We are embarking on a massive moment in this journey (project)! It is the First Peoples’ House (FPH) doorway...this was not an easy part of the project overall, I must say. And now, I know it will be the most spectacular door of all doors across this very Nation!
First Peoples’ House iskwâhtêm (door) is not merely a door, as one might think. The iskwâhtêm speaks to the release of a decrepit dam, decades old, a dam built by colonial settlers and systems not to tame okâwîmâwaskiy (Mother Earth), but to strangle her, along with the First Peoples of these lands.
The iskwâhtêm holds back thresholds of Truth Tellings, whispering the stories that have long pressed against silence. It opens the beginning of Truth, to honour beginnings long denied. Let me be clear, this was a battle among battles, one not easily understood by those who have never had to ask for the right to enter.
We were asked, why did we need our own doorway? Because we have always deserved a way through that was ours, one that carried not only our languages, but our prayers, our people and our histories into its very frame.
There came a moment of reckoning just to have this very door. I knew deep into my soul that our ancestors were standing right there. The First Peoples of Canada have waited far too long for this moment, 119 years in fact. Refusing to be hushed into corners, what we have been taught to do our whole lives, moved to: Stand UP! Speak UP! Do not SETTLE! This moment right here not only honoured a door, by doing so, it honoured every step that brought us to it.
The iskwâhtêm (door) is not merely a door as one might think. It faces East to greet the first light, and sits in alignment with our most sacred of Lodges. It is carved from resistance and a time for reckoning. It is the Starblanket (a piece of FPH logo), intentionally. Everything is intentional. This holds the most sacred meaning of our ways and being within our Nations of how we honour, care and protect our people.
This door holds our voices echoing outside these walls of this very institution, never for us to enter. We were silenced by the weight of exclusion.
Now as our voices begin to rise, it makes some uneasy and uncomfortable.
Now, this doorway stands as Ceremony, as reclamation of a passage our nêhiyawak ancestors dreamed of but were kept from crossing through.
Who would ever think reconciliation can be made tangible, through sovereignty shaped in timber, glass and steel.
When we walk through, we do not simply enter a building; it is as though we step into history, into healing, into a future where First Peoples’ House students and staff arrive not as guests, but as rightful keepers of the wâpan (dawn).
All I can think of is years from now, after I have left kikâwînaw askiy (Mother Earth), of the thousands upon thousands of brilliant and bright First Nation, Métis and Inuit scholars who will enter through these very doors who will go on to pursue higher learning. I will take comfort in knowing that they will walk paths truly illuminated by the strength of their relatives who came before them and fulfilled the dreams we only dared to imagine. Eventually, they too will blaze a trail that glows and make their mark as global citizens and kind-hearted Leaders. I know First Peoples' House staff and I are truly ready to say pîhtokwê ta-tawâw (come in; you’re welcome; there is room for you — and there will be) in the deepest sense to our UAlberta First Nation, Métis and Inuit students in isistâwin (ceremony) in August 2026.