Promised LANDS
UPROOTED REPEATEDLY BY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS, THE OUJÉ-BOUGOUMOU CREE WANDERED BOREAL QUEBEC FOR 70 YEARS BEFORE FINDING A PERMANENT HOME. FOR SOME, THE JOURNEY CONTINUES.
BY JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTIAN FLEURY
44 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC MARCH/APRIL 2020 Promised LANDS
The lake-pocked landscape near Oujé-Bougoumou, Que.
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 45 ABEL BOSUM, GRAND CHIEF side shacks, miners’ tents and trapline it’s the site of a small family farm of the Grand Council of the Crees, cabins for some 70 years before with chickens, rabbits and a lone cat. plants his dress shoes where his par- Bosum led them to secure a perma- When Bosum and I stop in, the own- ents’ house once sat on a thin wooded nent reserve on the shores of Lake ers aren’t home, so technically, we spit that curls into Doré Lake like a Opémisca, about an hour’s drive from are trespassing. dog’s tongue into a bowl of water. here, in 1992. For some, the exodus “I’m still amazed at those trees,” A late September breeze rushes might not be over. Bosum says, scoping out the paper Athrough the birch trees. Bosum’s Bosum was born in 1955 at nearby birch outside the modest two-storey mind turns to the past. This was the Lake Chibougamau, separated from house. Bosum recalls a photograph site of the final village from which his Doré Lake by a thin isthmus across taken of his aunt in front of one of people, the Oujé-Bougoumou Cree which the Cree could easily portage these trunks. There’s another, some- Nation, were uprooted by a mining their canoes. He was the eldest of his where in the memory books, of company — this one a gold pit owned mother Lucy’s 11 children. Lucy’s par- Bosum posing outside his family’s by a fellow named Campbell — in the ents forbade her marriage to Abel’s cabin in a pair of DIY bell bottoms unrelenting pursuit of monetizable biological father, Cypien Caron, a (made by cutting a slit up from the minerals from the Canadian Shield. French-Canadian, and so Lucy instead cuff of the jeans and stitching in an The Bible says the Israelites wan- married Sam Neepoosh, who was a extra triangle of denim), his hair dered the wilderness for 40 years father figure to Abel. Standing where hanging over his shoulders like a before Moses led them to the Prom- his childhood home once did, Bosum hippy. At 63, Bosum’s now silvery hair ised Land. The Oujé-Bougoumou surveys the lakeside peninsula. This is close-cropped. He speaks softly and Cree roamed the boreal near what is is his first time back since the Oujé- thoughtfully as memories return, now the town of Chibougamau, Que., Bougoumou Cree hosted a healing periodically adjusting the rectangular like squatters, seeking shelter in road- camp on this plot 20 years ago. Today, glasses resting on the bridge of his
46 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC MARCH/APRIL 2020 RELOCATIONS OF OUJÉ-BOUGOUMOU AREA CREE to Mistissini from Mistissini Mashchekushtikw 167 Active mining claims*
BlackRock
Utapiskucheu Other companies Oujé-Bougoumou CHIBOUGAMAU Lake Cree Nation Sw *claims current to January 13, 2020 a Cedar Bay m p y Opémisca P t Chibougamau Cam Post pb Doré Lake el H l P am t e l Doré Is Gawashebuggidnajj Lake Lake (site of proposed BlackRock mine) Chibougamau 113 Chapais Highway camps Wapachee rabbit camp Chibouchibi Hudson's Bay Company 0 250 km trading post r o d r i or James Bay and c il 10 km a 0 Northern Quebec r d Agreement e s (1977) o p o Nichicum r P Movement of Cree community Nemiscau Neoskweskau 167 ONTARIO Mistissini 1929 Enlarged Mistissini area 1942 Elliot QUEBEC 1950-1952 Lake Val-d'Or Quebec City 1962 Montreal 1974 Toronto Shiipekush 1989
plump nose. “That was a long time pride in their homes, at least in part Abel Bosum, Grand Chief of the Grand ago,” he says wistfully. because they were under the impres- Council of the Crees, revisits his childhood Bosum remembers log homes built sion that, if they built up a dignified home at Doré Lake. His family was forced in a circle, their front doors facing community, the provincial and federal to leave the community in 1974. inward. About a dozen structures governments would let them stay. once stood here. The builders would In the centre of the village, roughly the dump for building supplies, begin by erecting a plywood shack where the current residents now have Bosum spotted the man throwing with a tarp for a roof. Over two to a front-yard firepit, there was once a away his cakes after making his final three years, using materials rum- makeshift ballfield. A baker used to sales