Piikani Chief challenges Stoney bid to change southern Alberta place names
Calgary – A bid by a group of First Nations to have well-known places across southern Alberta, including Calgary, renamed in their language is being challenged by the chief of another Indigenous community.
The Stoney Nakoda have applied to the Alberta government to change the names of Calgary and dozens other sites that they consider to be part of their territory.
They wrote in a letter that they are the original occupants of the land and that a lack of recognition increases the threat to the Stoney Nakoda’s heritage.
But Chief Stanley Grier of the Piikani Nation says the cultural, historic and archaeological record contradicts the Stoney Nakoda’s claim to be the area’s original occupants.