In preparation of Indigenous Day on June 21, Cochranites are invited to participate in a personal and interactive learning experience.

Adapted for Treaty 7, a facilitated blanket exercise will occur tomorrow evening (June 19) covering over 500 years of history in a 1.5-hour participatory workshop. The blanket exercise will be facilitated by Chelsea Jackson and Cheryl Labelle who will lead participants, who take on the role of Indigenous peoples, by teaching them the rights and history that are rarely taught.   

Although initially, town staff were just looking at hosting an internal empathy-driven blanket exercise with Rocky View Schools, thanks to an engaged community member, a public facilitated workshop has also been added, shares Melissa Engdahl, member of the Town’s Equity & Inclusion Committee/Cochrane Resource Centre. "We had a community member reach out and say what can we do for National Indigenous Peoples' Day?! And we said we've got this so let's just see what we can do for the public side. So we have an internal session and a public session."

Improving relations with Indigenous people is echoed throughout the country but especially important to Cochrane as we neighbour the Stoney Nakoda Nation. Engdahl says improving relations needs to start with us just showing up in a sincere and authentic way. "One of the best quotes that I have heard is 'progress happens when we trust' and that really resonated with me. So it is really about trust building and we just need to keep showing up."

Engdahl does believe relations can improve over time especially on a local level. "I think right now sometimes things feel very polarized, not necessarily in the Cochrane community but certainly internationally. It is remembering we are talking about humans and we're talking about our neighbours. Sometimes on Facebook and social media, we dehumanize issues but I think Cochrane is still small enough and focused on people enough, that we can still make traction."

The free workshop runs from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Hall of Vision in the Cochrane RancheHouse and you can register by calling Family Community Support Services at 403-851-2255.