestors. Of that there is no doubt.”

Ted Jojola (2013) drives home the intergenerational relationship between worldview, inheritance of land and resources, and the material and cultural sustainability of civilization using the example of Pueblo Bonito, a settlement built by the Ancestral Pueblo people in what is now the American state of New Mexico. Its construction, occurring over many generations, meant that those responsible for its original design would rely on others coming after them to complete it. Each generation built with the technologies of the time, but maintained the coherence of the original collective vision, with architecture and design embodying “the spiritual and cultural meanings of their worldview” (Jojola, 2013: 458).

When Settler society is superimposed onto that landscape, with different worldviews, places, and an historic unwillingness to value mutual respect and coexistence, we have seen devastating colonial results. However, place can be a powerful tool for decolonization as well. Place has a texture which is generated by changing human–environment interactions and social relations over time (Adams et al., 2001). Alongside its material attributes, we know that the spirits, or ghosts, of ancestors inextricable from place also connect us across generations and compel stewardship (Bell, 1997). “[T]hose aspects of the lived-world that we distinguish as places are differentiated because they involve a concentration of our intentions, our attitudes, purposes and experience” (Relph, 1976: 43).

If we learn deeply enough about the worldviews, situated experiences of the living and nonliving, that Indigenous and Settler peoples contribute to the texture of the shared urban places we all draw upon, we might be able to mobilize that common ground, expand the strength of our social ties, and decolonize our cities. Matunga's (2017) three necessary spheres for planning together are helpful here: that of indigeneity and self-determination; the sphere of the Settler; and the hybrid third sphere “where the coloniser and colonised, oppressed and oppressor can come together to dialogue reconciliation, emancipation, collaboration and collective action for the future” (p. 644). Without a deeper understanding of one another's worldviews and their mutually constitutive relationship with the places we value, that hybrid third sphere will be difficult to generate and sustain.

Learning common ground from a site in Saskatoon's Meewasin Valley

Along the South Saskatchewan River's Meewasin Valley, the most popular public space in Saskatoon, there is a place that may help illustrate some of what was discussed in the previous section. The site is situated atop the edge of the South Saskatchewan River Valley, within an area of native temperate grassland ecosystem in the city. Northern Plains First Nations have inhabited the territory for thousands of years. The Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota, and Métis were living and hunting on the grasslands, wetlands, and forest around the site, prior to Settlers of European descent arriving during the 1880s a few years after Treaty Six was struck (1876).

The Settlers were from the Temperance Colonization Society formed in Ontario. The Society was given a land grant from the Canadian government and after surveying the area in 1882 and turning erstwhile Indigenous lands into a grid of private land parcels, the first Temperance colonists began arriving at what they would call Saskatoon in 1883. The small settlement of Saskatoon served the agricultural homesteads that would come to orbit it including the area of focus for my example. Its central street, known as Broadway Avenue, overlaid the Moose Woods to Batoche Trail that had been connecting First Nations and Métis communities south and north of Saskatoon for many years before colonists arrived.

The written memoirs of an early Temperance colonist, Barbara (Hunter) Anderson (Anderson and Anderson, 1972) offer an example of learning at a young age the value of reciprocity, something often evoked as part of Indigenous worldviews and values. It was impactful enough for her to recall as an older adult. Her family's original homestead, on the Temperance Colonization Society's land grant, was located in the area I am discussing. The following excerpt shares her story—as a 10-year old girl during her first summer since moving to the region—of developing neighborly relations with First Nations around household trade:

During the summer of 1884 we were all very busy and on several occasions native Indians called on us. They were very friendly and had we been able to converse with them, would have enjoyed their comments. … On [one] occasion an Indian [woman] came to our house, with a great armful of ducks on her arm. They had been hunting ducks at a nearby slough and had been quite successful. The Indians had not been used to having Rolled Oats and were very fond of it, cooked in many ways. They knew Mother had some, and the [woman] made signs to her that she wanted to trade ducks for oatmeal. Mother went to her bag of rolled oats and taking a bowl filled it heaping twice, and then took a small dip into the bag giving her only a little in the bowl the third time. When the [woman] saw this she picked out two of her largest Mallard ducks and a small Teal duck to give Mother in trade. Mother asked her for three Mallards, but she took the bowl and made signs that twice the bowl was heaped up and the third time only a little in it. Thus the two large ducks and one small one was a fair exchange. Mother agreed and all were satisfied. (Anderson and Anderson, 1972, 57–58)

What remains today from the earliest homesteads on the site are depressions where their buildings were, some historic agricultural tools, and a grave site. Remnants of the Moose Woods to Batoche Trail system also remain, including a segment leading to a water spring, a place where travelers would stop along the Trail, rest, and water their animals prior to the occupation of the area by colonists. Those residing on the site since have also drawn from the water spring for their needs and remark upon its presence. The beautiful river outlooks from this parcel of land inspired those who homesteaded there, and others residing on the site during decades afterward. But we will jump forward in time on the site now to 1963, where the story of Maryville begins. As context, colonial violence aimed at separating Indigenous peoples from their worldviews, and how they relate to land (place), was carried out in significant part through the federal government-funded residential school system run by Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and United churches.

