What an effort to preserve Cree homelands in northern Manitoba means to the people behind it

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Five First Nations in northern Manitoba’s Hudson Bay lowlands say an era of healing, hope and self-determination is on the horizon.

As the first brisk winds of fall arrived, members of York Factory, Shamattawa, War Lake, Tataskweyak and Fox Lake First Nations gathered at a cultural camp on the banks of the Nelson River northeast of Gillam, Man., for a landmark event.

After four years of patient work and community consultations, the five Cree — or Inninew — nations were ready to launch their proposal to establish an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) across their shared homelands.

Called Kitaskeenan Kaweekanawaynichikatek, which translates to “the land we want to protect,” the proposal would recognize the nations’ long-time stewardship of the region and offer an historic opportunity to formally manage and protect the land and waters under Indigenous laws and governance.

More than 50 Indigenous-led conservation projects like this one have popped up across Canada since the federal government introduced funding in 2018, in an effort to preserve biodiversity and nudge the country toward its goal of protecting 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030.

For the five Inninew nations, Kitaskeenan is about a lot more than meeting conservation targets. The nations were once a single community living along the coastline around York Factory, at the mouth of the Hayes River.  But they have been separated from each other — and their homeland — as industrial developments expanded across the north.

Most impactful: a series of hydroelectric developments on the Nelson River that came with what Fox Lake’s leader, Morris Beardy, called “devastating” consequences.

Manitoba Hydro dams along the river caused widespread flooding, erosion and mercury contamination. The Nelson was once a key transportation corridor for the nations, as well as a source of sustenance and clean drinking water. Today it’s too dangerous to travel on and too polluted to drink.

“We’re a resilient people. We’ve been through much,” Beardy says. “We just have to adapt.” 

Kitaskeenan offers an opportunity to do just that. While any formal protected area designation is still many years away, the nations are hopeful the project could help to mend the divisions of the past and redefine the region’s future by preserving the land, water, language and culture for generations to come.

Here’s what the project — and the land — means to those who hope to protect it, in their own words.

Jimmy Beardy, a York Factory First Nation Elder

All my life I’ve been fighting for the northeast section of Manitoba, to keep it away from any more destruction than what I’ve seen in my lifetime. I’ve seen these Hydro dams go up. I want to keep one section away from any kind of development for the future generation. I used to go out on Split Lake back in ‘65 and travel around with my father and my brother, and we used to be able to drink from the water. Today I wouldn’t even touch it, I buy bottled water. I don’t even trust the water treatment plant, that’s how bad the water’s got and it’s going to get worse.

When I was 18 or 19 years old, I was living in York Landing, working there. They asked me if I wanted to go up [to York Factory] with an older gentleman to train me as a guide. I fell in love with that land. I couldn’t believe how pure it was. The air was clean. The water I could drink right out where it ran off the creeks. And I always thought I would never ever let that get away from us.

I took young people [to York Factory] over the years and they didn’t want to come home. They fell in love with it. … It’s rough country, people think you can go up there and build things — you can’t. The seasons are different. Wintertime gets very cold. In the springtime when I used to take people up there, we were walking through four feet of snow sometimes, so we had to hunt along the shore to get our geese.

We have to protect our land. We were given that task, a responsibility, to protect Mother Earth. We’ve seen enough destruction in our lands. I’m tired of seeing it. I talked to people at home and we will not let any other development happen in our territory. I know there’s ideas of what they call economic development planned for that area, but I can’t see it completely destroyed — the last of our fertile land.

Nelson Henderson, a Manitoba Hydro journeyman from Wabowden

This is where I learned everything. When you’re out here, you’re not alone. Even though you are alone, if you’re not with anybody, you’re not alone. It’s going to sound weird but I sit in the bush, I make a fire, have a coffee and I can talk to people. I hear people talking to me. I don’t know if it’s spirits or just in my head but it’s so relaxing, tranquil. I can hear my brother laughing.

Look at these little ones. That’s what this is about.

Phyllis Sinclair, a musician based in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., with family from Kettle Rapids

It’s really important to come back and to honour what the [ancestors] did and to protect what they did because nothing came easy. We come back to ensure that this place is always honoured in their memory, out of respect for them and for what we have to leave our children.

In the non-Indigenous way you think of everything as a right. … In the Indigenous way of thinking, sure we have rights but more than that we have responsibility. When people come in to develop, they don’t have an intimate connection to the land. When they come driving out here, all they see are big vast areas of land, trees … it becomes a commodity. We don’t see things as commodities, we see things as our responsibilities. It’s important that our people who have this connection are the stewards of these places. That’s why self-governance is important. Somebody coming in will not have the same interest, the same connection to the land that we do.

