Joe Buffalo

Early Life & Education

Joe Buffalo was born in Edmonton in 1976 but, by his own account, went to live on reserve in Maskwacis, Alberta not long after (see also Reserves in Alberta). He is Cree and a member of the Samson Cree Nation. His mother is Marilyn Buffalo, who served as National President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada from 1997 to 2000. She is also the chief executive officer of the Nechi Institute: Center for Indigenous Learning. She is the granddaughter of the brother of Chief Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker). Chief Pitikwahanapiwiyin was a Cree chief who participated in Treaty 6 negotiations. Buffalo’s father, Frank MacDonald, was from the Northwest Territories. Buffalo’s namesake is his great-grandfather, Deputy Chief Joe Buffalo, who appeared in the 1958 western comedy film The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw along with Jayne Mansfield. Buffalo’s great-grand-uncle is actor Gordon Tootoosis.

Buffalo, the son of residential school survivors, was raised in Cree traditions — including ceremonies and speaking the Cree language. However, when he was 11 years old, he also went to residential school. He has struggled with substance dependency, which he attributes to his experiences in residential school. He credits skateboarding with helping him through difficult periods of his life.

Buffalo attended St. Mary’s Salesian Junior High boarding school from 1988 to 1989. While not an Indian residential school, as they were then known, St. Mary’s Salesian was a Catholic boarding school. The boarding school was a school for boys considered to have behavioural problems. The now-closed school has been at the centre of a lawsuit claiming sexual abuse of a past student. From 1990 to 1992, he attended Lebret Indian Industrial School.

Buffalo has stated he remembers first experiencing skateboarding with relatives in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. He was immediately enamoured with skateboarding, and he got his first skateboard the next year. He wasn’t able to stand on it, at first, but that didn’t deter him. He kneeboarded for a while, including the 17 km highway trip between Maskwacis and Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Growing up on the reserve limited his contact with the outside world of skateboarding. As such, he largely had to figure things out for himself, to the point where he thought he had invented the Frontside Smith Grind (a relatively basic trick, wherein the skateboarder grinds on the back truck while pushing down on the front of the skateboard).

The first place he could skateboard in his community was a paved asphalt parking lot in front of a bingo hall, the only asphalt in Maskwacis. Skateboarders were considered a nuisance by the rest of the community, so the community hired security guards to monitor the parking lot. Buffalo was encouraged by his mother to get a petition going to get the community to build the skateboarders a skatepark if they didn’t want them skating in the parking lot.

Buffalo is a skilled athlete and showed considerable promise as a hockey player. When he went to residential school, Buffalo was given the choice of three schools. The choices he was given by his mother were schools with the highest likelihood of being scouted for the NHL. Buffalo’s father was also a skilled hockey player and had wanted to go to the NHL. Buffalo believes his father’s encouragement to play hockey — and to attend a residential school with the chance to be spotted by a talent scout — was his father living vicariously through him. Though Buffalo had attracted the attention of scouts from the WHL, he ultimately decided against a career in hockey. He has stated that the competitive aspect of being scouted had negative impacts on his family, particularly his father, who he stated would become violent with other fathers at hockey games.

Unlike his mother, who was forbidden to speak Cree while attending residential school, attitudes had changed somewhat when Buffalo attended residential school in the 1980s and 1990s. He was able to learn and speak Cree in these institutions. He did not have many opportunities to practice skateboarding while there, however, and would often have to leave school altogether to practice. Occasionally, he would try to make his way to Regina by hopping a train so he could practice skateboarding with friends. However, he was often caught and returned to the school.

Skateboarding

After leaving residential school in his late teens, Joe Buffalo moved to Ottawa. While there, he became more serious about skateboarding. He developed a reputation in the 1990s and 2000s as a promising new skateboarding talent. While there, he helped build a skatepark for high school credit. His skateboarding skills attracted sponsors, and he eventually made his way to Montreal. In Montreal, Buffalo was a regular at Peace Park, a small public square in the city’s Red Light district that frequently attracted skateboarders. However, in Montreal, his substance abuse problems worsened, and sponsorships became less frequent. Buffalo has described the 10 years he lived in Montreal as a blur. His skateboarding skills were nonetheless captured on films made in Montreal during this time.

Though Buffalo struggled with substance abuse for many years, he was able to quit around early 2018, and has since become a professional skateboarder, sponsored by Regina-based Colonialism Skateboards. Buffalo also has his own professional model skateboards, one of which includes an image of Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker) on its underside. Buffalo only learned later in life of his family connection to Pitikwahanapiwiyin, whom he describes as giving him his strength.

In October 2020, Buffalo was the feature interview of that month’s issue of Thrasher, the world’s premier skateboarding magazine. He described in detail the intergenerational trauma of the residential schools, its effects on Indigenous people and communities (particularly in terms of how the trauma caused substance use disorders) and how skateboarding helped him overcome these mental health challenges.

In 2023, Buffalo won the Indspire Award for Sports, notably for his prowess as a skateboarder as well as his commitment to Indigenous communities and self-empowerment. The documentary about his life, Joe Buffalo, which he co-wrote, won many awards in the film festival circuit.

Nations Skate Youth

Joe Buffalo co-founded Nations Skate Youth, an Indigenous-led organization aiming to empower Indigenous youth through skateboarding. The organization aims to inspire youth to embrace Indigenous culture and traditions. Nations Skate Youth places an emphasis on youth mental health and self-esteem, as well as listening to youth and teaching through storytelling. The organization hopes to strengthen Indigenous communities by strengthening intergenerational and cultural bonds.

Acting

Joe Buffalo’s introduction to acting started when he was asked to perform skateboarding tricks for a music video for the hip hop group A Tribe Called Red (now The Halluci Nation) that was released in 2016. It was through this that Buffalo met Kevan Funk. Though Buffalo did not know it at the time, Funk was looking for actors for his new project. Their chance encounter led Buffalo to being cast as ‘Eric’ in Funk’s film Hello Destroyer. The film did well, earning several Leo Awards (annual awards for achievement in British Columbia’s film and television industry), including a nomination for Buffalo in the best supporting male actor category.

Key Terms:

Truck – In skateboarding, a truck is the metal piece that connects the board to the axle and wheels.