Indigenous Meeting Experiences Around Calgary

Including Indigenous experiences into your Calgary meeting can be incredibly powerful. The nations of Treaty 7, the land that Calgary sits on, have rich and distinctive cultures. While all meeting planners are encouraged to work with local Indigenous partners, there are ways to ensure that it is a positive experience both for delegates and the participating nations.

Any work with Indigenous partners must be built on relationships. These relationships are not transactional. They are built over time through genuine intention that goes deeper than businesses purposes. This is your opportunity to help these communities share their culture and history with others. It is important and exciting work! Before contacting any of the Treaty 7 Nations directly, it is advised that you go through one of the following organizations:

• The City of Calgary’s Indigenous Relations Office

• Indigenous Tourism Alberta (ITA)

• Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC)

Indigenous Tourism Alberta has created a fantastic toolkit for working with Indigenous partners .

Incorporating authentic Indigenous gifting into your meeting can be very meaningful for delegates. It may take more effort to set up compared to working with a large supplier, but it will be far more impactful. Here are some local Indigenous-owned suppliers:

• Authentically Indigenous

• Boy Chief Trading Post

• Colouring it Forward

• Inuvialuit Craft Shop

• KORITE Ammolite

• Loretta’s Wellness Circle

• Moonstone Creation

• Mystical Metis

• Redman Customs

• Transformation Fine Art

There are many ways to weave Indigenous experiences into your meeting, from live demonstrations, to Elder blessings, to guided tours.

Artist Demonstrations

Live demonstrations are an amazing way to create memorable interactions between delegates and Indigenous artists. The following three artists have all had experience with this type of work:

• Kim Brothers from Moonstone Creation handed out traditional beading kits and did live beading demonstrations for Tourism Calgary at Convening Leaders 2024.

• mikho maskwa (Red Bear), also known as Chance Bellegarde is the artist behind Redman Customs . He did a wood carving demonstration at the 2023 World Petroleum Congress.

• Jason Carter from Carter-Ryan Gallery did a live sculpture demonstration at the 2023 Rendez-vous Canada.

Blessings, Panelists, and Performers

Starting off a meeting with an Elder blessing helps ground the rest of the event to the land, to relationships, and to reciprocity. There are often separate protocols for engaging Elders. Indigenous Tourism Alberta can help facilitate connections with Elders from the Treaty 7 Nations and provide suggestions for panelists, speakers, and powwow dancers.

Guided Tours

If you’re looking to incorporate a team-building activity into your meeting, these Indigenous-owned tour companies will provide cultural experiences with authentic knowledge keepers.

• Dodging Horse Ranch

• Experience Metis

• Mahikan Trails

• Painted Warriors

• Spotted Eagle Contracting

• Zuc’min Guiding

Offsite Venues

Sometimes it’s nice to give your group a change of scenery and these offsite venues offer unique opportunities to engage with Indigenous culture.

• Blackfoot Crossing

• The Confluence Historic Site & Parkland

• Grey Eagle Resort & Casino

• Heritage Park

It is recommended to start all events, large and small, with a land acknowledgement. This shows respect for the land that the meeting is being held on and the peoples who have traditionally lived there. Land acknowledgements can be done by anyone but the person giving it should understand the significance of the words included and add in some notes of personal reflection.

Struggling with where to start? The Indigenous Relations Office of the City of Calgary has created an example land acknowledgement that includes pronunciations.

• There are 630+ First Nation communities in Canada with more than 60 distinct languages spoken

• There are approximately 2M Indigenous people and 600K Métis People in Canada

• Approximately 50% of the Indigenous population in Canada live in cities

• More than 41,000 Indigenous people live in Calgary

• The area known today as Calgary has several traditional names:

  • Moh-kins-tsis (moh-GIN’-stis) - Blackfoot

  • Wicispa Oyade (weh-CHIS’-spa oh-YAH’-day) - Stoney Nakoda

  • Guts-ists-I (GOOT’-sis) - Tsuut’ina

  • Otos-kwunee (oh-TUSS’ - kwanee) - Métis