at Doré Lake. It was then he real- maged from a nearby dump, families stop to sell bread and Vachon cakes ized the breadman had been selling slowly built up walls and roofing out of his van. Families pinched pen- the village the last of his supply as it before sealing windows, adding insu- nies to save for the pastries. One time, started to spoil. “That was no favour,” lation and finally fixing up the interior. Bosum and five young friends orga- says Bosum. “It wasn’t like today,” says Bosum. nized a cake heist. Their plan was Behind each house, there was a trail “We had no credit, couldn’t go to the simple: Eddy, the fastest, would pick down to the lake, where families kept bank.” Nonetheless, families took up a Vachon and run. The baker the canoes they used to traverse the would give chase. His van abandoned, many interlinked waterways spattered the other four would make off with as across Chibougamau and James Bay Julian Brave NoiseCat (@jnoisecat) is a contribut- many morsels as they could. The like a region-wide Rorschach test left ing editor for Canadian Geographic. Christian scheme worked and the baker was by the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet Fleury (christianfleury.com) is a Montreal-based pissed. After that, the kids weren’t millennia ago. Despite the once editorial and commercial photographer. allowed to come around his van any- meagre circumstances of his people,
more. Months later, during a trip to Bosum considers this a place of plenty. DE LA FAUNE MINISTÈRE DES RESSOURCES NATURELLES MAP: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO; ACTIVE MINING CLAIM DATA:
CANGEO.CA 47 Doré Lake, or Lac aux Dorés in French, FOR MOST OF THE 1900S, claimed by white men, were displaced is named for the doré (walleye) found Cree life was organized around the from village after village. And even in its waters. Blueberries and rasp harvest of fur, timber and minerals when they weren’t removed by indus- berries grow on the hill above the for French- and English-speaking try, they felt its impacts. Piles of village. In the 1960s, a Quebec govern- colonists who first appeared in the mining garbage left atop frozen lakes ment official told then Chief Jimmy region in the 1600s, as well as an older in winter killed fish and ruined drink- Mianscum that his people could remain Indigenous subsistence economy. In ing water in summer. New mines, here indefinitely. In 1966, the Canadian 1870, the Canadian Geological Com- logging plots and roads scared off Centennial Commission even wrote a mission sent a surveyor to the region. game. In the years before they estab- grant for $1,700 so that Anglican Gold was first discovered in 1903 at lished themselves at Doré Lake, the Church volunteers from far-off cities Copper Point on Portage Island in Cree lived at Hamel Island, Swampy like Toronto could build a 15-metre-long Chibougamau Lake. The Cree main- Point, Campbell Point and Cedar Bay, hall for community meetings and reli- tain that their ancestors, who didn’t among other places. At Hamel Island, gious services at Cache Bay, just around know the value of the metals, first they were told to move because the the bend from the village. It doubled as identified outcroppings to prospec- government needed sand to build the chief’s home. The villagers called it tors. A series of mining booms and highways. At Swampy Point, the only “Beaver House.” busts followed, generally tracking land not claimed by prospectors, Bosum remembers a wedding party global economic cycles: down with influential clergymen cited public at Beaver House when he was a little the crash of 1929, up after the Sec- health concerns before telling the boy. At around 11 o’clock at night, four ond World War. In 1947, the Quebec Cree to hit the road. At Cedar Bay and police pulled up and started throwing government began construction of Campbell Point, the Cree were told attendees into the backs of their squad a road into the region. It was com- their homes were too close to mining cars. The Cree were shaken and pleted by 1950, and loggers began explosives. Each time they were injured. “Nobody knew what was going chopping away at the spruce that uprooted, they had to find a new place on,” says Bosum. “There was a lot of grew dense, strong and tall in the to settle, clear-cut a lot and start build- racism back then. There was a lot of backcountry. When Chibougamau ing a new shelter. When they left tension built up between the Cree was established as a company town Campbell Point, they had to dig up and French people working in the in 1952, there were 25 sawmills oper- and relocate the remains of ancestors mines and so forth. And