A treaty between 71 First Nations in Canada and the U.S. is working to return buffalo to Indigenous communities.

Indigenous communities who sign onto the treaty must ensure a safe space for the buffalo to live and co-habitat on the land. Signatories must also promote buffalo’s place in culture, conservation, health, education and research.

Peepeekisis Cree Nation, near Balcarres Sask., is one of the nations who have signed the treaty. Back in 2014, it released a herd of 22 buffalo on band-owned lands.

Since then, the community has shared that same growing herd with Zagime Anishinabek, a Saulteaux First Nation.

Headman Alan Bird, from Peepeekisis, was there when the buffalo came back in 2014 and he’s been closely involved with the animals ever since.

Bird said the community expanded their pasture and watering areas over the last 10 years, and volunteers are coming to help out.

“It’s a good relationship. It’s always a good feeling and it’s a good healthy way to carry out a day,” said Bird.

Alan Bird and Ron Steckly became friends over the years of working together with the buffalo on Peepeekisis Cree Nation. (Heidi Atter/CBC)

Bird’s son-in-law and two other men approached chief and council 10 years ago because they knew of a man in Alberta — Ron Steckley — who owned buffalo and wanted to bring them to Saskatchewan.

“We started off discussions and we were a little bit weary at first because we wondered why these people would want to bring Buffalo for free to our nation,” Bird said.

Bird said Steckley and his producers wanted to do a paper contract of the deal, but they told Steckley they wanted to do it in the ceremonial way.

“After we were done, we took that paper and threw it away and said ‘No, we will shake hands, we will honour your words, you will honour our words,'” said Bird.

“That ceremony we just finished, that’s more than that paper.”

Bird recently attended a Buffalo Treaty signing at Brokenhead Ojibway Nation in Manitoba and helped move some of Peepeekisis’s herd to their new homes.

“It’s our paying it forward of the buffalo returning to the land of our First Nation,” said Bird.

In an interview ahead of the signing, Bird said they were planning to have a ceremony at the signing and also wanted to share how to take care of the animals.

‘It’s going to happen’

Award-winning filmmaker Tasha Hubbard, from Peepeekisis Cree Nation, created a documentary spotlighting communities rematriating the buffalo across the northern plains called Singing Back the Buffalo.

Hubbard said the Buffalo Treaty stemmed from a conversation between communities and elders in Saskatchewan.

“The elders said, ‘It’s time, we need to bring the buffalo back, but we’re going to need other nations to help,'” she told CBC Radio’s Unreserved.

Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard says the Buffalo Treaty is about returning the animals to the land but also about raising what she called “buffalo consciousness” in communities. (Submitted by Tasha Hubbard)

The first treaty was signed between eight nations in 2014 — four on the south side of the Medicine Line (the border) and four on the north side.

Hubbard said the treaty covers all elements on how buffalo were once present in Indigenous Peoples lives and how they impacted the elements such as culture, conservation, education and livelihood.

“It’s a commitment to bringing the buffalo back… physically onto tribal land,” Hubbard said. “If not it’s raising buffalo consciousness within the community, within the schools, within different elements within our healthcare.”

Buffalo consciousness is remembering the once powerful relationship Indigenous people had with the buffalo before they almost became extinct.

Anthony Blair Dreaver Johnston is a member of the Mistawasis Nêhiyawak, and acts as a special advisor for his First Nation.

Dreaver Johnston’s community doesn’t have their own buffalo yet but help care for Sturgeon River Plains bison herd.

His great-grandfather, who lived from 1813 to 1896, had spoke during the treaty 6 signing that there was a need to protect the buffalo

Dreaver Johnston said his grandfather saw the buffalo come to a point of extinction.

LISTEN | Reflecting on 10 years of buffalo returning to Saskatchewan:  

“His hope was to protect the buffalo for the future,” Dreaver Johnston said.

He said knows communities may not be able to bring back the millions of buffalo that once roamed the lands, but he’s still hopeful.

“We will be working towards that for 150 years and it’s going to happen, the buffalo will come back, we’ll bring our brother, our grandfather’s buffalo, back to our lands.”