Difficulties Encountered in Researching Non-Status Algonquin in the Ottawa Valley

Hidden Communities: Difficulties Encountered in Researching Non-Status Algonquin in the Ottawa Valley JOAN M. HOLMES Ottawa This paper explores some of the difficulties encountered while researching communities of non-status Algonquin/Nipissing people living on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River. Three non-status communities are currently involved in documenting their history in order to obtain recognition as aboriginal communities from provincial and federal governments. This paper outlines some of the obstacles being faced in the preliminary stages of the research which depends upon archival documents, church and census records, and oral history interviews. BACKGROUND The traditional lands of the Algonquian-speaking Algonquin and Nipissing nations included the watershed of the Ottawa River, which drains a wide swath of land from Lake Temiskaming in the north along both sides of the Quebec-Ontario boundary south to Long Sault or Carillon, a point in the Ottawa River just above Lake of Two Mountains. The Ottawa River's tributaries on the Ontario side include the Rideau, Mississippi, Madawaska, Bonnechere, Petawawa, and Mattawa rivers. The earliest recorded claims of Algonquin and Nipissing chiefs and leading men clearly and consistently described the Algonquin and Nipissing territory as stretching along the Ottawa for a distance of 117 leagues, over 300 miles of canoe navigation from the Long Sault to Lake Nipissing.1 From the early 18th century onwards the Algonquin and Nipissing traveled down the Ottawa River annually to a Sulpician mission, initially located at He aux Tourtes and then at Lake of Two Mountains, where the Ottawa River empties into the St. Lawrence River near present-day 1 The background section is based on Joan Holmes and Associates, "Algonquvns of Golden Lake claim", prepared for the Ontario Native Affairs Secretanat, 1993. 130 JOAN M. HOLMES Montreal. Typically, they spent the summer months at the mission, which was also home to the Iroquois community of Kanesatake, often referred to as Oka. Through frequent and longstanding contact at Lake of Two Mountains with French and then British officials, the Algonquin and Nipissing became identified as Lake of Two Mountains or Oka Algonquin, although they continued to spend most of their time hunting and trapping on their traditional grounds in the Ottawa valley. The British Crown never entered into formal treaty relations with the Algonquin and Nipissing, despite the fact that the Algonquin and Nipissing repeatedly petitioned British authorities to compensate them for the loss of their traditional lands and the destruction of the resources upon which they depended for their livelihood. On several occasions, authorities acknowl edged their claims but no action was taken. Finally, inl 851, legislation set land aside for the Algonquin and other tribes of the upper Ottawa valley in Lower Canada (now Quebec), at the confluence of the River Desert and the Gatineau River, and at Lake Temiskaming. It took another 20 years to set aside lands on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River. In 1873, years after lands along the Ottawa had been surveyed and opened to white homesteaders, the Golden Lake reserve was purchased for the use of the local Algonquin. In the last half of the 19th century, the Algonquin and Nipissing occupying lands on the Upper Canada or Ontario side of the Ottawa River were in an untenable situation. They were not eligible for the free home stead grants being offered to settlers moving into the area, because they were Indians; nor could they claim squatters' rights or exercise pre- emptory rights to lands they occupied like whites that had settled in the area. Thus the free grants offered to whites from 1868 to 1908 were not available and lands upon which they were settled were not protected. Once the land at Golden Lake had been purchased for the Algonquin families living around the Bonnechere River area, those who petitioned the government seeking to protect the lands where they had gardens and homes were told to move to the established reserve at Golden Lake or to move across the river to the reserve on the River Desert. During the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, many Algonquin families moved onto the Golden Lake Reserve, at least on a seasonal basis. The on-reserve population at Golden HIDDEN COMMUNITIES 131 Lake became recognized as status Indians. Thus although they did not have a treaty with the Crown, they gained official Indian status, and their reserve and every aspect of their lives became managed under Indian Act legislation and federal Indian Affairs policy. The Algonquin/Nipissmg families who did not move onto the reserve but continued to live in other parts of the Ottawa Valley were not officially recognized as Indians, nor did they hold any reserve lands. As a conse quence, their descendants do not receive any of the benefits that flow from Indian status or on-reserve status such as educational support, community infrastructure support, economic