CASE STUDY: CALGARY 1988

“Our problem is not with athletic competition or with cultural displays, but rather with that small group of wealthy, powerful interests in Alberta who are trying to wipe us out and who are using the Calgary Olympics and the Olympic Arts Festival to try to achieve enhanced international respectability and credibility.”
(Lubicon Cree Chief Bernard Ominayak, quoted in “Indians bid to employ Olympic lever backed,” by Doug Todd, Vancouver Sun, September 28, 1987)

In 1988, the city of Calgary hosted the Winter Olympic Games. Throughout the 1980s, members of the Lubicon Cree in northern Alberta had fought against extensive oil & gas drilling in their territory, as well as logging. Until the early 1970s, the Lubicon relied almost exclusively on traditional hunting & fishing for sustenance. The invasion of numerous corporations into the region, beginning in the mid-70s with the construction of new roads & drilling sites, had a severe impact on the Lubicon, plunging them into a cycle of dependence as land was destroyed and wildlife negatively impacted. Unable to rely on hunting and trapping, the Lubicon became almost entirely dependent on government welfare. They also began suffering health problems, including outbreaks of tuberculosis, depression, and alcoholism. In response, they began a campaign against the energy and logging corporations destroying their lands and way of life.
In the spring of 1986, the Lubicon called for an international boycott of the ’88 Olympics, focusing on a cultural exhibition featuring Native arts & culture. A number of museums joined the boycott, which involved extensive lobbying, speaking tours, and protests. European and US museums refused to send more than 200 cultural objects from their collections for the exhibition, regarded as the ‘flagship’ of the Olympic organizing committee’s arts festival.
These included the Harvard University museum, the Museum of the American Indian in New York, and the Museum of Man in Paris.

In November 1986, Lubicon delegates traveled across Europe to publicize their boycott and gain support. Chief Bernard Ominayak, along with representatives from the Indian Association of Alberta, toured through W. Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands. Friends of the Lubicon, a Toronto-based support group, also helped out with public education & fundraising efforts.
In 1987, the Globe and Mail reported that the Glenbow Museum’s Olympic exhibition “of rare native artifacts is losing its luster with more than a dozen foreign museums now lined up behind the Lubicon Lake Indian boycott of the show.”
(“Boycott affects Olympic exhibit,” Globe & Mail, Feb. 2, 1987)

In Canada, the Lubicon received support from the Haida, Mohawks, the Assembly of First Nations, political parties, labour groups, and the World Council of Churches. By September 1987, twenty European museums had joined the boycott.

In 1987, Calgary mayor Ralph Klein stated he feared the boycott would “mar” the Games.

A major sponsor of the art exhibit, entitled ‘The Spirit Sings, was Shell Canada, one of many corporations drilling and removing oil & gas from Lubicon territory.

On Vancouver Island, in January 1988, Natives from Chemainus, in solidarity with the Lubicon, protested the Olympic Torch relay runners.

In January 1988, the Lubicon took legal action to have the courts to declare them owners of some of the artifacts on display, including canoes, masks and other items.

Asked if he thought the boycott had been effective, Ominayak responded:
“I think it has affected the exhibition and we’ve been able to reach a lot of people with this, so it’s been positive from our point of view.”
(“Art boycott supports Lubicon,” The Observer, January 1988)

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