In the Past An Essay By Freddy Bosum

In the Past...

The history of the Ouje-Bougoumou Crees throughout the better part of this century is a sad story of abuse, dispossession, and neglect by the combined efforts of mining and forestry companies and successive governments at both the provincial and federal levels.

Our people are the traditional inhabitants of a territory situated in northern Quebec comprised of 1000 square miles which has never been ceded, surrendered or conquered. Our traditional territory includes two non-aboriginal towns which depend almost exclusively on mining and forest industries as their economic base.

Our elders retain vivid recollections of the time seventy years ago when some of the earliest mining prospectors entered our territory looking for gold and copper and how our people escorted them to show them interesting rock outcroppings. Of course, we had no idea at the time of the consequences of these people on our territory, consequences both for our people and for the land.

As the identification of mineral deposits intensified, outsiders established mining camps, settlements and towns. The discovery of economically interesting geological formations took precedence over the continued existence of Ouje-Bougoumou villages. We were threatened and coerced into abandoning our village sites which were then bulldozed and destroyed. Through collusion among the mining companies and the Quebec and Canadian governments, we were forced to relocate our villages seven times over fifty years. There was a deliberate policy in place of attempting to make us disappear.

With the last of these relocations in 1970, our people dispersed throughout our territory and established small encampments that consisted of crude, makeshift dwellings, often just simple tent frames. We believed that if our villages could be destroyed so easily at the whims of mining companies and governments, then our territory was also in jeopardy. Our feeling was that we needed to demonstrate our continuing and total occupancy of our territory so that we would not be totally dispossessed of the very basis of our community, our way of life, and our identity as Ouje-Bougoumou Eenou.

But the full force of resource development had begun to be felt. A dozen mines were operating on our land and interfering with the pursuit of our traditional way of life. Clear-cutting occurred on such a scale that a very significant portion of our trees were destroyed, and along with them, the habitat required by the animals upon which we depend.

Our living conditions were terrible. Independent observers compared them as being among the worst in the third world. The non-aboriginal settlements thrived while we, the original and permanent inhabitants of our territory, were completely isolated and marginalized from the economic and political life of the region. We estimate that approximately $4 billion (Canadian) worth of resources have been extracted without our consent or our involvement, and without any benefit to us. Our pleas were ignored.

The non-native communities based on mining and forestry were established and continued to grow and thrive, while we, the original inhabitants, had our minimal pleas for help in re-establishing our village ignored by governments. We, the original inhabitants, the stewards of the land and its resources, had, as a consequence of this perverted form of development, become completely isolated and marginalized from the economic and political life of the region.

In the early 1980's the community decided to initiate yet more vigorous efforts to obtain government cooperation in addressing our concerns. Intensive discussions were begun with representatives of the province of Quebec in 1984, and after several years of these discussions and negotiations an agreement was reached in 1989 whereby Quebec agreed to contribute financially toward the construction of a new village, while also acknowledging a degree of local jurisdiction over a portion of the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree traditional territory. But to obtain the final agreement with Quebec required an enormous effort on the part of our community. Since Quebec was always somewhat reluctant to properly resolve the issue, our community needed to take very drastic measures to make our concerns taken seriously. In the summer of 1989 we declared our jurisdiction over the territory, blockaded the access road to the village, established our own court where we convicted the provincial and federal governments of breaching their fiduciary obligation to Ouje-Bougoumou, and we physically demonstrated our intention to occupy and govern our traditional territory. Needless to say, we got their attention. By September 1989 we concluded the agreement with Quebec.

After several false starts, a new round of negotiations began in 1990 to secure the financial participation of the federal government in the construction of a new permanent village. These negotiations were concluded when Ouje-Bougoumou and Canada signed the Ouje-Bougoumou/Canada Agreement in May 1992. Tne agreement provided the means by which Canada would contribute financially toward the construction of the Ouje-Bougomou village.

Throughout our negotiations, however, we have never relinquished our claim to jurisdiction over our territory and this remains an unresolved issue.

