For millennia, grasslands have been a place of growth and healing, and the story of Ken Norquay and Gordon Beddome is a testament to this power. Join us and hear how this Anishinaabe cultural support worker and cattle producer got to know one another, and how their mutual generosity and connection to the prairie have made amazing things possible for their community. A note: This episode deals with history that may be difficult to listen to. Take care as you listen.
You’re listening to Where the Bluestem Grows: stories from Manitoba’s prairie grasslands.
I’m Evan Woelk Balzer.
For millennia, many Indigenous communities across the continent have shared a deep and reciprocal relationship with grasslands and their inhabitants, large and small. Today we’re visiting a sacred place, and exploring shared connections to the prairie. The story you’re about to hear also deals with history that may be hard to listen to. Take care as you listen.
Ken Norquay stands in a grove of oak, ash, and poplar trees on a gently sloping ridge near the Assiniboine river in southern Manitoba. He reaches into a small leather pouch and the black-capped chickadees perched nearby begin to swoop down in anticipation.
KEN
Eh they like the black seeds eh. What these ones, they really really like peanuts eh.
C’mon. C’mon. You’re okay. That’s how you have one.
Ken’s name in the Ojibwe language is Gaaneebwit Makwa, which means ‘Standing Bear.’ He’s a cultural support worker in his Anishinaabe community, and he’s standing on land that has been stewarded by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. While the property is privately owned today, it continues to be stewarded in part by community members.
Behind Ken, there are several small structures, including a warming hut and two sweat lodges, tucked in among the trees. For almost a decade now, Ken and his community have been hosting ceremony here, including sweats and smudges.
KEN
It's a place of healing, connection, getting back to the land and embracing what nature, what nature has for us.
People come for a variety of reasons, but that lodge there helps out the mental, the emotional, the physical, the spiritual part of the being, of the human being, to bring that balance back into that, to bring them all back into balance. I think we've all heard of mind, body and spirit. Our smudges our ceremonies- that's what that's what they do is they, they work on different parts to bring, to bring that, uh, balance and harmony back.
Ken is a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, which the National Centre of Truth and Reconciliation defines as an institutional tool of genocide meant to take Indigenous children away from their parents, their families, their nations and territories, and their culture to try to obliterate Indigenous identities.
KEN
Our people have been doing this for thousands of years, and to be separated from that is uh… to be separated from that is, it’s it’s hard.
Ken has been on a journey to reunite Indigenous peoples from these prairie grasslands with the old ways - to bring back ceremony, medicine harvest and gatherings that can help heal and reconnect people with their culture.
And that journey started with this piece of land - and the rancher who owned it.
GORDON
Hello
Good morning
GORDON
Morning, how are you
I’m Evan
GORDON
Yeah, Gordon Beddome
Thanks for having us
GORDON
Yeah come on in
Gordon Beddome welcomes me into his log home just up the hill from where Ken is feeding chickadees and we sit down at his wood stove.
He tells me the story of how he and Ken first met. Gordon was driving down to one of his prairie pastures when he spotted two people bent over in the ditch beside a gravel yard. He slowed down, got out of the truck, and walked over. Ken stood up and greeted him.
GORDON
Probably one of the first things he might have thought was, ‘Uh oh, I'm going to be in trouble for digging plants here because they they don't want, you don't want me here.’ And that wasn't the case at all. I was just interested in what he was doing.
After all, this wasn’t the ideal spot to be picking plants. Gravel trucks roared down the unpaved road and dust kicked up around them.
GORDON
Oh, I think I remember what I said. ‘Are you digging Seneca Root?’
He said no, he was uh, it was actually Echinacea he was looking at there and that's one plant I did notice as soon as I came down here with these pretty pink flowers all over the place.
From the ground-nesting grassland birds to the swaying wildflowers, the pastures that surround his place are a rare example of unbroken mixed-grass prairie.
GORDON
Like I say I just realized after being here just how precious it was, and I’ve always felt that way ever since.
So here are these two guys, looking at each other in the ditch with dust swirling all around them. After a beat, Gordon says ‘well why don’t you come and harvest these plants at my place? They’re all over the place.’
Ken and his wife started visiting Gordon’s prairie pastures to harvest traditional medicines and over the years, they built a friendship - organically - and at some point, Ken told Gordon about the tradition of building sweat lodges and gathering at them for ceremony. And Gordon realized that, in his small way, he could help Ken bring that practice back…
GORDON
there was a place along my lane that wasn't being used. So I told them if they wanted to put a sweat lodge in there, they could. And then his mom put one too, for the women. And it's been a, it's been a sacred spot for them ever since.