Maryville, named after the mother of Jesus, was a retreat for Saskatoon congregations of Catholic women religious active on the site for 32 years until 1995. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Saskatoon acquired the property and blessed the land. The Bishop called a meeting on the site with the Sisters Superior, and one other, from each congregation. In his letter to the congregations, he described the site as a wild grassland, with cliffs, forest, and a fresh water spring (recall this from the stop along the Moose Woods to Batoche Trail). At the meeting, he conveyed that the Sisters, having done so much for the Diocese, deserved a retreat space specifically for them. The minutes of that first meeting with Bishop and Sisters on site sets out a question for all to ponder: “What name should be given to the place? Not a worldly one.” The site itself, as captured in the closing line of those minutes, “is beautiful … a corner of heaven!” (Diocese of Saskatoon, 1963: 2).

Maryville was created to include cabins, a swimming pool, shower house, a chapel, grotto with a statue of Saint Joseph, outdoor volleyball, basketball, baseball, barbeque, a few horses in some summers, and water supplied from the fresh water spring mentioned before. All without disrupting the native temperate grassland environment or the visible remnants of prior occupants (e.g., homestead imprints, Moose Woods to Batoche Trail segments). Picnics, potluck dinners, sing-songs with musical instruments, Mass and celebrations in the chapel, and organized group events among the congregations of Sisters formed the seasonal highlights. The congregations of Catholic women religious from the Saskatoon diocese were important stewards of this place for several decades, and in their enjoyment and care of the site added new texture to the meaning of this place, with intention, purpose, and spirituality imprinted on the land.

Since being sold by the Catholic diocese to a public conservation organization in the city after Maryville closed, the site is used more frequently now for Indigenous ceremony like sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies, and a grove of ribbon trees offering prayers to the earth. In some ways, it is as though the site has come full circle, where Indigenous worldview and land are at the fore again, but with important differences. One of those is that the land is still a parcel in a Settler system of private property, albeit owned by a public conservation authority. We will return to this issue in the final section of this commentary. A second important difference is that often the ceremonies held on the site invite non-Indigenous guests to participate. Like Anderson's memory of the reciprocity lesson owing to her mother's trade of oatmeal for ducks with Indigenous neighbors, the texture of place created on the site now is just as often between Indigenous and Settler peoples, together, as it is created separately.

I have spent a good deal of time on the site, including with descendants of early Settlers, three of the Sisters who enjoyed Maryville, and First Nation and Métis Elders and knowledge-keepers in ceremonies. Spirituality and connection to cosmos, stewardship over land and fresh water, and preserving the tangible and intangible imprints of past generations on the site are things those who have occupied the site over time hold in common. We are going to need these situated experiences, sharing worldviews, values, process, stories, and learning about one another's ghosts, if we want to spend more time in Matunga's third sphere of planning for our future together. It is important to include immigrant newcomers, the newest Settlers to Canada, as early as possible, to build their knowledge and to ensure that their contributions to the changing texture of place are valued as well (Gyepi-Garbrah et al., 2014). If we hope to build cities that sustain their peoples across future generations, we need to work harder on creating a common vision, placing value in one another's material conditions, spiritual realms, lines of kinship (human and nonhuman), and the memory residing in place.

Restitution of land and resources to Indigenous nations

Matunga's (2017) third sphere of planning—where worldviews, priorities, processes, and protocols are bridged—must be used for achieving transformational goals. Think along the lines of regularized and standardized natural resource revenue sharing, for example, and the creation or expansion of land entitlement agreements, akin to those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but broadened considerably. Land entitlement agreements where Indigenous nations use funding for land restitution to acquire land on a willing buyer, willing seller basis have translated into growth of Indigenous urban land holdings and asset generation (Fawcett et al., 2024). We also need to support the acceleration of Indigenous self-determination (not self-administration of Settler approaches) in the fundamental institutions of society, such as child and family services, along with adequate resources, to stop the “care-to-prison pipeline” (Stewart and La Berge, 2019: 196).

Wyly's discussion of the intergenerational transmission of wealth through what he calls “property supremacy,” requires urgent policy attention. A mechanism for ensuring that some portion of capital gains on property cycles back to Indigenous nations (not unassigned general federal/provincial coffers) on whose traditional territories and homelands those gains were made seems appropriate. The bedrock items of reconciliation, around land and resources, must be among those tackled in that third sphere. My argument in this commentary has been that deepening our engagement with worldviews and the texture of places we share might help us create and sustain that bridging sphere of collaboration and planning for our urban future. As the Settler public becomes more diverse, with worldviews and place attachments from around the globe constituting the fabric of our cities, we need to work intently to build a coherent outlook and place attachment that can sustain us and hold us accountable for fulfilling our responsibilities to one another, particularly around decolonization.