An Essay By Freddy Bosum

Freddy Bosum is currently attending
Trent University with an interest in Native Studies

The names have come and passed for my people from Chibougamau Crees or Chibougamau Eenou, Dore Lake Crees or Dore Lake Eenou, though Indian Affairs has called my people a "sub-band of the Mistassini," (Salisbury 119) and "strays of the Mistassini Crees," (Goddard 42), and now Eenou or people, Ouje-Bougoumou Crees and the Crees of Ouje-Bougoumou, but in our language Ouje-Bougoumou Eenou. My homeland is called Eenou Astchee, the territory where my community lives is called Ouje-Bougoumou Eenou Astchee. The surrounding territories include Mistassini Eenou Astchee, Waswanipi Eenou Astchee, At-the-kamac Eenou Astchee which in English is identified as Point Blue. This essay will focus on the history of my community.

I would first like to say that I am an aboriginal, Indian, Native, or Indigenous person, whatever the English term that may be used at this time. In my language, I am an Eenou, my people are Eenou, and together we are the Ouje-Bougoumou Eenou. The language group that I have been identified with is Cree. Where that word comes from I have no idea. The country that claims to be my homeland is Canada, the province is Quebec, and my homeland is surrounded by two non-aboriginal towns, Chibougamau and Chapais, but for our people and other native peoples in the surrounding communities they all call our lands as Ouje-Bougoumou Eenou Astchee. An anthropologist wrote "It is widely believed, mainly by strangers to the region, that the Crees living in and near Chibougamau belong to the Mistassini Band. The people of the area itself, make a sharp distinction between the Chibougamau Crees and those of Mistassini; indeed, the Chibougamau Crees see themselves most definitely as forming a group apart." (Frenette 3)

However, on most maps until 1992 the only way that someone could locate where I am from is when we look for the name of the non-aboriginal town smack down in the middle of our territory. The non-aboriginal population resides in Chibougamau, whose name is a mis-pronunciation of the word Ouje-Bougoumou. Chapais is the offspring of Chibougamau. Both are mining and forestry towns, both towns are within the boundaries of the Ouje-Bougoumou Eenou Astchee. There is very little published information about my community, my people, and my "reserve". I write "reserve" with great reluctance because of the fact that my Village is not recognized as a reserve, our local council is not recognized as a Band Council under the meaning of the Indian or Cree-Naskapi Act. It is identified as an "Indian Settlement" but for all intents and purposes it is treated as a Band and Reserve for certain purposes such as taxation, by the Cree-Naskapi Act, by the Department of Indian Affairs, and the provincial government. It is one of the few "Indian Settlements" that made a precedent of obtaining a tax exemption status such as a recognized Reserve in Canada without any formal recognition of the community pursuant to the Indian Act or other legislation. It is most likely the only community which has a village, tax exemption status, and government funding without having surrendered any lands or given up jurisdictional authority. In an agreement signed with the Quebec government in 1989 after a road block and subsequently with the Federal Government in 1992, the community explicitly reserved the right to sue for past damages while receiving funding to build a new village. There is still an outstanding claim for compensation, compensation for all the damage of the land, destruction of previous village sites and disrupting the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree way of life.

The story of my people has been written about by several journalists who wrote for newspapers or magazines. Authors, historians, lawyers and yes, even anthropologists. One book that focuses on the history of my people is "THE HISTORY OF THE CHIBOUGAMAU CREES". This book was written in 1985 by Jacques Frenette an anthropologist. Most of the research was done by Cree people through interviews with elders and other community members. I was even there while some of the interviews were conducted, and have heard the stories frequently in Community assemblies, story telling, or through the teaching of our elders.

In the case of my community the Department of Indian Affairs in the early 1970's saw it fit that our people be administratively grouped together with another community, Mistassini, a nearby Cree community. An excerpt of the book on the history of the Chibougamau Crees states: "In its workings, the Department of Indian Affairs took as its model the bands attached to the trading posts: on occasion, it would group several of these bands on the same reserve." (Frenette 2)

The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has made the same mistake with a number of communities across Canada; the same mistake being that it groups two distinct groups together, but in the Ouje-Bougoumou case the Department explained it away as being for administrative purposes! But eventually I found the real reason Why we were forced to relocate not once or twice but seven times before over a sixty year period? "In 1970, when a mining company needed sand at Dore Lake, an Indian Affairs official revived the fiction that the group belonged at Mistassini. They ordered people to move and had the village bulldozed." (Goddard 43)

