After the Flood: Relocation to the Promised Land

JANICE E. GRAHAM Peawanuck, Ontario

On Friday, May 16, 1986, at approximately 11:00 in the morning, 20- foot walls of ice came grinding over the banks of the Winisk River and into the Cree village of Winisk. Within five minutes the entire community had been devastated by the river's break-up. Houses, knocked off their pillars, came crashing into each other and collided with the now mobile reserve landscape: 45-gallon oil drums, canoes, skidoos, woodpiles, hydro poles and various buildings were cleared away by the ice. Practically the entire population of 130 people scrambled to find their families and to get out of the path of the debris and buildings, away from ice the size of houses, and from the ensuing rush of the flooding waters. In the following account, an ethnographic overview of the community of Winisk will be given: its origin, its demise and the Weenusk Band's subsequent relocation to Peawanuck, called "the Promised Land" by band members. Winisk, in the Hudson Bay lowlands, is approximately 650 kilometres by air northwest of Moosonee in northeastern Ontario. It is about six kilometres from Hudson Bay on the west side of the Winisk River in the forest-tundra section of the boreal forest region. The subarctic climate is harsh, with the area characterized by discontinuous permafrost, low marshy bogs and fens, and scattered stands of stunted trees. Far from barren, this is a land rich in magnificent and awesome beauty, with wildlife including caribou, moose, polar bears, geese, beluga whales, and numerous species offish, along with beaver, mink, otter, fox, wolf, marten and the other fur bearers which drew the early attention of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Weenusk Band members are Muskegog Cree Indians. They occupy the more than 50,000 square kilometres draining the Winisk River, from its headwaters some 300 kilometres southwest, to the mouth by Hudson Bay. The 75 or so frost-free days during the year are accompanied by

137 138 JANICE E. GRAHAM swarms of black flies and mosquitoes that push the game and the people to the coast during summer, where the cool bay winds make the pests less bothersome. This time on the coast allowed the people who came together from their isolated kin-oriented traplines and hunting grounds an opportunity for intensive netting of ocean-migrating fish as well as social gatherings, reunions, and marriages. The Hudson's Bay Company recognized the value of this summer gath ering place by the coast, of the various family groups that lived along the river. In the 1880s, a summer trading post was organized at the mouth of the river, saving the trappers the inconvenience of trips to Fort Albany and Fort Severn, the older, more established posts. By 1895, a missionary came to the mouth of the Winisk River for a week every summer, and by 1900 a Roman Catholic church was constructed, followed by a permanent Hudson's Bay Company trading post in 1901. Despite the signing of a treaty in 1930 and the permanent missionary presence by 1935, Winisk re mained primarily a summer meeting site for the Crees, who spent the rest of the year, except for a week at Christmas, hunting and trapping on their trapping grounds along the length of the Winisk River, as far west as Fort Severn and east to Attawapiskat. In 1947 the Department of Lands and Forests identified family grounds by registering traplines. They also set aside a nearby region for trapping by the old and infirm who could then choose to remain in Winisk. Govern ment rations were made available, encouraging settlement at the Winisk site. However, the majority of the Weenusk people still lived on their own traplines for the greater part of the year. It was not until 1955, when con struction began on the Mid-Canada Line Radar Base, across the river from Winisk, that full-time wage labour prompted permanent residence in the village. All but two families moved to Winisk during this period in order to take construction jobs which provided wage income. This period of social change is documented in Jean Trudeau's thesis (1966). As a result of the unemployment following the initial construction pe riod, many people returned to hunting, fishing and trapping in the early 1960s. A few individuals, however, chose to remain near a potential source of income, should infrequent odd jobs be made available. By the time the radar base finallyclose d in the mid 1960s, several families were spending the greater part of the year in the village, close to the church, the school, the store, and the possibility of wage labour. By 1985, only two full-time trap pers were living on their traplines. The remaining 25 trappers registered in Winisk were recognized as part-time or as weekend trappers, commuting by skidoo from the village to their traplines. The high cost of gasoline ($6.50 per gallon during 1985), made remote traplines expensive operations One trapper commented during his first winter spent in the village and not on AFTER THE FLOOD 139 his line, "I can't afford to trap anymore . . . The gas costs too much." Winisk was built on the flood plain of Hudson Bay. Oral history re counts fiveseriou s floodingoccurence s during spring break-up over the past 50 years, with some flooding almost every year. A major flood in 1966 cov ered the village in approximately two and a half metres of water, which carried the general purpose huts, constructed with materials salvaged from the abandoned radar base, several kilometres back into the muskeg and out towards the tundra and Hudson Bay. Residents paddled to dry ground in canoes while the waters rose about them. Sled dogs drowned but no human lives were lost. Several families were away from the village on the trapline at the time. When the waters subsided, with little government assistance save for a borrowed Ministry of Transport and Communications bulldozer,1 people hauled the remains of their homes back to the village site to build again. Again, in 1972, the community flooded, causing extensive property damage. Despite the fact that band members had taken the firststep s towards studying relocation possibilities after the 1966 flooding, no gov ernment action had been taken. However, by the early 1970s, the Depart ment of Indian Affairs began their housing program in earnest. Weenusk Band members questioned the rationale behind building what was to be permanent Indian housing on a flood plain which had such a history of devastation. Nevertheless, despite the widely voiced concern of the local people, the following decade witnessed increased funding from Indian Af fairs, made available not for relocation, but rather for the construction of 45 new houses in the community of Winisk. Funding throughout this period favoured white paper initiatives, providing often meaningless make-work projects of dubious intent in a community resting precariously in a flood area. Internally, the community was divided, most clearly along social struc tural and kinship divisions going back several generations. Residence pat terns reflected a division between coastal and interior groups in the village. In Winisk, the houses were built along the river, generally on or close to the same places where the more temporary tents and cabins of each family had been erected during the radar base construction. The families who hunted and trapped along the coast were located downriver, north towards the Bay, while the inland trappers and hunters were located upriver, or south. A rough dividing line between inland and coastal family residences was marked by the band store (which had been the Hudson's Bay Company store until 1974, when the band took it over and ran it as a cooperative)

