Moving Mountains

The Banff Canmore Community Foundation launched their Moving Mountains initiative in 2019 to foster relationships among the Bow Valley communities and support non-profit ventures that are making a difference in the region. This spring, I was honoured to collaborate with the BCCF as a storyteller and filmmaker to capture and create a video story about the work of the initiative with oral histories shared by the the leaders and stakeholders was they design and launch a community cultural centre called, Mînî hrpa.

Mînî hrpa is a word in the Stoney Nakoda language that represents the geographic area commonly known today as Banff, Alberta, Canada. In 2022, a grassroots group of Stoney Nakoda youth, community leaders, artists, and organizers chose Mînî hrpa as the name of a new Indigenous Cultural Centre located on Banff Avenue, in the town of Banff, Alberta. The concept for the cultural center emerged from discussions held in 2021/22 as part of the Moving Mountains Initiative, a project of the Banff Canmore Community Foundation, the Town of Banff & the Town of Canmore.

Learn more about the project at http://movingmountainsinitiative.ca/minihrpa