The commonly accepted story about horses in North America is that they were brought there by colonists. When the Spanish arrived, however, there was a surviving native horse breed.
It was a bright December day in 2021, and snow was lightly falling over Mdahki Farm, an Indigenous visitor attraction and event space located just outside of Ottawa, Canada. I was at the Pibón (winter) festival when Anishinaabe artist Rhonda Snow took the stage, which still shook from the exuberant footsteps of just-departed pow wow dancers. Snow, known for her vivid Woodlands-style paintings, was in town to discuss her lifelong work preserving the endangered Ojibwe spirit horse, also known as the Lac La Croix Indian pony; the breed is Canada’s only known indigenous horse breed.
Snow explained that she was a young girl living in northwestern Ontario when she overheard some elders discussing these small, insignificant creatures. Horses that thrived in the boreal forest. She was enthralled.
“I told myself that someday I’d find them,” she explained.
She visited Indigenous communities and heard many stories about Indigenous peoples’ reciprocal relationship with the Ojibwe spirit horse, who were seen as guides and teachers by the animals. For example, Métis fishermen teamed up with horses each winter to haul fish off frozen lakes – despite the fact that horses were never domesticated back then, they would use their hooves to create ice fishing holes in exchange for food and shelter from the fishermen. However, the horses themselves were few and far between, having been culled to near-extinction by European settlers who considered the wild animals a nuisance.
The fact that the breed has survived is due to an event depicted in Snow’s painting, The Heist Across the Ice by the Light of the Moon. It’s a story that could have been made into a film.
Only four mares remained on an island in Lac La Croix, northwestern Ontario, in 1977. After determining that the wild animals posed a health risk, Canadian health officials decided to slaughter them. However, four Ojibwe men staged a daring rescue before they could. They gathered the mares, loaded them onto a trailer, and drove them across the frozen lake and across the border to Minnesota, where they were bred with a Spanish Mustang. Careful management and selective breeding have since brought the Ojibwe spirit horse back to life. which now numbers around 180 and has returned to Canada.
Snow heard stories about the Ojibwe spirit horse’s long and close relationship with Indigenous people that contradicted the widely accepted history of horses in North America. According to legend, horses once roamed freely across the continent before becoming extinct thousands of years ago during the last ice age, and they remained extinct until Europeans arrived. Horses, according to Indigenous oral histories and spiritual beliefs, have always existed on the continent known as Turtle Island, and recent research backs them up.
Although the Spanish brought horses to what is now Mexico in 1519, Dr. Yvette Running Horse Collin’s research cites written Spanish accounts that place herds in what is now Georgia and the Carolinas in 1521. She claims that horses were here before the Europeans because, as Collin points out, it would have been impossible for those Spanish horses to multiply and travel so far in just two years. According to the Ojibwe Horse Society, DNA testing shows that the Ojibwe spirit horse is a distinct breed from the horses introduced to North America by Europeans.
When I returned to Mdahki Farm in November 2022, I discovered more evidence that Ojibwe spirit horses have roamed this land for a long time. Maggie Downer, a Mohawk cultural ambassador, introduced me to the farm’s herd – there are no wild herds left – who were fuzzy in their winter coats and clearly built for harsh, northern environments. They had small, powerful bodies, thick manes, small, hairy ears, and extra nose flaps to keep the cold at bay.
Mukaday-Wagoosh (Black Fox in Ojibwe), Gwiingwiishi (Grey Jay), and Migzi (Eagle) rushed over to be petted and pushed their muzzles through the fence. Downer emphasised Migzi’s distinctively Ojibwe markings – the tiger stripes on his legs and a prominent dorsal stripe running down his spine – which the farm hopes will make him a prized stud.
This breed faced a lot of the [same] challenges that we did as Indigenous people. They faced eradication
As an ambassador, Downer says her job is to connect with the Indigenous community and the non-Indigenous community alike “to [promote] awareness around Indigenous cultures and that we’re still here”.
“Four-legged ambassadors,” she calls the horses. “As Indigenous people, this breed faced many of the same challenges that we did. They were on the verge of extinction. Horses, on the other hand, are incredibly resilient and have so much to teach us.”
The horses are a draw, but they also represent the farm’s larger efforts to reclaim and celebrate Indigenous culture. “Our lives are so similar,” Downer said. She sees symmetry in reclaiming what was lost as a young Indigenous woman. “Because it was outlawed by the Canadian government, our young people don’t know their histories. The same is true for these horses. There’s that link between us.”
Trina Mather-Simard, founder of Indigenous Experiences, which operates the farm, told me in the farm’s event space, which was set up to welcome a class participating in one of its Indigenous culture school programmes, that the idea to establish the farm was sparked when she heard Rhonda Snow on a podcast about Ojibwe spirit horses in 2020. “I was so inspired,” she explained. “My daughters have been equestrians for a long time; we’ve had horses for years. “I’m Ojibwe, and I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of [them].”
“I saw a lot of [similarities] to our own story,” she went on, “about their connection to the land, displacement, and resilience: that they went down to only four of them and yet they’re still here.”
Mather-Simard and her daughters purchased four horses from an Alberta farm and looked for a home for them. Simultaneously, Indigenous Experiences was looking for a permanent home after operating from a temporary location outside the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, just across the river from Ottawa. The company found the perfect solution on the 164-acre farm: with so much land, they could incorporate the horses into their cultural sharing and expand.