1 The provincial Ministry of Transport and Communications continues to operate the airport originally built as part of the radar base during the 1950s. 140 JANICE E. GRAHAM and the school and church. To the north of the store, school and church resided the coastal hunting families, while to the south lived the inland Weenusk Indians. The coastal families were closely aligned with the Hudson's Bay Com pany. They were the homeguard for the company, providing the manager and clerks with geese and fresh meat and fishi n the past. The proximity of the coastal families to the post historically allowed for greater oppor tunities for trade relations and wage labour. Community attitudes echoed these structural divisions: the coastal people preferred remaining near the coast, along the tundra/forest ecotone, while the inlanders favoured moving upriver, to higher ground with deeper stands of trees, closer to their own hunting and trapping areas and further from the tundra and Hudson Bay.2 Meanwhile, an ongoing informal discussion by band members of poten tial sites for a village continued, since, over the years, progressively more families were taking up year-round residence in the community. Because of the potentials for flooding,i t was evident that apart from immediate housing needs, Indian Affairs was not going to fund any permanent in frastructure in Winisk. Running water, sewer systems and any permanent development were out of the question. With no basic amenities available, people who had acquired trade skills and education were migrating to the south. In 1983, the newly elected Chief George Hunter energetically placed priority on the need to relocate the village. Hunter was young, articulate in Cree and English, and politically astute. His family trapped and hunted along the coastal tundra, but his wife's family originated from upriver and inland. He recognized the pragmatic need for relocating the community to higher and drier ground, even though his own environmental experience was connected to the tundra. The fears of the coastal people, especially their concerns about moving away from the coastal geese migration routes, were best put to rest by a coastal hunter himself. Despite his ties to the coast, Chief Hunter was one of the strongest voices for relocation, motivated by a personal commitment to the community of the Weenusk Band rather than to its location in Winisk. Band meetings were held, and by September 1983 a site selection study was underway. Using information provided by band members, engineering consultants were hired to assess each site in terms of various appropriate

