Promised LANDS
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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.