Minister Julie Dabrusin and Elder Leonard Weasel Traveller of the Manitou Asinîy-Iniskim-Tsa Xani Centre sign a Memorandum of Understanding securing land in Elk Island National Park for MAITX to establish a permanent home for the Manitou Stone.Supplied
The fireball would have lit up the skies as it streaked over present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan, visible for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. The sonic boom it likely created when it detonated in the stratosphere likely startled the once-great herds of bison, and announced the arrival of a sacred, celestial body as old as time itself.
Nobody knows for sure exactly when the Manitou Stone meteorite crashed to Earth in the north-western reaches of the Canadian Prairies, but the oral histories of Cree, Blackfoot and Dene peoples memorialized it.
“It came from the Creator and was brought here to help our people,” said Wally Fox, a Cree knowledge keeper and former chief of the Onion Lake Cree Nation.
The stone’s arrival generations ago placed it at the intersection of Cree and Blackfoot territories, near present-day Hardisty, Alta. The event was so well known even Dene people from farther north were known to venture south to visit the stone. For those who witnessed it, the moment was a message from the creator; a message of peace.
“Historically there had been rivalry between the Cree and the Blackfoot,” Mr. Fox said. According to legend, as word of the stone spread, members of the nations came to gather where it fell. Violence at the site was forbidden, Mr. Fox explained. Wars ended, and shared traditions began. The site became central to the spirituality of all three nations, Mr. Fox said.
As all three began to interact more frequently at the stone, they started to work more closely together, to trade with and support one another, Mr. Fox said. The Manitou Stone was central to all of it.
But generations after the stone fell to Earth, it wound up on a different journey of more than a century. After being taken by a Methodist missionary from its landing place to Ontario, and then later, from museum to museum, a new agreement has opened the door to placing it back on Alberta territory where the First Nations for whom it is still sacred can have access to it.
The Manitou stone is known by many names: Manitou Asinîy (meaning Creator Stone) in Cree; Iniskim (meaning Buffalo Stone) in Blackfoot; and Tsa Xani (meaning God Stone) in Dene.
It isn’t actually made of stone at all, but iron. It’s a meteorite about a metre wide and weighing 145 kilograms; its smooth, rounded exterior the result of melting from the incredible heat generated as it crashed through the atmosphere. It is shaped – in the eyes of some – like the head of a bison. It is about four billion years old, roughly equal in age to the Earth itself.
According to UBC astronomy professor Aaron Boley, it likely crashed to Earth as part of what is known as a “bolide” event thousands of years ago. The vast majority of shooting stars that people see in the night sky are tiny specs of space dust weighing a gram or less falling through the atmosphere, Dr. Boley explained. Anything up to about 10 centimetres in diameter burns up long before it reaches the Earth, creating the streaks of light that we see.
When meteors reach about a metre in size, they don’t burn up. They often create bright fireballs that streak across the sky and explode as they reach the stratosphere, roughly 20 kilometres above Earth, scattering their leftover pieces across a wide area. Very large exploding meteors – called bolide events – can sometimes create sonic booms intense enough to shatter glass.
Bolide events themselves are not astonishingly rare. Dr. Boley said they occur about once every week or two.
But a meteorite the size of Manitou Asinîy is quite rare. For one to have been witnessed as it fell is even more unlikely. Of the roughly 1,300 witnessed meteorite falls in all of human history, only 60 have been iron meteorites larger than 100 kilograms.
Given its size, Manitou Asinîy was likely part of a very significant bolide event, Dr. Boley said, which helped cement its arrival in the oral histories of so many Indigenous peoples who witnessed it.
“This is something that has been part of humanity since humanity existed, has formed parts of our cultures around the world, and has produced meaning in different ways,” he said. “If you hold one of those rocks ... you’re holding one of the oldest things you could possibly hold.”
After it landed, it’s believed the Manitou Stone was placed on a nearby hilltop, where it sat for centuries and was venerated as a sacred site and a living being.
Indigenous repatriation is under way – but gaps remain in measuring progress
In 1866, the Manitou Stone was taken by a Methodist missionary named George McDougall, and eventually moved to his alma mater, a Methodist college in Coburg, Ont., which became part of the University of Toronto.
For Mr. Fox, the stone’s removal marked the beginning of a long, dark chapter in his peoples’ history. According to prophecy, if the stone were ever moved from its honoured location, then war, famine and death would follow, he said.
“My elders explained to me that they saw a vision that First Nations people are going to go through many hardships because that rock was taken,” he said.
After the theft, the buffalo, which many believed were protected by the stone, were hunted to extinction by settlers. Communities began to starve, and war returned between the Blackfoot and the Cree, Mr. Fox said. The hardships have continued since then.
Eventually the stone was displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. In 1972, it was placed on long-term loan at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton and moved closer to its original home.
In the early 2000s, the museum undertook consultations with 33 First Nations in Alberta and Saskatchewan, hoping to find a consensus on where the stone should eventually be placed to make it more accessible to the nations for whom it still holds sacred power.
In 2015, with the release of Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action, renewed emphasis was placed on returning the stone to the land it came from. It was also the year Mr. Fox first saw the stone himself, at a public gallery at the Royal Alberta Museum. He laid his hands on it and said he heard it speak in his native Cree language.
“It said, ‘Grandson, help me take me home. I want to go home.’”
Hardisty, Alta. is at the intersection of Cree and Blackfoot territories, and is now covered in farmland.Alix Van Der Donckt-Ferrand/The Globe and Mail
But the hilltop in Hardisty where it had sat for generations is now surrounded by farmland. The once-plentiful bison the stone represented to Blackfoot people are gone, and reaching a consensus on where to move the stone proved harder than expected.
Mr. Fox worked with Blaine Favel, former chief of the Poundmaker Cree Nation and former Grand Chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, along with Piikani Elder Leonard Weasel Traveller and others to help find a solution.
In 2023, the Manitou Asinîy-Iniskim-Tsa Xani (MAITX) Centre was born, a non-profit organization dedicated to the return of the Manitou Stone.
Years of more negotiations followed, and on July 13, Parks Canada signed a memorandum of understanding with MAITX, setting the stage for an eventual interpretive centre on a former golf course at Elk Island National Park, outside Edmonton.
There are other hurdles still to cross. The agreement only allows for the eventual creation of the centre, but doesn’t include any funding. The MAITX board is hopeful the federal and Alberta governments will help cover the costs of building the centre, and running it. The board is fundraising. There will be more negotiations.
But for Mr. Fox, the eventual outcome isn’t in question.
“When you ask for prayers from the Creator Mother Earth and the spirit helpers, they will not answer you on your timeline,” he said. “They will answer you when they feel it’s time for you to be able to receive the prayers.”
“In our language, the Cree word is ahkamaymoh, which means persevere. Don’t ever give up."