so, the ating in the region producing 50 interred in a community cemetery. police — I wouldn’t say all of them, I million feet of timber, primarily for Many turned to alcohol to cope. knew some good police — but there export to the United States. In 1954, Beginning in 1962, most had sum- were some police who would use their the province incorporated Chibouga- mer residences at the village on Doré authority to just come in and crash a mau as a municipality. Lake. Men would join prospecting party. They weren’t even invited and The Cree, who had the misfortune teams, working as explorers and line- they weren’t called.” of building homes on top of riches cutters felling trees in areas of interest
48 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC MARCH/APRIL 2020 LOCATION
Maggie Wapachee, 88, skins a beaver in That same year, despite repeated MAGGIE WAPACHEE, INST 88,ALLA isTION her home (opposite left). Her son, Norman promises from both the provincial and skinning a beaver that is lying belly- (opposite right), worked for a mining federal governments to respect their up on her kitchen table, when her company. Another such company was village and build new homes, the Cree son Norman walks in the front door. once responsible for forcing the family at Doré Lake, along with others from Earlier that morning, Norman’s LOCATION INSTALLATION from their home near Doré Lake (below). Neoskweskau, Nemiscau and Nichicun, father Matthew, 87, trapped and were incorporated under the Mistissini killed the animal before retiring to for mining corporations. Others Band by the Department of Indian his room. Maggie speaks Cree exclu- found jobs as lumberjacks. They Affairs. Government and industry com- sively, so Norman translates for me drank the water and ate the fish from pelled the Cree to abandon Doré Lake. as she sets about flaying the critter. the lake and supplemented their Finally, when the Campbell firm discov- “I’m getting old for this kind of job. incomes with rations and welfare col- ered a new deposit near the village, the I can’t work as fast as I used to,” she lected from government officials at a Cree caved. “At Doré Lake, we were told says in her percussive Eastern Cree Hudson’s Bay Company post on the to move to Mistissini — that the land dialect — pointy vowels wrapped in Mistissini reserve, about four days’ belonged to the white men,” Mary-Ann round, repetitious consonants. (Say voyage by canoe. In the fall, families Bosum, a local Cree, told anthropologist “Chibougamau” and you get a taste returned to camps where they trapped Jacques Frenette in 1982. “This was not of its phonology.) Norman chuckles beaver, otter and lynx to sell to the true. The land was my father’s hunting as he offers the translation. Hudson’s Bay while they hunted territory, and his father had hunted The beaver, a Cree staple, can be moose, goose, caribou, bear, porcu- there, too.” Others, like Bosum’s broiled in the oven, boiled on the pine, rabbit and partridge to eat. mother Lucy, relocated to the town of stovetop or roasted over an open fire. Between 1952 and 1972, the white Chibougamau. Some went to Chapais. Their tender tail is considered a deli- population of Chibougamau grew The community, once gathered around cacy. But they’re also pungent when from fewer than 200 to nearly 12,000. the lake, the Beaver House and the ball they cook, and Maggie, a gracious They far outnumbered the Cree at field, dispersed. host, says she wants to spare our Doré Lake, whose population was The last Cree families departed nostrils. “I would never stop doing about 125 in 1968. Doré Lake in 1974. Their log homes these types of activities, because I and the Beaver House were demol- love it,” she says as she takes a break BOSUM REMEMBERS when, ished soon after. The Campbell mine from her work. “My late mother in 1962, his mother and stepfather operated for three years. taught me these things, so I just want took him on one of their trips to the HBC post in Mistissini. At the store, Bosum’s mother bought her boy the finest clothes she could afford. Bosum remembers the pride he felt, looking at himself in the mirror. The next day, a plane landed on Lake Mis- tissini. Bosum’s stepdad Sam said, “time to go” and walked the seven- year-old down to the dock where Cree children were gathered. A white man stood before them, calling out names to be loaded onto the aircraft. Bosum’s name was called, and his stepfather carried him to the hold alongside 30 other children. They would be the first students of the La Tuque residential school run by the Anglican Church hundreds of kilometres south. The children cried as the plane carried them away.
