Land
The Plains Cree were my ancestors; I am a part of them as they were a part of this land: “Land is often more taken as more iconic of identity than language and many communities are in fact named after places found within their territory” (Schreyer, 2016, p. 4). The meaning of the word nēhiyawak is a pluralisation of the term nēhiyaw. This is a Plains Cree reference to the identity of a Cree person from the prairie region. In the book of Ahtahkakoop, written by Christensen (2000) and the community of Sandy Lake, Saskatchewan, the authors translated the meaning to “nēhiyawak ōma kiyanaw. We are the nēhiyaw. The nēhiyawak. Exact body. Exact body of people. . . . Many people today know us as prairie Cree. We are part of the great plains Cree nation” (p. 3). The Plains Cree made their home annually where Saskatoon is now, stretching into the far wooded north, east, and west. This is where they lived, loved, and learned since the beginning. “Saskatoon,” the term itself, is a Cree word used similarly to many other places and provinces in Canada. For example, Saskatoon in Cree is spelled sāskwatōn, which refers to the Saskatoon berry (Wolvengrey, 2001, p. 518) that grows here. My relative Joseph Naytowhow once shared with me the phrase sāskwatōn minatohk askiy, which translates to the land of this type of berry that grows here. Like the Saskatoon berry, the Cree were “the exact body of people,” which is one translation of the Cree people who grew here. Our ties are deep and longstanding.