Reading Papaschase Land: Mill Creek, Treaty 6, and the Environmental Making of South Edmonton

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This post is part of the Treaty 6 at 150: Reading the Land, Reckoning the Past series, a special extension of our From Coulees to Muskeg: A Saskatchewan Environmental History Series with the Saskatchewan History & Folklore Society.

A Name in the Room

I worked as a server at the University of Alberta Faculty Club on Saskatchewan Drive in the late 1970s. We had an upstairs dining room called the Papaschase Room. I did not know that the Papaschase Room referred to a reserve once located just south of Edmonton, on land now within the city. I was intrigued by the name and, as a fifteen-year-old, glad to learn that it referred to a reserve, although I had learned nothing about Papaschase history in school and could find little information about it elsewhere. Reserve No. 136, the Papaschase Reserve, was home to the Papaschase Band of Treaty 6 Indians and covered nearly forty square miles. Its approximate present-day boundaries run from 51 Avenue on the north to a line south of Ellerslie Road, and from 119 Street on the west to 17 Street on the east. Much of this land is now Mill Woods and surrounding south Edmonton.1

Chief Papaschase and Headman Tahkoots adhered to Treaty 6 with federal officials at Fort Edmonton in 1877. Papaschase First Nation’s public history traces Papaschase presence in the Edmonton area from the late 1850s and the later removal of members from their reserve. Chief Papaschase selected reserve land south of Fort Edmonton as part of the treaty relationship. In August 1880, Dominion Land Surveyor George A. Simpson began surveying the Papaschase Reserve. Chief Papaschase confronted Simpson and other federal officials because they were recognizing fewer acres than Papaschase believed had been selected. John C. Nelson’s 1884 plan later recorded Reserve No. 136 at 39.9 square miles. Its boundary lines now run through the heart of south Edmonton.2

Reading the Survey

Nelson’s 1884 plan of Reserve No. 136 contains an environmental description inside the survey instrument. Along the northern boundary, Nelson recorded “bluffs of poplar and thickets of willow”; along the southern boundary, “poplar, willow, hazel, spruce, birch and tamarack.” The plan also notes streams, roads, woodland, and wet ground encountered as surveyors established the reserve boundaries.3

Black-and-white 1884 survey plan of Papaschase Reserve No. 136 showing the rectangular reserve boundary, township grid, natural features, and handwritten vegetation descriptions.
Plan of Papaschase Reserve No. 136, surveyed by J. C. Nelson in 1884. Nelson recorded vegetation along the reserve boundaries, including poplar, willow, hazel, spruce, birch, and tamarack. Credit: J. C. Nelson / Indian Affairs Survey Records no. 297; public-domain digital copy, William C. Wonders Map Collection, University of Alberta Libraries.

Nelson’s 1890 resurvey provides another view of the same land. The former reserve—nearly forty square miles of woodland and wet ground—appears divided into individual sections within a larger township, with settler claims marked north of the reserve between it and Edmonton. The reserve boundary remains visible within a network of numbered sections and road allowances that reorganized the tract within the Dominion land system. The cadastral grid made the land legible for administration and transfer.4

Colour historical map showing Papaschase Reserve No. 136 divided into numbered sections south of Edmonton and the North Saskatchewan River, with settler claims marked between the reserve and the settlement.
Subdivision plan of the lands formerly reserved for the Papaschase Band, resurveyed by J. C. Nelson in 1890. The plan places the former reserve within numbered sections south of Edmonton and marks settler claims between the reserve and the settlement. Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Department of Indian Affairs, RG10M 78903/45, file 42010. Copyright expired.