development, or aboriginal hunting and fishing rights. These families form the core of non-status communities. Three non-status communities who are currently researching their histories traditionally occupied separate areas on the Ontario side of the Ottawa valley. From north to south they are: the Antome First Nation centered around Mattawa, the Bonnechere Metis Association located around the Bonnechere River near Golden Lake, and the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation who reside primarily around the Ardoch and Sharbot Lake area at the headwaters of the Mississippi and Rideau rivers. Over the last century, some of the members of these communities have gained registered Indian status on an individual basis; the communities, however, are not officially recognized as aboriginal communities, nor do they hold any reserve lands. DIFFICULTIES IN RESEARCH Typically, non-status communities were marginally associated with mainstream settler society and also had peripheral relations with reserve communities. They usually lived in isolated rural areas, often pursuing a semi-migratory mixed-economy lifestyle, and were rarely recognized as distinct identifiable communities by the wider society. Unlike treaty or status Indians, whose relationship with the federal government has generated volumes of documentation, non-status commu nities rarely attracted official attention. Thus, there are very few official records regarding these communities. Existing records tend to make reference to individuals or families and very rarely deal with non-status groups as communities. Little scholarly attention has been paid to the non-status Algonquin communities on the Ontario side of the Ottawa valley. Day and Trigger 132 JOAN M. HOLMES acknowledged the existence of "an unknown number of persons of Algonquin descent scattered throughout the Ottawa valley".2 Day des cribed the historical connection between the Nipissing and the Algonquin and explained the difficulties scholars encounter when attempting to distinguish between the two groups.3 Frank Speck's 1913 work noted the existence of a traditional Algonquin band at Mattawa, identified as Matawasi-bi anicenabi ('Mouth-of-the-river People'), who were closely associated with the Algonquin at Kippawa on the Quebec side.4 More recently, M. Jean Black has written on the history of the Algon quin and Nipissing associated with Lake of Two Mountains and elaborated on the genealogical connections between the Nipissing and Algonquin, as recorded by Sulpician and Oblate missionaries. Her findings have been useful in identifying early ancestors of the non-status communities.5 Local histories provide a brief glimpse of the existence and conditions of non-status communities in the local area. As they typically focus on the stories of the early settlers, however, the aboriginal people are largely excluded. Brief references are usually to one or two individuals that seem to exist independent of the network of families that make up the aboriginal community. Early surveys and land records contain some evidence of aboriginal occupation. They too are limited in their recognition of aboriginal settle ment and land use, often merely recording settlers as "Indians", noting an "Indian shanty" on survey plans, or stating that they met an "Indian chief without giving further details or noting names. In one case the sugarbush of Amable du Font (Dufond) was shown on an 1847 plan as being located on Lake Kaiasquaque (Kioshkoqui).6 Algonquin Park's current map of 2 Gordon M. Day and Bruce G. Trigger, "Algonquin", Handbook of North American Indians, v. 15: Northeast, ed. by Bruce G. Trigger (Washington, 1978), 797. 3 Gordon M. Day, "Nipissing", Handbook of North American Indians, v. 15: Northeast, ed. by Bruce G. Trigger (Washington, 1978), 787-791. Frank G. Speck, "Family hunting territories and social life of various Algonkian bands of the Ottawa Valley", Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 70 (Ottawa, 1915), 1-3,9. 5 M. Jean Black, "A tale of two ethnicities", Papers of the 24th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan (Ottawa: Carleton University, 1993). 6 Archives of Ontario, Special Collections, R-A, "Plan of part of the Mattawan and Amable du Fonts rivers" by Duncan Sinclair. HIDDEN COMMUNITIES 133 canoe routes shows a farm on Manitou Lake, directly to the west of Kioshkoqui on the Amable du Fond River, which was cleared by Francis and Ignace Dufond in the 1880s and operated until Ignace's death m 1916. The Dufonds are Antoine Algonquin ancestors. Amable and Ignace appear as heads of families in the 1871 census of Nipissing District, in which they are said to be hunters born about 1801 and 1845, respectively. Patent plans rarely show aboriginal occupation and must be used with caution, as the names were periodically added to the plans and therefore the date of occupation is not certain. For example, Ardoch ancestors Joseph Whiteduck and Peter Clement (Clemo) are shown on an 1861 Palmerston township patent plan at Cross (Crotch) Lake and at Mud Lake, respectively.

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