Fort Albany First Nation
Fort Albany First Nation is a Cree First Nation in Cochrane District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, within the territory covered by Treaty 9. Situated on the southern shore of the Albany River on the west coast of James Bay, Fort Albany First Nation is accessible only by air, water, or by winter road. It is roughly 129km away from Moose Factory, and 415km away from Timmins
The First Nation is a signatory of Treaty 9, and is part of the Mushkegowuk Council, within the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. The community is policed by the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service, an Indigenous police service. It shares band members and the Fort Albany 67 Indian Reserve with the Kashechewan First Nation, which separated from Fort Albany starting in the late 1950s. Fort Albany First Nation is situated on Sinclair and Anderson Islands, as well as on the south shore on the mainland of the river. The Nation controls the Fort Albany Indian Settlement on the south shore of the Albany River, and the Kashechewan First Nation controls the Kashechewan Indian Settlement directly across the river.
The First Nation is located near the former site of Fort Albany, one of the oldest Hudson's Bay Company trading posts, from which it gets its English name. The current community is not the site of the old post, which was re-located several times including on Anderson Island, Albany Island
and a location just northeast of the current community. The last trading post was closed up around the 1950s. All the post sites have disappeared and naturalized, leaving no trace of their former use.
History
The Mushkegowuk or Swampy Cree had hunted, fished, gathered, and lived on the western shore of James Bay and in the Albany River watershed from time immemorial by the time the first Europeans arrived. They had shared the territory with other Algonquian peoples, including the Anishinaabe, that sharing being "conditional upon mutually satisfactory relations, a flexible, renewable agreement among equals symbolized by gift-giving and feasting, and accompanied by speech-making." According to anthropological research, their society was based around the extended family, organized into loose patrilineal bands. During the winter, these bands distributed themselves along the river watershed, and congregated into larger groups of 300-700 people at prime fishing locations in the summer.Fur trade
Around 1675, Charles Bayly, the first overseas governor of the Hudson's Bay Company explored the area around the mouth of the Albany river. In 1679, he established a trading post at the site, where the company traded goods with the Indigenous people of the area.During the ensuing centuries of the fur trade era, the Mushkegowuk did not sell or give away any land, but traded furs and goods with the traders at the posts, who numbered no more than a few dozen at a time.
As of 1856, the Hudson's Bay Company estimated that there were 1,100 Indians living in the Albany District, which at the time included the trading posts of Fort Albany, Marten Falls, Osnaburg, and Lac Seul.
The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1885, passing near the height of the land that defined the James and Hudson Bay watershed. Between Confederation, the Canadian acquisition of Rupert's Land, and the new railroad, Indigenous people living in the James Bay watershed faced many problems including declining animal resources, sickness, and trespassing European poachers and mining prospectors.
In the late nineteenth century, the ancestors of the present-day Fort Albany and Kashechewan First Nations people established their first settlement in the area, known as Old Post. The site was occupied until the mid-1950s, when families were forced to relocate due to intense spring flooding of the area.
Treaty No. 9
In order to ensure the protection of their rights, as well as to halt the decline of the local beaver population, Indigenous leaders petitioned the Dominion government to make a treaty. They were asking for a treaty along the lines of the nearby Robinson Treaties of 1870 and Treaty 3 of 1873. At first, due to conflict over provincial boundaries, jurisdiction over natural resources, and how much responsibility province's had to pay treaty annuities, Canada ignored the requests. Following a petition from local Indigenous leaders in summer 1901, the treaty-making process begun.Upon the discovery in 1904 of minerals in Northwestern Ontario, the creation of a treaty became more urgent for the government of Canada. In negotiations with the provincial government, they set about creating a treaty in order to secure the possibility of mining, timber, rail, and hydro-electric development in the region. By May 1905, Canada and Ontario were determining the terms of the written treaty. According to an exhibit by the Archives of Ontario, the Province's demands included "that no Indigenous reserves in the treaty territory would be located in areas with hydro-electricity development potential greater than 500 horsepower." The Dominion and the Province agreed to the terms of Treaty No. 9 in July 1905, without consulting any Indigenous peoples, who they then went to for ratification.
The Treaty Expedition, which included Duncan Campbell Scott, traveled down the Albany River and held a signing ceremony at Fort Albany on August 3, 1905. Fort Albany was their fourth signing on the 1905 voyage. The expedition explained some aspects of the agreement to community representatives through interpreters, after which the representatives signed with their names or a cross. The community was then given a Union Jack, and cash gifts were offered to each community member, most receiving $8 and a promise of a $4 annuity. The paylist booklet for the Fort Albany visit recorded 201 families in the community, with 278 total people receiving their gift. Charlie Stephen was the Chief that signed with an X on behalf of the Fort Albany community, along with nine headmen, who also signed with an X.
According to the journals of Commissioners Scott and Stewart, both Indian Affairs employees, "full explanations were given of the Treaty and its provisions" and the signing meeting included " choice of Reserve." The third commissioner, a miner from Perth representing Ontario, explained in further detail in his journal what was discussed, namely the gift and annuity, that the King "wished to set aside a tract of land for their sole use and benefit upon wh no white man would be permitted to trespass," and that the King had ordered a feast of tea and bannock. It is not clear whether the commissioners promised that the Crees' hunting and fishing rights would be unchanged, or that nobody would have to live on reserve, both of which were promised when the expedition reached Moose Factory and New Post. Following the explanation of the treaty, William Goodwin spoke on behalf of the community, and presented his message in Cree syllabics, expressing their thanks to the King. Part of Goodwin's message was reproduced in a 1906 magazine article by Scott. Following the signing and payment, a celebratory feast took place, medicine was offered, and the expedition moved on, travelling down the coast in York boats to Moose Factory.
Fort Albany First Nation
The text of Treaty 9 called for reserve lands to be set aside based on a proportion of 1 square mile per family of five, as well as establishing a band government organized under the Indian Act.St. Anne's Indian Residential School
The treaty also promised to provide for the salaries of teachers, and the cost of school buildings and equipment "as may seem advisable to His Majesty's government of Canada." In 1906, the federal government began funding St. Anne's Indian Residential School, which had opened under the direction of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Grey Nuns of the Cross in 1902 at the site of the Fort Albany Mission on Albany Island. The school was part of the Canadian Indian residential school system.According to the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, St. Anne's "was home to some of the most harrowing examples of abuse against Indigenous children in Canada." Students at the school came from First Nations around the James Bay region, including Fort Albany, Attawapiskat, Weenusk, Constance Lake, Moose Fort, and Fort Severn. The school was relocated to the north shore of the Albany River in 1932. It burned down in 1939 and was rebuilt. Once the Ste-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jesus residential school in Chisasibi opened in the 1930s, children from Fort Albany also attended that school.
The Government of Canada took over the management of St. Anne's in 1965, and took over the residence in 1970. In 1976, the residence stopped operating, and the school was transferred to the Fort Albany band council. In 1990, then-chief of Fort Albany Edmund Metatawabin set in motion a reunion conference about the abuses he and other residential school survivors had experienced at the school, which led a 5-year long investigation including 900 interviews, and finally to seven people being charged with criminal offences in the late 90s, with another former staff member charged in 2023.
The school's rectory burned down in 2001, around the same time that a new school building was completed to replace it.