So when my people moved from this earlier village in 1962 the people decided to do so for a number of reasons which included, promised jobs, they were under the threat of having their benefits to social programs cut off, as well as their Indian status. At the same time our people were continually being harassed by the Game Wardens who continually claim that the Crees had no right to hunt and trap, basically saying that they could not continue their traditional way of life. The stories of our people about the Game Wardens was told in a book written by Boyce Richardson, "Strangers Devour the Land", when Jimmy Mianscum, an elder and a Chief at the time told the story for Richardson's book:

And at this time by flying around the forest, landing at Indian hunting camps, seizing any meat killed outside the limits laid down by the white man's laws and taking it away. Jimmy Mianscum's testament gives a terrible picture of this cruel practice:

Now the game wardens. I did not know why the game warden came and landed at my hunting ground by aircraft while I was hunting in the bush. I did not know who send them to come at my camp. They ask for my meat. They took all my moose meat and when I come out from my trapping ground, when I come by aircraft they have also waited for me at Cache Lake, Fecteau Transport Ltd. (at Chibougamau). And of course they took all my moose meat again what I had left.

I was 40 miles out in the bush, that is where I brought my meat along for me to keep going while I am at Dore Lake. I also told them that I was a sick man, not in good health. This is the reason why I brought my food along with me, because I had to go in hospital and my family needed that food to eat. They told me their boss or manager wants that meat.

And so I am short of food to eat. The food they took from me, it would keep me going at least one month. I did not understand any of this, why they took my food. And it is right for a hunter to be given a permit, what he's got the right to do, same like the game wardens, Indians hunting there. Is it the government, or someone else? We would all of us like to know, and we'd like to know why this happen.

From Jimmy Mianscum, chief, Dore Lake, this meeting was helped and written by David Bosum. (Richardson, 1991: 54)

Now there are many stories that I have heard of this period, there were the times that I was born, this was the late 1960's right into 1974 and before the signing of the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement. There are still some other stories which are not written but I have been told of the cruel and inhumane treatment of these outside people, ordered by their government to take away all that the Cree people had. It was under these conditions that the Ouje-Bougoumou People finally left Dore Lake and moved to six scattered Campsites, into the Mistassini Reserve, and the other two towns, Chapais and Chibougamau. Mistassini at the time was described as: "1969, Mistassini was just a collection of log cabins, mostly abandoned in the winter when people went into the bush to trap beaver." (Richardson, 1993: 335) But Mistassini was a place where our people would not be harassed to the degree that they were in Dore Lake, but for the Ouje-Bougoumou People it was the eighth time that they had been forced to move and the onslaught of destruction of our lakes, rivers, forests, our land continued until the early eighties when the renewed fight began to have our land rights recognized, and this renewed fight began with the support of the Grand Council of the Crees. The first step was to document our history with "The History of the Chibougamau Crees". From this point in the essay I will focus on the content of this book, because it is one of the very few books that recognized that there is a difference between the Mistassini Crees and Ouje-Bougoumou Crees.

Even though the Ouje-Bougoumou People had always maintained that we were a distinct group from Mistassini and Waswanipi, and given the fact that Indian Affairs used historical documents to determine if a separate group would be "created" therefore creating another reserve, the Department as I noted earlier stated that it was for administrative purposes, but how does any government explain the other six relocations before Dore Lake. Sometimes it was for the safety of the people, the people only had to move while the mining companies were dynamiting for precious metals, settling of a town from gaining access to gravel for roads for forestry and mining companies. All our forced relocations were initiated by others in their pursuit of the almighty dollar. My people were even forced to relocate the dead Crees buried at a site to another location because a mine was to be opened:

In the days when they used to assemble near the Chibougamau post the Crees buried their dead at Campbell Point. Now that the band's cemetery was right in the middle of the work being carried out by the Campbell Company, the graves had to be relocated. The Crees moved them to the Grouin Peninsula, near the old trading post.

