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In 1881, Dewdney was also appointed as the Lieutenant-Governor of the NWT. While in that role, he picked Regina as the region’s new capital in 1882.
On Saturday afternoon, BigEagle-Kequahtooway and several other volunteers met in front of Indigenous Christian Fellowship to laminate the contributed art pieces before using ribbon to tie them around street lights along Dewdney Avenue. A few lawn signs were also distributed.
The art project was done in partnership with the Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan and Common Weal Community Arts. Around 60 artworks were contributed to the project, including a number of pieces from a class at Prairie Sky School in Regina.
Shaunna Dunn, southern artistic director at Common Weal Community Arts, said the art is an important way of promoting anti-racism efforts.
Having this kind of public display of buffalo-themed artwork gives people an easy way to think about and engage in the ongoing conversation to rename Dewdney Avenue, she said.
“This is a way to, as a community, do something that is engaging, that’s positive, that’s visible, but doesn’t actually require waiting for civic consultation to take place and kind of putting things into our own hands in terms of visibly representing what it is we’d like to see happen,” Dunn said.
In July, a petition organized by Decolonizing Relations, a Regina-based social justice initiative, gathered more than 550 signatures in support of changing the street’s name to Buffalo Avenue. The petition was presented to a City of Regina clerk on July 29, requesting a response to the petition by the end of August.
