There was a specter hanging over Seth Dodginghorse’s family. Their home—the home of his grandmother, an elder of the Tsuut’ina tribe, the home where many of his relatives were entombed, where the family sweat lodge had proudly stood, offering prayers and meditations to the ancestors—was smack in the middle of the Canadian government’s plans for a new highway.
But after decades of the Tsuut’ina tribe holding strong to their land, they had been worn down. The tribe finally agreed, in a landmark deal with the Canadian government, to allow construction of a highway on their reserve. The Canadians moved more quickly than Seth’s family was prepared for. When he and his mother came back from a summer vacation, a council member phoned them to announce that they had just two weeks to pack up and move. Seth was incensed, not just for himself, but for his grandmother. His whole life, he’d been taught to respect and revere his elders. Now he was helpless, watching a group of men uproot his grandmother’s life without so much as a courtesy visit to her home. With nothing else to do, the family started packing.
Seth came home one day soon after to find the trees surrounding the family’s sweat lodge torn from the sky. Beneath his feet, the soil held generations of his ancestors. Soon it would be glazed over with concrete—the quiet of the forest now home to the cacophonous sounds of traffic jams and the smell of gasoline.
“We lost everything,” he says. “And I know exactly how my ancestors feel, because everything that happened to them happened to my family.”
Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the violent conquest of the North American continent knows that the creation of the countries we now take for granted relied on the displacement of indigenous peoples. And for Seth, the land deal wasn’t painful only because it was impacting him directly. It also felt like a betrayal of the people who fought to defend the land they were standing on to begin with.
As Seth tells it, the Tsuut’ina have a special claim to the land near Fish Creek in Canada. In 1877, the tribe was pressured to sign a treaty with the Canadian government and moved onto a giant reservation called Blackfoot Crossing. Of course, the new land wasn’t nearly as desirable as what they’d called home prior to the arrival of the colonists: The buffalo were wiped out, food was scarce, and government rations were meager.
The chief who signed the treaty, Bullhead, saw his people starving and must have figured that he had nothing else to lose. The Tsuut’ina tribe—everyone from the children to the elders—armed themselves and made haste for Fort Calgary. When they finally captured the fort, they named their terms: their own reserve on a mutually agreed-upon plot of land. Ottawa, facing the likely destruction of one of its military forts, had no choice but to agree.
When Bullhead finally led his tribe to their newfound and chosen home, he placed a rock on the hill that overlooks the reserve. One by one, the tribe followed, forming a cairn to honor the land and the sacrifices made for it. “The pile was a physical reminder to never sell the land because they fought so hard for it,” Seth says.
Over a century later, in the present day, Seth was going about his business when he received a phone call from a friend. Did he see? the friend wondered. The highway was officially opening—one full year ahead of schedule. And there would be a celebration to honor the occasion. He figured Seth should know, considering the tragedy the construction caused to his family.
That night, Seth couldn’t sleep. So instead, he went to Chief Bullhead’s rock cairn and knelt before the stones on the ground. He was horrified that he could see the nearly completed highway just over the rocks—and all the surrounding areas of the reserve damaged by the construction. He remembered his ancestors, especially his grandfather, Big Plume, who was Chief Bullhead’s brother. And then he said a prayer. “Tomorrow is the big day that I’ve been terrified of,” he said. “I’ve anticipated this and I’ve been afraid of it for six years, and I thought I would have more time to prepare for it, but tomorrow it is.”
In the pocket of his bag, there was a pair of scissors. Seth typically wore his braids, long and black, as many indigenous men do: to honor their ancestors, to carry their memories, and to proudly display their power and culture. Even though he’d worn his braids since he was just 11 years old, for the past six years, he’d plait his hair, contemplating the loss of his home, his traditions, and his heritage. “I was taught by my grandparents to only wear my hair braided out, and the only time I would cut it is to do so out of respect to the ones we lost,” he says. He thought about cutting them right then: There was so much to grieve. After his prayer, though, he kept the scissors down. It wasn’t the right time, he realized. It still felt impossible that all of this was happening so suddenly.
The next morning, Seth was surprisingly clear-headed for having just two hours of sleep. He told his mother that he was going to the ceremony, and of course, she was unsurprised. She handed him a letter that she’d prepared, and he stuffed it into his pocket.
Once he arrived, he saw a group of men, jubilant, waiting to have their pictures taken. These were the people who had displaced his family without a care for where they went next. Now, he could see into their eyes. There was Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary. There was Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, whose political running mate once compared gay people to pedophiles. There was Ric McIver, the Alberta Transportation Minister. And there was the Tsuut’ina Chief, Roy Whitney, to sanctify the occasion. The press surrounded them, streaming live to social media and to cable news. After surveying the scene, Seth knew he had to seize the podium.
“It reminded me of being ill-prepared for the worst ever class presentation,” he says. Behind him stood men dressed in imperial military attire. Seth was wearing a plaid button-down shirt, grasping his bag clumsily in his hands. For years, his family was silent about their displacement and the trauma that accompanied it. Now, Seth was standing in front of a microphone, talking to the whole world.
“Imagine your home and your history being removed, all in the name of progress,” he said, his voice steady. “I’ve watched people say this economic development is bringing prosperity, bridging together two nations. But you can’t bring prosperity when you erase the women that came from this land.”
Seth gestured towards his bag, and told the crowd that he carries with him dirt from his family’s former plot of land. “It’s for protection and strength to survive and endure this,” he said. And then, he made a plea of his own: “I need all of you to be open to conversations. I want you to know the history I will forever carry...the history of this road, the history of my family, this will be known and shared. Today is not a good day. It’s not a day to be shaking hands and smiling.”
As the words came out of his mouth, Seth remembered the scissors that were in his pocket. He realized exactly the conclusion his speech was coming to. “With this, I leave a piece of me with the road,” he said, his voice in perfect measure. And then, he severed each of his braids, the satisfying clip of the scissors echoing through the microphone. Then, he thanked the men behind him for allowing him the chance to share his story.
After he stepped down, Seth realized the gravity of what he’d done. “I’m just going to leave that piece of me there,” he says. “This grief, all this stuff I’ve carried over the past six years? I’m going to leave it there. In a way, it was the end of a part of my life. And maybe, the beginning of the next.” Chief Whitney was, according to a local report, “visibly upset,” claiming that the highway was a “community decision.” Seth’s speech went viral. A clip of him cutting his hair now has over 4.5 million views on Twitter.
Whitney is, of course, technically correct. The community did vote—after decades of entertaining land development, voting it down, fighting it, and arguing over it—to approve the construction of the highway. But in many ways, these agreements feel practically forced onto indigenous communities who have, throughout history, been asked to relinquish the land they cared for to the destructive greed of white settlers. As with anything when it comes to government, how much of this was a community decision versus a procedure to uphold the illusion of choice? In other words, what other options were there?
A part of Seth understands this, of course. And he knew, taking the microphone, that he could never get his home back. That his speech wouldn’t reverse the years of damage done to his loved ones, or to himself. But so long as there was a ceremony and people were going to speak, he, the displaced, was going to be heard. What nobody seems to understand when they cut their giant ribbons and clink their flutes of champagne, is that land has a history. And by silencing Seth Dodginghorse, the men gathered there that day were preventing that history from being told.
Even though there’s not quite a happy ending for Seth and his family, there is a sense of relief in finally being listened to. “So many people heard what I said, and a part of the reason they heard it was because of what I sacrificed by cutting my hair,” he says. “In a way, my prayers and my offerings were answered.”
Related Stories for GQHair