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University of Alberta OLD MAN’S PLAYING GROUND: AN INTERGROUP MEETING AND GAMING PLACE ON THE PLAINS/PLATEAU FRONTIER by Gabriel M. Yanicki A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfi llment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Anthropology ©Gabriel M. Yanicki Spring 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientifi c research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author’s prior written permission. ABSTRACT Though it has been destroyed, much can be learned from an interdisciplinary study of Old Man’s Playing Ground. Oral traditions of the Piikáni, from whom a plurality of accounts about the playing ground are known, and other First Nations of the Northwest Plains and Interior Plateau, together with textual records spanning centuries, show it to be a place of en- during cultural signifi cance irrespective of its physical remains. Knowledge of the site and the hoop-and-arrow game played there is widespread, in keeping with historic and ethnographic accounts of multiple groups meeting and gambling at the site. Archaeological investigation of the adjacent site DlPo-8 suggests a shift at this locale from residential occupation to ceremony and trade in the Late Prehistoric period, with evidence of trade together with gambling point- ing towards the site’s role as an intergroup trade fair location. PREFACE For both the archaeologist and the native dweller, the landscape tells – or rather is – a story. It enfolds the lives and times of predecessors who, over the generations, have moved around it and played their part in its formation. To perceive the landscape is therefore to carry out an act of remembrance, and remembering is not so much a matter of calling up an internal image, stored in the mind, as of engaging perceptu- ally with an environment that is itself pregnant with the past [Ingold 1993:152-153]. My scholarly interest in the Oldman Gap began over a decade ago with a chance read- ing of Peter Fidler’s Journal of a Journey by Land from Buckingham House to the Rocky Mountains in 1792 &3 (Fidler 1991; Hudson’s Bay Company Archives [HBCA] E.3/2). Of all the stomping grounds of my youth, the Gap is the one I remain fondest of; I was quite surprised to see it mentioned in the journal of the fi rst European explorer to venture into southern Alberta. This interest led to an honours thesis in archaeology at the University of Calgary (Yanicki 1999) and has continued to be the driving impetus for my graduate research. I am very aware that this work is far from complete. I make no apologies for this: down every avenue of inquiry that I have followed thus far, there is something unexpected to be learned and a new path to take. I have learned the most by far from the elders, ceremonial- ists, and traditional knowledge holders from several First Nations who have generously shared their time with me, and who have gently reminded me that the stories Fidler recorded in his journal are a refl ection of vibrant, living traditions that continue to this day. I am grateful for this opportunity to share what I have learned; it is my hope that this work is but a chapter in a story that for generations to come will continue to unfold. The Gap is the spot where the Oldman River fl ows out of the Livingstone Range, the long wall of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains that extends north for a distance of about 35 km from the Crowsnest Pass. From the east, the Livingstones exude a forbidding, impenetrable air, and there are but few ways through. One is the broad Crowsnest Pass at the range’s southernmost end, where the Crowsnest River makes its way out of the mountains; the other, to the north, is the Gap. Beyond this, the range loses some of its imposing charac- ter, obscured by a rugged range of foothills known as the Whaleback, but the Livingstones’ southern extent marks a very abrupt transition between the Rockies to the west and the prai- ries to the east. From the Crowsnest to the Oldman, the prairies seem to roll right up to the mountains’ feet. I fi rst visited the Gap in my late teens, camping in the mountains with friends. We set out from Barons, a small town on the prairies, and headed due west over the Porcupine Hills with nothing but a tent, a few backpacks, and a cooler full of beer. I was a newcomer to the area; I had no idea what to expect. At the crest of the Porcupines on the old Starline Road, you can make out the Livingstone Range from between towering stands of lodgepole pine and Douglas fi r, but the Gap itself is hard to discern. It is concealed, secretive, a hidden parting through what from a distance looks like a continuous range. Only when much closer can you see that the Livingstones are actually two ranges, slightly offset and overlapping, with a narrow cleft between them through which the southeast-fl owing Oldman must suddenly veer north before resuming its previous course, making an S-shaped curve. I’ve made the trip countless times since, and still a sense of anticipation builds when I reach Highway 22, cross to the south side of the Oldman, and follow the gravel secondary road past Maycroft, past the Smith and Dennis ranches on the river’s south bank, and past the cattle guard that marks the entrance to the forest reserve. From here, one last bend takes you to the very foot of the mountains, following them north; another long, sweeping turn and the Gap is revealed, a narrow ravine with the blue-green waters of the Oldman far below. Through this ravine, the road swiftly descends and switches back to the south; at the narrowest part, only a manmade embankment separates the rapids from the rock of the mountain itself. Another few hundred meters and the Livingstones are traversed, and the broad inter- montane Livingstone Trench opens out, running north to south with the Livingstone Range on the eastern fl ank and the Main Range of the Rockies to the west. Here there are creeks and rivers that fl ow into the Upper Oldman, few that I haven’t put a fl y line into with my old man; horse trails over the continental divide into British Columbia that are an adventure for another day; peaks and valleys with names like Sugarloaf Mountain, the Beehive, and Cow Juicer Pass; and one nameless hump of rock which I once climbed with my old friends, where we carved our initials into the trunk of a gnarled snag and lightened our packs of the beer that we’d hauled all that way. My perception of the place has changed as my understanding of its history, and of its cultural signifi cance, has grown. A short time before beginning my fi eld work for this study in the summer of 2010, I visited the Gap with Piikáni ceremonialist Allan Pard, Mikskimmisu- kahsim (‘Iron Shirt’). I was taught to approach the Gap in a different way: to leave offerings to honour and respect all those who have come before, and to proceed with the intention of my work being of benefi t to the First Nations communities whose heritage sites in the Gap represent. It is with those same intentions that I put forward the following report. Acknowledgements Earlier drafts of some sections of this study have previously been prepared as term papers for classes during my graduate studies at the University of Alberta. The Preface and Chapter VII are substantially reworked portions of a term paper for Dr. Charles Schweger’s Cultural Landscapes course in the Winter of 2010. Large parts of Chapters II and III were prepared for Dr. Lisa Philips’s Ethnohistory course, also in the Winter 2010 semester, al- though the conclusions have been signifi cantly amended. Chapter IV is an updated version of a term paper submitted for Dr. Duane Froese’s Quaternary Geosciences course in the Fall of 2009. Their guidance and advice through these earlier drafts is greatly appreciated; Dr. Philips’s provision of a research assistantship to visit the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg and Dr. Froese’s provision of funding, lab access, and materials for the radiocarbon dates presented here are gratefully acknowledged. It has been a rare privelege to work with traditional knowledge holders from several communities during the course of this research. I am very thankful to Allan Pard, Art Calling Last, Henry Holloway, and Bruce Starlight for sharing their time and knowledge, and for their great patience in working with a rank newcomer to this type of study. I hope that my work does justice to the great faith they have put in me. Funding for this study has been provided by a Roger Soderstrom Scholarship Grant from the Alberta Historical Resource Foundation. I would like to thank Brian Ronaghan, Robin Woywitka, Eric and Joan Damkjar, and others at the Archaeological Survey of Alberta for their assistance over the course of this research.