Blackfoot elder remembered as 'truly a cowboy,' Indigenous advocate
Rachel Ward | CBC News | Posted: December 8, 2018 2:51 PM | Last Updated: December 8, 2018
From rodeo rider and roughneck, Pete Standing Alone grew into beloved, respected Blood Tribe leader
Pete Standing Alone bred horses, competed in the rodeo, featured in more than a dozen films and painted the face of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
As a young oil roughneck and cowboy, he felt alienated from his Indigenous identity but over the years, he became one of the great advocates for Blackfoot people.
Standing Alone died at age 90 on Nov. 27. His funeral is Saturday at Kainai High School in southern Alberta.
"He will be remembered as a cowboy, as an elder, as an astute businessman, as a role model. You know, he worked hard all his life," said longtime friend Leonard Bastien of Piikani First Nation.
Standing Alone was a member of Blood (Kainai) First Nation. He dedicated his life to helping the people in his home community.
Standing Alone was typically good natured in his determination to accomplish a goal, though his stubbornness was legendary.
A few weeks before his death, he snuck out of his supervised care home, Bastien said. As he wasn't allowed to drive, he shouldn't have been able to get very far.
"He was nowhere to be found. There he was, out driving out on the prairies, checking on his cattle," Bastien said with a chuckle.
Standing Alone loved the grasslands, the nature and its residents. As a young man, he lived the cowboy life and his work earned him much respect.
As a rodeo rider, he learned to make saddles by hand, including one he gave to Prince Charles. He also bred and trained bucking stock horses.
Bastien first met Standing Alone in the early 1960s at school. Standing Alone was showing a film he starred in, Circle of the Sun. It featured the Kainai Nation's sun dance.
As Bastien's residential school had closed only a year earlier, that memory remains clear in his mind.
"To say the least I had the greatest respect for Pete," he said. "He was my greatest support in the work that I do, in supporting our ways of life, Blackfoot worldview."
In 1977, Prince Charles was made an honorary chief of Kainai Nation, and the National Film Board made a film about it, including Standing Alone's insight.
NFB later produced a film on his life, called, Standing Alone. It sketched the first 25 years of his life from being a oil-rig roughneck, cowboy and rodeo rider to learning to be a proud Indigenous man on a mission to preserve that cultural and spiritual understanding.
The film won awards, and in 2010, the late filmmaker and Blood Tribe elder Narcisse Blood followed up with the film, Round Up. At age 81, Standing Alone discussed his work to repair spiritual and cultural destruction caused by residential schools, having moved from being a culturally alienated young man to an elder.
Bastien said one of his skills was bridging the gap between people and different societies, which he did by sharing his knowledge with universities and governments and fostering understanding. Most importantly, Bastien said, he helped do so with new generations of Blackfoot people.
As an elder and band councillor, he painted Stephen Harper's face with sacred yellow ochre and invested him into the Kainai chiefmanship. His granddaughter, Marcia Black Water, said he considered carefully whether or not he should participate in the then-controversial act.
"I know there was a lot of people in our community that didn't agree with it, and maybe right across Canada," granddaughter Marcia Black Water said. "For my grandpa, he thought that was an opportunity, not so much for us as Native people, but for Harper, to really truly give him an opportunity to add to his leadership and the promises that he makes."
Standing Alone was a resource for Blackfoot cultural, history and language, his obituary notes, and led ceremonial activities. He also was key to developing the Blood Tribe Agricultural Project, a massive irrigation program that produced high calibre hay for export, bringing a health centre to the community and naming the Niitsitapi Learning Centre.
'Truly a cowboy'
He also advised museums and archives on cultural consideration, as well as the University of Lethbridge, which granted him an honorary law degree for his role as a Blackfoot Knowledge Keeper, educator and role model.
Standing Alone also kept up his advocacy work late into his life despite a prostate cancer diagnosis eight years ago, Black Water said. In the end, his age caught up with him.
"My grandpa was truly a cowboy through and through. He worked hard from morning till night, and he had a hard time asking anyone for help," Black Water said. "He just had that strength of just a strong man and he persevered through just everything."
Standing Alone had nine children and a step-daughter, 31 grandchildren, 62 great grandchildren and three great great grand children. Also, he adopted several people through Blackfoot tradition, symbolizing a close friendship and connection, Black Water said.
The funeral on Saturday is open to the public.
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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.