Gathering at Fort Qu'Appelle to mark 150 years of Treaty 4

A week of activities starting Monday in Fort Qu'Appelle, Sask., about 65 kilometres northeast of Regina, will mark the 150th anniversary of the signing of Treaty 4.

Treaty 4 gatherings are held annually at the site where the treaty was signed, with traditional and educational teachings, games, ceremony, storytelling, and powwow demonstrations.

Zagime Anishinabek Chief Lynn Acoose said the gathering is for people to celebrate and honour the signing of the treaty between First Nations and the Crown. 

"When we entered into a treaty with the Crown, our people brought with them all of our laws and our world view," she said. 

"We also brought with us our obligations to creation which meant our relationship with all of creation." 

Treaty 4 was signed on Sept. 15, 1874 between the Cree, Assiniboine and Saulteaux peoples and the Crown. It covers about 195,000 square kilometres of territory: most of southern Saskatchewan and a western segment of Manitoba.

"Treaty people are both the Indigenous First Nations people and the non-Indigenous people residing within a treaty territory," Acoose said. 

"Anyone who benefits from them living within that treaty territory are treaty people."

Acoose said when Treaty 4 was signed, the treaty commissioner promised a representative of the Crown would be present annually to present treaty annuity payments and "discuss matters of the treaty." 

Acoose said an annual gathering took place at the site for the first few years following the signing, but after the Northwest Resistance, the federal government introduced restrictions on First Nations people leaving their reserves, preventing gatherings. 

The event was resurrected in the early 1990s, she said, and has happened ever since. 

In 2023, Marian Donnelly, founder of Creative City Centre in Regina, worked on the Scarth Street Path to Reconciliation painting on paving stones, which looks like a beaded belt.  

She said her understanding of Treaty 4 was that it was intended to provide guidance to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people about how to live together. 

Although she was born and raised in Regina — within Treaty 4 territory — she said she didn't know much about the agreement until later in her life. At 50, she learned the significance behind the saying "we are all treaty people." 

"We are all signatories to that, to those agreements," she said.

Donnelly said there's more learning resources available today than there used to be about the treaties, but feels the education system is still catching up. 

"I just really hope that people take a moment to think about the fact that we're over 150 years into this and, and [ask] what do we want the next 150 years to look like?" she said.

LISTEN | This week marks 150 since the signing of Treaty 4 in what is now Fort Qu'Appelle. We used this opportunity to dig into the significance of this and a check-in on how we are doing as a country at upholding our treaty obligations. 

Blue Sky49:35Treaty 4 was signed 150 years ago. Here's why it matters today.

The gathering in Fort Qu'Appelle runs until Sunday and features commemoration ceremonies, a feast, a powwow and forums for youth, citizens, elders and chiefs.