The other day I was feeling quite downhearted from all the negative news headlines about our troubled world. So, I decided to get in touch with my always-positive Stoney Nakoda friend Travis Rider, from Mînî Thnî (Morley), about joining me for coffee at the A&W. Things went way beyond my highest expectations.
Travis is highly regarded for his knowledge of, and respect for, his ancestral language and culture. This includes his roles in Indigenous relations hosting and archiving at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, in Banff.
But his role for me the other day was just to bring me up to date on his enjoyment of life.
Our conversation began with his reflections on the traditional values that have guided him during these turbulent times. At the heart of them, he stressed, was ahopabi, “respect.” That had a special significance for our relations with nature, the Creator’s handiwork.
How did he keep that value so fresh in his heart and mind? He took lots of photos on his hikes along our foothill and mountain trails. From his social media postings, I was aware of that, so I asked him whether he’d brought any with him.
And wow, did he ever accommodate me! He reached into his pocket, pulled out his iPhone and began taking me on a refreshing journey down memory lane – a journey even his wildlife friends participated in. At my request, he’s allowing me to include some of those photos with this week’s column.
In addition to a photo of Travis overlooking the Valley of Ten Peaks, there were those deer in Kananaskis Country and an elk in Jasper. One eye-catching photo was of a white grizzly, popularly known as Nakoda here in the Bow Valley.
And then, at the top of his King Creek hike, there was that intriguing encounter with a chipmunk who seemed to be in its own conversational mood, as he looked engagingly at Travis.
Conversational mood? Yes! And Travis’s conversation with me the other day was really good medicine. One unexpected consequence was how his image-enriched words made a passage about the Creator in a Psalm I’d been looking at earlier that morning come to life. I’d been reading Psalm 148, and the words echoed in my soul more vividly now than ever before: “Praise the Lord from the earth…mountains and all hills, …wild animals.”
Thank you, Travis. Pinamâa chano.
© 2023 Warren Harbeck
