By Amber Sugai, Blood Tribe Communications
Blood Tribe Land Management held their first annual Iinnii Days, this event took place over the course of three days from September 9 – 11, 2025. Iinnii Days were held on the Northside of the Blood Reserve near the Medicine Wheel.
Director of Blood Tribe Land Management, Clo-Ann Wells (Miisamikakato’ saakii) wanted to have the Iinnii Days to honour the Iinnii (buffalo) and to teach all Blood Tribe Members what the buffalo truly mean to the tribe, to understand why we want them here, and how we are almost full circle with them.
“It’s like a healing for being Niitsitapii, for being Blackfoot,” said Wells.
Wells wanted Iinnii Days to give back to the community and to teach the significance of the Iinnii and how it provides food sovereignty, information on the cultural aspect, and what it means to Akoka’tssini. On Thursday September 11, 2025, Blood Tribe Land Management hosted an Iinnii harvest to give a chance to members to learn more about it. The meat that the Iinnii provided is getting the meat processed, Blood Tribe Lands Management has plans to do a community giveaway.
The significance of the buffalo being back on the reserve is to help us learn and adapt on how to live with them, and to get them recategorized as wildlife. Wells would like the tribe to know the buffalo do not belong to the Blood Tribe Land Management, but that they belong to the tribe. She intends to look at different processes in how to utilize the Iinnii for educational harvest.
“This is a cultural herd, we’re not here to make money. If you want to do a cultural harvest and teach our own members, this is what we need to do,” said Wells.
Having a harvest is to educate our members, to have them understand that the Iinnii is a part of us, historically and that they were always here.
“They never became extinct, and we never became extinct, regardless of all obstacles that were thrown at us through life’s history. So, hoof to ground, they’re making us stronger as Niitsitapii,” said Wells.