The relationship that has formed between Ken and Gordon over the years is one of generosity: Gordon’s generosity to invite Ken to this land. Ken’s generosity to educate Gordon about Anishinaabe culture and to reach across troubled history and a deep cultural divide with a spirit of openness and forgiveness.
Gordon is the first to share that he has learned so much from Ken through this friendship. Growing up, Gordon wasn’t taught to respect Indigenous values and customs.
GORDON
I grew up in a culture where systemic racism, we just, we, we discriminated. And um, and I've learned that just two people can have a friendship and a conversation, get to know and respect each other more so easily and it doesn't matter- doesn't matter the colour of our skin or the way we've been raised. You know, he's he's a really a nice guy. You know, he just- easy to like.
Ken invited Gordon and I to the warming shelter at the Spiritual Grounds. Ken got the fire going and when I asked about how the process of building the lodges started, the two of them laughed.
GORD
He came out here with a bunch of willows and started, he used a post hole auger, went around in a circle and started bending the willows in. Oh it started almost immediately.
Ken sits quietly, smiling and nodding as Gordon speaks. He believes that meeting Gordon was not an accident - it was meant to be. Gordon stops speaking and listens intently to his friend.
KEN
I do let him know as well too, Gord and his family that the Creator must be smiling down on him and his family for, for what they did. Because that means a lot to not only myself, my family and our, uh, our organization, and uh all others that come out here looking for help. I let them know that, uh, that, uh, that he's helping, helping people without him even knowing how much people he's helping.
For Ken, these acts of reconciliation begin with a choice.
KEN
Sometimes baby steps are good as well too eh, but, uh, engaging eh engaging because sitting back and waiting for somebody else to do it ain’t gonna get ya nowhere. If you get out there and start engaging with people, then you’ll, good things happen eh. Yeah and this is a prime example of, uh, of good things that happen, if you, if you engage eh, and not wait for others.
In many ways, these two men are both caregivers, stewards of different things, from cattle, to Echinacea plants, to the wellbeing of youth. But it was their relationship with one another that allowed them to take that commitment to nature and people to the next level.
It began with them setting aside old prejudices and considering a new path.
KEN
To take that step and, and start learning about each other in a good way, eh. Yeah. And building that, building that trust again eh. I know I've learned, I've learned lots, learned lots as well too, uh, building these partnerships or, whatever you want to, what you want to call it eh. They, uh, just having that openness, I guess you could say. Yeah.
GORD
When people misunderstand each other, that's how disagreements and bad feelings develop. When you go the other way and make an effort to understand each other and you start to realize the common ground you have, then good things start to happen.
So that's what, that’s what's happened with us.
KEN
Um, yeah, it sure has. Yeah.
Around the time that Ken and Gordon first met, Gordon decided to sell the adjacent prairie to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, who have partnered in support of ongoing traditional harvests on the land. Together with Ken and Gordon, these three partners chose that the land would continue to be used to support conservation, economic, and spiritual goals. After a fireside discussion at the Spiritual Grounds, they also agreed that the land needed a new name, which was then gifted by an Elder.
KEN
Wabano Aki in the Ojibway language, Tomorrows Land, yeah.
To Ken and his community, this prairie grassland is special and has much to give not just today, but long into the future as well.
KEN
We're preserving and thinking about those ones that are coming, what's going to be there for them tomorrow? What's going to be there for them tomorrows. Yeah. Yeah, because there's more than one generation that's coming. Our children, our children's children and so forth. That's what we're thinking about.
We have a responsibility to consider our place within the history of the grasslands. To think critically about where we can break cycles of mistrust. One place to start is with the land itself, which has the power to heal, if we let it bring us together.
Ken wanted me to share that it’s important to recognize the Spiritual Grounds and our conversation there as a teaching tool. His hope is that those listening will embrace this story and strive to rebuild the fractured and broken relationships damaged in the past. To him, this work acknowledges the Creator, nature, and the human family.
Where the Bluestem Grows was created by the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Our editor is Ashley Ahearn. Sound design and music by Jordan Jackview.
The audio for this episode was recorded on Treaty 1 land, the traditional territory of the Dakota, Anishinaabe, Anishininiwak, Dene and Ininiwak peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. We are grateful for these lands and their many stewards.
This project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada through the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change.