Mill Creek crosses part of the former reserve in present-day Mill Woods before continuing north beyond the reserve’s approximate northern boundary into Mill Creek Ravine and the river valley. The creek therefore connects the former Papaschase landscape in south Edmonton to a better-known ravine farther north.5

The federal administration that negotiated Treaty 6 and surveyed the Papaschase reserve also created the instruments through which the land entered settler administration. Simpson began the reserve survey in August 1880; Nelson’s later plans recorded the reserve’s boundaries, woodland, wet ground, and eventual subdivision within the Dominion land system.6

Following Mill Creek

William Bird, a Métis businessman, established a flour mill on Mill Creek in 1878. Rail transportation and meatpacking later reshaped the ravine, and a wooden railway trestle crossed the creek by the early twentieth century.7

Archaeological traces of altered ground, industrial waste, rail infrastructure, and meatpacking remain within today’s green space. Mill Creek Ravine now serves a city of more than a million people as parkland, and the creek bed and surrounding terrain retain physical evidence of earlier industrial use.8

Local settlers pressured Papaschase Band members to give up their treaty rights, and Papaschase First Nation’s public history describes the 1888 surrender of the reserve lands as contested. The federal administration opened the former reserve for sale and settlement; the land later entered the property grid of Mill Woods and surrounding south Edmonton. Roads, subdivisions, commercial areas, public transit, and municipal services now cover the former reserve, leaving its boundary difficult to see in everyday civic geography.9

What the Landscape Remembers

Dwayne Trevor Donald describes Edmonton as a pentimento, a painting in which earlier images remain visible through later layers. He uses the metaphor to reconnect Papaschase family history with the city’s settler history. Mill Creek, the streets and neighbourhoods built across former reserve land, and the Papaschase Room at the University of Alberta Faculty Club each preserve different traces of that layered history. Taken together, they make visible relationships that ordinary city maps and civic geography often leave unmarked.10

The Valley Line Southeast runs through Mill Woods, where public art and place names make Papaschase history more visible. Métis/Cree artist Cheryl L’Hirondelle, who has Papaschase roots, created the artwork If the Drumming Stops for the Mill Woods stop. Cree-derived place names also remain across the area, and Papaschase First Nation maintains its own public history of Treaty 6, reserve loss, descendants, and current leadership. These forms of public history leave visible Papaschase traces within Mill Woods.11

“The Indigenous foundations of this place belong to its past, present, and future. As a settler, I still have much to learn about the land and the relationships that have shaped it and continue to shape it. Papaschase history makes that continuing presence visible within Edmonton’s landscape.”

The Papaschase Room first gave me the name; Nelson’s 1884 plans restore its territorial scale: nearly forty square miles of woodland and wet ground, later divided into numbered sections. Mill Creek runs through part of that history in present-day Mill Woods and connects the former reserve to the river valley farther north. South Edmonton grew across this treaty landscape, and municipal routines made the reserve boundary increasingly difficult to see. Papaschase First Nation’s public history keeps Treaty 6, descendants, and political continuity on the same land. Reconciliation in south Edmonton therefore has a material geography: the former boundaries of Reserve No. 136, the watercourse that crosses them, and the institutions that now organize and interpret the landscape—the scarcity of information I encountered as a fifteen-year-old has changed. Papaschase First Nation’s public history, Donald’s scholarship, the surviving survey plans, municipal interpretation, and public art now make this history much easier to find and to connect with Edmonton’s present landscape. The Indigenous foundations of this place belong to its past, present, and future. As a settler, I still have much to learn about the land and the relationships that have shaped it and continue to shape it. Papaschase history makes that continuing presence visible within Edmonton’s landscape.

Feature Image: Detail from J. C. Nelson’s subdivision plan of Papaschase Reserve No. 136, resurveyed in 1890, showing Edmonton and the North Saskatchewan River north of the reserve. Library and Archives Canada, Department of Indian Affairs, RG10M 78903/45, file 42010. Copyright Expired.