Lillian Spence, Kitaskeenan community coordinator representing War Lake First Nation

I grew up on the land. We had plants, berries, animals that I knew where they came from, I knew it was their home too and we had to share. Keeyask was the first dam I really encountered. There were all these consultation talks and then all of the sudden it was right there. It was kind of a shock that they just put it up there, I felt that we were not consulted enough.

I don’t want the government or any other agencies to develop any more projects within our territory because it’s already affecting our wildlife. Our caribou used to walk right through our reserve, now they walk way over there, we don’t even see them. We’re lucky if we see even three moose in the hunting season, they don’t hang around where we are. Our fish? The mercury [and] the zebra mussels are there. We’d never heard of zebra mussels 20 years ago. The mice that live there, the insects, when they built Keeyask, where did they go? The bears, the foxes, the wolves — that was their land too, we shared. The trees are limp, they’re dead. The berries that once grew big are just tiny. Our medicinal plants, you can’t see them anymore because there’s not as many as there was before.

I’m glad this project is moving forward and maybe now we can get more lands protected before Manitoba Hydro or the government tries to take over. That would be my wish or my dream. We want to protect everything within our territory — that’s what I want to do.

Jimmy Lockhart, a Gilliam-based member of Fox Lake Cree Nation who works on environmental impact assessments

They tried pushing us out of here way back in the day — I wasn’t born yet but I heard a lot of stories passed down about how development tried to push us out. And we stayed. We all come from the one York Factory, we were all split apart by the government. They gave us pieces of land to fight amongst ourselves. It was this way to divide and conquer. I know we’re not going to be able to stop development … but I’d like for us to be part of the planning process and have a voice to be heard, not just pushed aside.

What matters so much is that we have land and areas, not just for our children but their children and the children after them. That it’s not all destroyed and getting developed.

Sophie Lockhart, councillor with Fox Lake Cree Nation

I was born at Whitefish Lake, I was registered at York Factory, but I went to live in Shamattawa. We moved from Shamattawa in 1959. When we first got here, we came by two little boats — my grandpa, my dad, my mum and my sister, Mary. We stopped over here, Mile 352, and that was the first time I saw the train. I was so scared, crying and everything when this train came by going to Churchill. That’s where we lived, in Churchill, and then we started going to residential school from there. I think I was eight years old [when] they put us on the train all the way to my first school [in] Brandon. I’m from Shamattawa. I’ll always be from Shamattawa, even though I transferred to Fox Lake. All the Elders you see there, they’re my relatives. 

I get along really good with everybody. I like to joke around, make friends and, you know, being in residential school and then over here living where the three dams are built, it was really devastating. Our land was destroyed. But you get used to it when you live around here. You go on your healing.

Morris Beardy, Okimaw (leader) of Fox Lake Cree Nation

We use the water for navigation, we used it for hundreds of years and now we can’t do that. We used to go from Gillam all the way to Shamattawa, to York Factory and all the way to Churchill. My mother was telling me how when she was a little girl, with my Uncle Robert, they used to start around here [Fox Lake]. [Her dad] would be hunting and fishing around here and go in his canoe with my mum and Uncle Robert all the way up the coast to Churchill on a boat to go work on the train over there in Churchill. After the summer was done, he would come back again. He did that for years. Those waters that we’re talking about are very crucial to our livelihoods. Those are our roads. 

Fox Lake has been impacted by flooding. We all know that. It’s devastating. We live with that every day. There’s very little water to use to launch our boats when we go to Conawapa. Five years ago I went to Conawapa and I walked three-quarters out on the river just in my running shoes … three-quarters of the way on the Nelson River, that’s how shallow the water was. We couldn’t go hunting or fishing or moose hunting … there was no water.

We’re being told that we can’t eat some of the fish out of the Nelson River … because of high mercury content. That’s very concerning. The fish are our livelihood. The animals … that’s what’s sustained us for thousands and thousands of years, and now look where we are. We’re having to fight to protect what we rely on.

We’ve been fighting 76 years to get our land back. Our footprints are all around here.

Matthew Naismith, a resident of Gillam, age 13

I just started [learning to fry fish] today. I learned that I had to cut out the blood vessels, I learned how to actually cook a fish and I learned that trout is really good.

Whenever there’s events I usually come [to Fox Lake’s culture camp]. Everybody is together, making friendships and bonding. [I like] sleeping in the tents, dancing and helping the Elders. It’s somewhere I can come and feel welcome, be nice to other people and they’re nice to me. It’s somewhere I can go and be myself.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.