From my yt mama. Published by Talonbooks in 2020. Mercedes Eng teaches and writes in Vancouver, on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories.
so in 2016 Bro #1, Bro #2, and Bro #3 opened a craft brewery named after an Indigenous vehicle of conveyance that the Niitsítapi Peoples call “imatáá manistsí” which were used by Great Plains aboriginal bands to haul their stuff. It usually consisted of two long poles with some sort of framework, lashed to the sides of your dog, and the frame carried your tipi and food
your dog? your tipi and food? are these cowbros trying to play Indian?
Early fur trappers trekking through the Canadian West, and even the RCMP, copied it. As such, travois are an iconic part of Medicine Hat’s early history and are intrinsically connected to this part of the world, they are uniquely prairie … like us … and they represent travel and movement through the great outdoors love for which brought the bros together
so Bro #1 met Bro #2 who had enough money to acquire a building downtown even though he didn’t even know what he was gonna do with it, although not the original building that was located on Montreal Street back in the founding days of Medicine Hat which is lost to time but the building now in that location which was built in 1939
so they started talking about turning the building into a brewery and realized they’d need more money so that’s where Bro #3 who Bro #1 knew from the Cypress Hills biking trails comes into the legend: Bro #3 was a casualty of the latest oil-patch recession and was looking for something to fuel his dreams rather than just his pocketbook
I’m not a craft brewery person myself as I see them as agents of gentrification and I’m anti-gentrification or more accurately I’m anti-gentrification-as-an-ongoing-instantiation-of-colonialism-and-yt-supremacy as I’m assuming that most craft breweries are owned by yt guys who wanna create these legends about the genesis of their businesses like they’re some kind of frontiersmen boldly going where no one’s ever gone before
… so come on down, see what we’ve done with the place, try the beer … and don’t forget to bring your dog and travois to haul your growler home.