CANGEO.CA 49 it passed down to continue this way the world. (Chibouchibi is located environmental monitoring opportu- of life.” right on Highway 167, while the turn- nities to the Oujé-Bougoumou Still outfitted from his early off for Oujé-Bougoumou is 20 Cree Nation. Norman has even morning moose hunt, Norman kilometres west down Route 113, worked as BlackRock’s community points out the back of the house at which transects the highway south of relations coordinator. the Chibougamau River, which Chibougamau.) The Wapachee BlackRock plans to break ground moves at a slow crawl. There, most clan, who now number some 140 once the company secures more than of his 14 siblings — six boys, six children, grandchildren and great- $1 billion from investors. As of 2018, girls, plus two adopted sisters — had grandchildren, maintain a traditional the company had raised about a third their walking-out ceremonies, a way of life. Their seasonal hunting of that, including $63 million from Cree rite of passage marking a grounds extend deep into the bush to the Quebec government to support child’s first steps. The mother and the southeast along Logging Road 210 infrastructure upgrades at Port grandmother walk baby girls out to a mountain called, in their stories, Saguenay so BlackRock’s products can into the water; grandfathers and Gawashebuggidnajj (pronounced be exported to China. But the mine fathers walk out baby boys. “It’s a “Ka-wa-she-pi-ki-ti-nach”), which has been delayed by mineral price commitment that they will raise the roughly translates as “Gold” or fluctuations, and in the interim Black- child, introduce the child, in the “Bright” Mountain, so named for the Rock seems to be rolling back some of Cree way of life — that the child will birch trees that grow on its slopes and its commitments. be raised out on the land to main- shine from a distance. That’s where Critics of the project in the tain cultural tradition,” explains the Wapachees can most reliably spot Wapachee family and the community Norman. “It’s been done since time and hunt browsing moose. “It’s where say there will be fewer jobs and con- immemorial.” we feed our children and our grand- tracts available to the Cree than The Wapachee family has lived children,” explains Maggie. originally promised. Meanwhile, here at Chibouchibi on the Chibouga- BlackRock Metals Inc., however, early exploration and construction mau River for decades. After leaving wants to level the mountain to create have been more disruptive to wild- Doré Lake, they lived in Mistissini for a giant open pit titanium, vanadium life, the environment and the 10 years. When the Oujé-Bougoumou and high-purity iron mine. In 2013, Wapachees than anticipated. Before reserve was established, Matthew, the the Grand Council of the Crees and BlackRock opens, for example, the Wapachee patriarch, opted instead to the Oujé-Bougoumou Cree Nation Wapachees will have to relocate their build a house on the family trapline, signed an impact benefits agreement rabbit camp — the cabins they use which runs more or less perpendicu- with BlackRock. The agreement, for the fall and winter hunt. “The lar to Highway 167, the main named for Bally Husky, one of the relocations have not stopped yet,” thoroughfare built after the Second Wapachee ancestors who hunted this explains Norman, who is clearly con- World War to connect Chibougamau’s land, promised to provide money, flicted about the mine but feels he mines and lumberyards to the rest of jobs, training, business contracts and has little power to stop it. “We have
50 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC MARCH/APRIL 2020 LOCATION