Some coastal people have indicated that the inlanders are Ojibwa or Ojibwa- Cree rather than strictly Cree. While this distinction is open for considerable debate, it is per haps enlightening to consider the comments of an elder and former Chief of Kashechewan, a Cree community along James Bay. When asked about the difference between Ojibwa and Cree Silas Wesley said, ". . . Ojibwa, they likefishing; an d Cree, they like geese hunting (Andrew Wesley, personal communication). AFTER THE FLOOD 141 factors relating to its suitability for the development of the community. An evaluation matrix was developed based on appropriate engineering, planning, environmental and socio-economic criteria. The site known as Peawanuck, approximately 32 kilometres upriver from Winisk and across from a flintoutcroppin g giving the area its Cree name, was overwhelmingly the most feasible and popular alternative. It had been firstidentifie d by band members and was unique for the region in its shale and limestone foundation. On March 16, 1984, the band held a referendum for reloca tion. With a population of 176 at the time, there were 65 eligible voters, of whom 56 voted. Two votes were spoiled, 11 opposed relocation, and 43 favoured relocation to Peawanuck. Those in favour represented 80% of the valid votes. In the community buttons were printed declaring "PEAWANUCK THE PROMISED LAND." Young and old sported this proclamation on baseball hats and jean jackets. Those dissenters, not yet convinced, merely assumed relocation was unlikely to occur for a long time. In the political realm submissions were made for approval-in-principle for band relocation and land acquisition to the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. The review and approval process was based on the site selection study report, a band council resolution requesting relocation to Peawanuck based on the results of the relocation referendum, and an offer to sell or exchange reserve land for land at Peawanuck from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Other activities to follow were to include: a community planning and capital feasibility study; several special studies relating to soils and ground water, housing, education, economic development, alternative energy sources, and capital funding sources; and specific activities such as airport develop ment and land acquisition. A time frame was drawn up by the band and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, and the actual physical relocation to Peawanuck was scheduled for 1989-1990. By the autumn of 1985, funding sources were in question and the date had been moved to 1990-1991. Concerns and doubts were being expressed in the community that the money would ever be made available. Relocation studies were considered to be just projects with no real end result. Meanwhile, every spring in early May, people continued to prepare for break-up by hauling their boats up from the river banks where they had been buried under snow since freeze-up, the autumn before, and tying them by their houses. Filled with blankets and food, they were life boats in case of flood. Wood piles were secured and snow machines and equipment often placed on ramps away from the river. As the river ice began to crack and then flow out towards the bay, people stood watch, carefully monitoring the conditions. Almost always break-up flooding seemed to occur during the night, so that people went to bed with their clothes on, ready to jump 142 JANICE E. GRAHAM when the alarm, now more frequently a telephone, sounded. On Friday, May 16, 1986 at about 9:30 a.m., parents started calling the school, asking the principal to send their children home. The river condi tions were bad and a few elders said it was going to flood this year, indicated by the way it was first breaking up over by the islands on the other side of the river. The principal dismissed his students. The Ministry of Natural Resources twin otter aircraft flew over Winisk and further upriver, radio ing back to the community that it would not flood. People relaxed, some getting their cameras and going down to the river bank to take pictures. At 11:00 the grinding, crashing ice pushed over the banks. In five minutes all but five houses were razed. The people still talk of the sound of the ice and the screaming that comes back to haunt them in nightmares. Parents scrambled over ice flowstryin g to grab their children from the waters; three children watched in horror as their partially paralysed mother lifted them to safety after their canoe capsized, and then was knocked down by a falling hydro pole and dragged under the ice. People were plucked from the water into boats and buildings. Two people died: Margaret Chookomoolin, the 34 year old mother of four, and John Crowe, an elder. Others spent the rest of the day separated from their families, in boats, in houses back in the bush, wondering who else had survived. It was not until 10:00 that evening, after the evacuation helicopters had finallyarrive d and taken the people to the air hangar across the river from Winisk, that the losses could be tallied. The district office of Indian Affairs in Moose Factory responded quickly to the emergency with a concerted emergency relief effort. But weather con ditions prevented the earlier arrival of the helicopters, and the people were cold, wet, and homeless as they embraced their relatives arriving with each helicopter. The next day the people of Winisk were evacuated by plane to At- tawapiskat, 350 kilometres to the south. Their immediate needs were pro vided for there, and by the end of the week they had been billeted in homes in that community. The search for the missing bodies and salvaging continued for several weeks. Immediately, Chief Hunter began what would become months of intensive political lobbying and travel for relocation. Ev eryone from Winisk, now in Attawapiskat, wanted to return home, to go to Peawanuck. Three days after the flood,o n May 19, a holiday Monday, Chief Hunter chartered a plane to Winisk, taking along with him the Minister of Northern Development and Mines to survey the devastation. On May 20, the Minister, with the Chief present, made a statement to the legislature recommending that the cabinet formally designate Winisk a disaster area. Meetings between the band and Indian Affairs took place, with the Chief dealing only with Regional office in Toronto and with headquarters in Ottawa. His position was