The cemetery was on Campbell Point, but it had to be moved to the portage on the Grouin Peninsula. It was moved in the summer when the families began to gather near the summer campsites. (George Shecapio-Blacksmith, 1982: 2) (Frenette p.55)

With every move another non-native person, company or institution claim land for themselves. The final breakup of our people from Dore Lake was under the claim that the land belonged in its entirety to the white people through the crown, but:

For Mary-Ann Bosum, neither the site of the village nor the surrounding areas could ever belong to anyone but the Crees:

At Dore Lake, we were to move to Mistassini - that the land belonged to the white man. This was not true. The land was my father's hunting territory, and his father had hunted there too. I know no one believes me because I am the only person alive who remembers that period.(Mary-Ann Bosum, 1982: 2) (Frenette 80)

Mary-Ann Bosum was my Grandmother and she later went on to do a number of other interviews for radio, TV, reports, and is a major contributor to the History book of the Chibougamau Crees. Another elder told in an interview of his experience of the time they were told to move:

We had been told we could live there forever if we wished. Then one day, we were told to leave, again. People had already built houses, and when we left, those houses were still standing. The white men tore them down. Even Beaver House was demolished. (Clarence Mianscum, 1981: 6)

Some families, attracted by the promises made to them, moved to Mistassini, while others went to Chibougamau or Chapais (Johnny Capassisit, 1981: 1). Still others established themselves on their hunting territories (Charlie Bosum, 1981: 1). (Frenette 81)

The Government chose to ignore the historical documents which identified the "Chibougamau Crees" as a distinct group, and the repeated requests of our community leaders were ignored. The Ouje-Bougoumou people had lived according to what I will refer to as a traditional way of life, which basically means the hunting and trapping way of life, from what has been referred to as "time immemorial". The only major events that have happened of interest to non-natives, were the finding of minerals which brought about the birth of two towns in our territory. The non-aboriginal population never really began until the early twentieth century. Though interaction had taken place in respect to fur trading, there was no significant presence of the non-aboriginal population until 1953 when the non-aboriginal population was 168, however even by that time my people had already been forced to relocate six times.

Today we still live in our homelands, our Eenou Astchee. After the last breakup of our village from Dore Lake our people moved into many different places as I have stated earlier but never leaving the traditional hunting territory. Although small groups may have coalesced into six different camps after 1974, others into Mistassini, Waswanipi, Chibougamau, Chapais, others moved to hunting grounds. When my father was interviewed for a book he stated "others established themselves on their hunting territories" (Charlie Bosum, 1981: 1). (Frenette 81) It is still very important to point out that though there were a lot of people who had moved into other villages or towns, it was never really home until out people were living in Ouje-Bougoumou Astchee. An example is in another excerpt from a book where my dad explains, "a feeling of confusion about his two houses, one in Mistassini and one in Chibougamau", for neither of them is really home to him. "I do not have that true feeling about them. Home is when I am in the bush." (Richardson, 1991: 99)

Our leaders are elected by secret ballots moving away from the traditional appointment and a show of support from the previous leaders. The "Band Council" system is in place but it is not under the control of the Indian Act and not even under the Cree-Naskapi Act but under the authority of our people. The Chief and Council members are the Board of Directors of an association created to carry out the administrative tasks of running a village. I was elected on that Council. As the Council's youngest member on my second term in that office, the issues that we will be facing will be getting control of the natural resources of our territory, creating or promoting the creation of employment after a major construction period for our people. Our people have maintained a traditional way of life and only during the summer seasons did some of the hunting families come into a town or village, but the burden of house payment draws them into wage economy and this is the biggest issue that our people will have to deal with in the very near future. But whatever we face as long as the land is there, there is nothing that we can not overcome. Returning to the land is one way of feeling truly at home for many of our people and the security of establishing a village provides some members with a sense of security that they will not be forced to relocate once again.

Values of the aboriginal and non-aboriginal worlds have not changed. One side seeks profits, another tries to maintain a balance with the environment and values life more. Racism is still present but not as easily identified. It is in the actions of the business of the towns and the actions of politicians. The relationship still has something to be worked on but life basically goes on.

Village Layout / Return to Top / Welcome

Oujé-Bougoumou Menu

Chief's Message / Our History / Design & Innovations / Road to Self-Reliance
Browse the Marketplace / Map / Our Youth / Awards of Excellence
Plan a Visit / Other Links