Historic Indigenous battle brought to life in virtual reality
By Alexandra Noad - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on January 22, 2025.
Submitted photo -
The tipi set up at Fort Whoop Up for members involved in the Battle of the Belly River VR project along with Indigenous students from Lethbridge Polytechnic to listen to the story of the battle from local elders.The worlds of Blackfoot storytelling and modern technology have collided with an immersive experience to bring to life what is known as the last battle on the Canadian prairies between Indigenous nations.
What started as committee to find ways the Lethbridge Polytechnic could be better at reconciliation, flourished the idea of using virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality to immerse people into the story.
Kris Hodgson-Bright a Digital Communications and Media and Multimedia instructor for the polytechnic, was encouraged to get in touch with the Galt Museum, the City of Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Historical Society as they were just about to put an application for a $20,000 grant to do extended research on the Battle of the Belly River.
Hodgson-Bright says he decided to join the efforts using his applied research project as a gift to help leverage the project.
“It created better leverage, also having more partners in the project was seen as more attractive, so we were successful at not only landing the applied research grant funding here (at the polytechnic), but in also getting that grant to the tune of $22,000.”
Being a non-Indigenous person, Hodgson-Bright allowed Camina Weasel Moccasin, Indigenous curator for the Galt Museum, to set the pace for the project, so as to not to step on any toes.
“I worked really closely with Weasel Moccasin, making sure I was doing things at her pace as well as the pace of (all) of the people involved, so that was really important to me.”
Hodgson-Bright noticed how intrigued the elders were at how this new technology could be a way to engage their youth in understanding their culture, as many elders are growing old and passing away.
“As soon as we had finish a draft of the project, we had two elders, Peter Weasel Moccasin and Mike Bruisedhead, sit on the discussion and they said ‘this could be an amazing way to tell so many of our stories to engage young Indigenous youth and knowing more about their culture because our elders are passing away and this could be a different way to ensure we don’t lose any of these stories.'”
On the 50th anniversary of the battle a group of people involved in the project, along with a group of Indigenous polytechnic students met down at the river valley in a tipi, where the story was told for three hours, something Hodgson-Bright says was a powerful experience.
The VR telling of the story begins with an immersive introduction to allow the user to get used to headset by following a dear down to the valley.
The user is led to a banner page with three tipis they can experience.
The first tipi is the Battle of the Belly River.
In this tipi the user gets to see the Battle of the Belly River as if it’s happening in real time, along with being able to listen to the traditional Blackfoot story being told through the headset.
In the second tipi the user can explore artifacts, by picking them up in virtuality and manipulate it, as if it were in their hands.
Hodgson-Bright says they were able to achieve this by taking 100 different pictures of the artifacts, which were supplied by the Galt Museum and the Medicine Hat Museum, from all different angles to recreated it digitally, a process known as photogrammetry.
He says this is a way to share artifacts, which tell a story, while not damaging them.
“You can manipulate the artifact, you can pick it up in virtuality and understand what its uses 150 years ago, without actually damaging the artifact.”
The third tipi includes drone footage of Writing on Stone and Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump, two very spiritually significant sites for the Blackfoot people.
Hodgson-Bright believes the best way to learn is through oral storytelling, but VR is a great way to branch out to other regions, while keeping stories authentic.
“If you want to reach new audiences outside of a specific region, province or country (VR) could be a really interesting way to get a lot of people familiar with a story that’s important to a culture on a global scale.”
While the next steps forward are still being discussed, Hodgson-Bright says stakeholders from the Galt Museum, as well Blackfoot Elders were pleased with the project.
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