unmoveable, "We cannot afford to deal with AFTER THE FLOOD 143 secondary bureaucrats. We have to take the initiative, take an action orien tation, and go directly to the top." Hunter recognized the desire of his band members in Attawapiskat to return home, even if their homes no longer ex isted and it was not to the same site. He struggled to keep his membership in one place, fearing they would leave Attawapiskat and, being unable to return to Winisk, would disperse into other communities. By May 28, only two weeks after the flood, the band was involved in meetings with government representatives to relocate the people to Peawanuck as soon as possible. Completely in bush, and with no airstrip, Peawanuck seemed a dream full of immense obstacles for the band to hurdle. By the beginning of June the Treasury Board had given the go ahead for relo cation, the special authority needed to release money for the emergency situation. The Department of National Defence had agreed to provide a Hercules aircraft to transport heavy equipment to the Winisk airport, and a Chinook helicopter to take the equipment to Peawanuck. The Ministry of Transport and Communications was surveying for a new airstrip, which was to have 4500 feet opened by the end of October. Land surveying also began June 8 for housing lots. An agreement between the band, Indian Affairs and Central Mortgage and Housing Canada was made. Money was to be made available immediately for 45 houses, eight of which were to be temporary accommodations for a school, teachers' quarters, a band office, a store, and a much-needed work camp. Chief Hunter required assurance that the money was to be made available without affecting allocations to other bands. The relocation was to be a Vote 15 project through Indian Affairs. The funds were given to the band through contribution arrangements and the band was to administer the project. Indian Affairs, however, arranged for a project team made up of staff members whom the band viewed as uncom fortable with band-administered projects. The Chief felt that this team were trying to run the project like a Vote 10, or department administered project. Chief Hunter sent telexes to the new regional director general and to the minister, questioning the interference by the department in the se lection of a project manager. By early June the band had the consultant they had originally requested to work with them on the relocation. By the middle of June people began moving home. Although there were not enough tents and few provisions in the way of food or supplies, the people were tired of living in Attawapiskat and eager to "go home." Planes were chartered for the trip to Winisk. It was snowing when they arrived but they camped anyway at the old airport, across from the ru ined village. During the next weeks they moved their tents to Peawanuck as the equipment-hauling helicopter shuffle was underway. Tent City in Peawanuck resembled a third-world refugee camp, but with a prevailing 144 JANICE E. GRAHAM sense of belonging and determination in evidence. Helicopters shuttled building supplies and people across the tundra and muskeg from the air port at Winisk to Peawanuck, the promised land. During the summer a helicopter pilot observed a canoe party of southern wilderness adventurists paddling down the Winisk River. He reflected: "Times have sure changed ... it used to be the Indians travelled by canoe and the whiteman flew overhead." On July 18, the first basements were dug at Peawanuck. The people were all living in tents along the river by then, perhaps a kilometre or two from the construction site. By October, with snow on the ground, they had moved the tents further back into the bush, and closer to the construction, where the tents were hooked up to the temporary electrical generator. By mid-November people began moving into the basements of the houses as they were being finished.Th e whirlwind tide of activity, of con struction, of negotiation, of the constant flow of civil servants, tradespeo ple, consultants, has ebbed from the frantic pace of the summer and au tumn. Community planning, engineering, change plans, feasibility studies, the search for funding sources has all come together. What was originally to have occurred over a five-yearperio d actually fell into some sort of order in five months. The bureaucratic shuffle turned into a kind of fast run as continual concerns over cash flow, contribution arrangements, transfer of funds and planning for existing and future technical services and public buildings were dealt with by the band and Indian Affairs. A sewage sys tem and running water are still dreams for the future with no guarantee of funding in place for 1987. All the houses have been built with plumbing in place, but the closest water pump is as much as a half kilometre away from some houses. Indian Affairs has told Chief Hunter that there is no money available for water, sewers and roads. Chief Hunter's reply is: 'You mean it's physically possible but bureaucratically impossible." A busy and determined year of more travel, more lobbying, awaits him. After 20 years of relocation requests and at the cost of two lives, the relocation has finally been unanimously made to Peawanuck, the Promised Land.

Addendum

It is now January, 1987. The village of Peawanuck, the new home for the Weenusk Band, sleeps as I jot down these last lines. Too close in time and space to adequately analyse, I have attempted here only to describe. My thoughts turn to the conversations I have had over the past months with mothers and fathers here in the village. The children are still waking during the night, crying, sometimes screaming, wondering if the river will flood again this year, whether "the ice will come." And the games they AFTER THE FLOOD 145

play, especially a new one they call "The Flood": "they pack a little ba«r full of their things, maybe some food they grab off the table, and then thev walk out the door."3

REFERENCE Trudeau, Jean

1966 Culture Change Among the Swampy Cree Indians of Winisk, Ontario. Ph.D. thesis, Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

The author is an anthropologist whose doctoral research among Subarctic Cree first brought her to Winisk in 1983. Following subsequent research visits, she took up residence in Winisk in April 1985 and was hired by the Weenusk Band as the Community Socio-Economic Development Officer. She currently resides in Ottawa. 146