Notes

  1. Keith Smillie, The Faculty Club of the University of Alberta: A Short History (Edmonton: University of Alberta Faculty Club, 2008), 17–18; Edmonton Historical Board, “Satoo,” Naming Edmonton: A Digital Gazetteer, accessed August 16, 2026, https://namingedmonton.ca/naming-edmonton-a-digital-gazetteer/satoo/. Smillie documents the Papaschase Room; Naming Edmonton identifies the approximate modern boundaries of the former reserve. ↩︎
  2. Papaschase First Nation, “Highlights of Papaschase’s History,” accessed August 16, 2026, https://papaschase.ca/brief-history; Library and Archives Canada, “Treaty No. 6, N.W.T. Plan of Indian Reserve No. 136. Chief Papaschase (Wood Pecker),” Indian Affairs Survey Records no. 297, surveyed September 1884 by J. C. Nelson. ↩︎
  3. J. C. Nelson, “Treaty No. 6 N.W.T., Plan of Indian Reserve No. 136, Chief Papaschase (Wood Pecker),” 1884, Indian Affairs Survey Records no. 297; public-domain digital copy, William C. Wonders Map Collection, University of Alberta Libraries / Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Treaty_No.6_N.W.T.,_Plan_of_Indian_Reserve_No._136,_Chief_Papaschase(Wood_Pecker)_(IA_WCW_M000654).pdf. ↩︎
  4. Library and Archives Canada, “[Papaschase Reserve no. 136]. Treaty No. 6, North West Territories. Plan of the subdivision into sections of the lands reserved for the band of Chief ‘Papaschase,’” resurveyed October 1890 by J. C. Nelson, Department of Indian Affairs, RG10M 78903/45, file 42010, May 5, 1891, https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?IdNumber=3843178&app=fonandcol. ↩︎
  5. Edmonton Historical Board, “Mill Woods,” Naming Edmonton: A Digital Gazetteer, accessed August 16, 2026, https://namingedmonton.ca/naming-edmonton-a-digital-gazetteer/mill-woods/; City of Edmonton, “Mill Creek Ravine Park,” accessed August 16, 2026, https://www.edmonton.ca/activities_parks_recreation/parks_rivervalley/mill-creek-ravine. ↩︎
  6. Papaschase First Nation, “Highlights of Papaschase’s History”; J. C. Nelson, “Treaty No. 6 N.W.T., Plan of Indian Reserve No. 136, Chief Papaschase (Wood Pecker),” 1884; Library and Archives Canada, “[Papaschase Reserve no. 136]. Treaty No. 6, North West Territories. Plan of the subdivision into sections of the lands reserved for the band of Chief ‘Papaschase,’” resurveyed October 1890 by J. C. Nelson. ↩︎
  7. Haeden Eli Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry: The Lively Decay of Mill Creek Ravine” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2019), https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1958; City of Edmonton, “Sketching History: Edmonton Bridges,” accessed August 16, 2026, https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/edmonton_archives/edmonton-bridges. ↩︎
  8. Haeden Eli Stewart, “In the Shadow of Industry: The Lively Decay of Mill Creek Ravine” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2019), https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1958. ↩︎
  9. Papaschase First Nation, “Highlights of Papaschase’s History”; Papaschase First Nation, “Legal Issues,” accessed August 16, 2026, https://papaschase.ca/legal-issues. ↩︎
  10. Dwayne Trevor Donald, “Edmonton Pentimento: Re-Reading History in the Case of the Papaschase Cree,” Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies 2, no. 1 (2004): 21–54, https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-4467.16868; Keith Smillie, The Faculty Club of the University of Alberta, 17–18. ↩︎
  11. City of Edmonton, “Valley Line Southeast: Where Creativity Meets Community,” Why Edmonton, accessed August 16, 2026, https://why.edmonton.ca/stories/valleylineseart/; Papaschase First Nation, https://papaschase.ca/. ↩︎

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John W. Bessai

John W. Bessai, PhD, is an independent Canadian scholar, filmmaker, and educator whose work examines how public institutions use film, digital storytelling, and interactive media as forms of art as a public service. His research introduces the concept of the Canadian aporetic condition, a framework for understanding the tensions that shape Canadian public life around Indigenous–settler relations, environmental governance, and pluralist democracy. Building on his dissertation at Trent University, he analyzes the National Film Board of Canada’s documentary and digital projects as laboratories for public storytelling, institutional critique, and democratic engagement. He has taught Canadian politics, global issues, environmental policy, and media-focused history courses at Okanagan College, University College of the North, and other institutions. As a filmmaker and producer, he has contributed to documentary series and museum projects that bring questions of ecology, memory, and justice to broader publics. Further details on his research and media work appear at www.johnbessai.com

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