What to Know About the Siksikaitsitapi Medicine Wheel in Nose Hill Park

Built by members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in 2015, the Siksikaitsitapi Medicine Wheel was designed to encourage education and connection.

Photo by Jared Sych.

Built by members of the 
Blackfoot Confederacy in 2015, the Siksikaitsitapi Medicine Wheel marks sacred ground once used for ceremony and gathering. The area in the southeast corner of Nose Hill Park was formerly a lookout point over the rolling grasslands for game or members of other tribes. Stone circles that held down tipis are strewn across the hillside, indicating that both summer and winter camps were once there.

Today, the Medicine Wheel is a tribute and reminder of the historic and ancestral connections between First Nations Peoples and the place now called Calgary. The Siksikaitsitapi Medicine Wheel is a signifier of Blackfoot territory and a place to make offerings to Creator. It is a reciprocal offering to land that emphasizes stewardship and relationality.

Constructed of rocks in the shape of the Siksikaitsitapi logo, a circle that represents the four member tribes: Siksiika, Blood, Northern and Southern Peigan, it was designed by Andy Black Water, a ceremonial Elder and member of the Blood Tribe and created during the 2015 Siksikaitsitapi conference. As a place of education and connection, the Medicine Wheel is open to all to visit and experience to learn about the history of the Siksikaitsitapi and the land.

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This article appears in the September 2023 issue of Avenue Calgary.

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