Naskapi
The Naskapi are an Indigenous people of the Subarctic native to the historical region St'aschinuw, which was located in present day northern Quebec, neighbouring Nunavik. They are closely related to Innu People, who call their homeland Nitassinan.
Innu people are frequently divided into two groups, the Neenoilno who live along the Quebec north shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the less numerous Naskapi who live farther north near Nunavik. The Innu themselves recognize several distinctions based on different regional affiliations and various dialects of the Innu language.
The word "Naskapi" first made an appearance in the 17th century, as Innu began moving into Labrador to trade with European explorers and traders and it was subsequently applied to Innu groups beyond the reach of missionary influence, most notably those living in the lands which bordered Ungava Bay and inland area between Hudson's Bay and the Torngat Mountain range. The Naskapi are traditionally nomadic peoples, in contrast with the territorial Montagnais. Mushuau Innuat, the Naskapi who were then spending more time in Labrador, split off from the tribe in the 20th century and settled on the Labrador coast between Inuit communities at Davis Inlet. In the 1990's, due to the challenges with that community location, the government of Canada assisted in relocating the community to Shango Bay, now called Natuashish. The Naskapi language and culture is quite different from the Montagnais, in which the dialect changes from y to n as in "Iiyuu" versus "Innu". Some of the families of Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach have close relatives in the Cree village of Whapmagoostui, on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay.
History
Post-European contact
The earliest written reference to Naskapi appears around 1643, when the Jesuit André Richard referred to the "Ounackkapiouek", but little is known about the group to which Richard was referring, other than that they were one of many "small nations" situated somewhere north of Tadoussac. The word "Naskapi" appeared for the first time in 1733, at which time the group so described was said to number approximately forty families and to have an important camp at Ashuanipi Lake. At approximately the same time, in 1740, Joseph Isbister, the manager of the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Eastmain, reported being told that there were Indians, whom he called "Annes-carps" to the northeast of Richmond Gulf. In later years those Indians came to be called variously "Nascopie" and "Nascappe". Not many years later, in 1790, the Periodical Accounts of the Moravian Missionaries described a group of Indians living west of Okak as "Nascopies". The Naskapi came under the influence of Protestant missionaries, and remain Protestant to this day. In addition to their native tongue, they speak English, in contrast to their Montagnais cousins who are for the most part Roman Catholic, speaking the native language and French. The Montagnais are far more numerous than the Naskapi.The years 1831 onwards were characterized by the first regular contacts between the Naskapi and western society, when the Hudson's Bay Company established its first trading post at Old Fort Chimo.
The relationship between the Naskapi and the Hudson's Bay Company was not an easy one. It was difficult for the Naskapi to integrate commercial trapping, especially of marten in Winter, into their seasonal round of subsistence activities, for the simple reason that the distribution of marten was in large measure different from the distribution of essential sources of food at that season. In consequence, the Naskapi did not prove to be the regular and diligent trappers that the traders must have hoped to find, and the traders seem to have attributed this fact to laziness or intransigence on the part of Naskapi.
In the 1945 census the total Innu population in Labrador was 100 in Davis Inlet, 33 in Nain and 137 in North West River/Sheshatshiu. The previous census in 1935 only counted Innu in David Inlet. Some surnames listed in the census including Rich, Michimagaua, Mishimapu and Pokue. Most Innu in Labrador did not have surnames until after confederation in 1949. None of the Innu lived in modern houses but instead camped in tents near North West River, Nain and Davis Inlet during the summer.
After a 1948 visit to Fort Chimo to measure local duck populations, a Canadian biologist reported that the Naskapi at that location:
Relocations
Between 1831 and 1956, the Naskapi were subjected to several major relocations, all of which reflected not their needs nor interests, but those of the Hudson's Bay Company. The major moves were:- 1842 – Fort Chimo to Fort Nascopie
- 1870 – Fort Nascopie to Fort Chimo
- 1915 – Fort Chimo to Fort McKenzie
- 1948 – Fort McKenzie to Fort Chimo
- 1956 – Fort Chimo to Schefferville
20th century
By the late 1940s, the pressures of the fur trade, high rates of mortality and debilitation from diseases communicated by Europeans, and the effects of the virtual disappearance of the George River Caribou Herd had reduced the Naskapi to a state where their very survival was threatened.The Naskapi had received relief from the Federal Government as early as the end of the 19th century, but their first regular contacts with the Federal Government began only in 1949, when Colonel H.M. Jones, Superintendent of Welfare Services in Ottawa, and M. Larivière of the Abitibi Indian Agency visited them in Fort Chimo and arranged for the issuing of welfare to them.
In the early 1950s, the Naskapi made a partially successful effort to re-establish themselves at Fort McKenzie, where they had already lived between 1916 and 1948, and to return to an economy based substantially on hunting, fishing and commercial trapping. They could no longer be entirely self-sufficient, however, and the high cost of resupplying them, combined with the continuing high incidence of tuberculosis and other factors, obliged them to return to Fort Chimo after only two years.
Move to Schefferville
For reasons that are not entirely clear, virtually all of the Naskapi moved from Fort Chimo to the recently founded iron-ore mining community of Schefferville in 1956. Two principal schools of thought about this move exist. One of them holds that the Naskapi were induced, if not ordered, to move by officials of Indian and Northern Affairs, while the other believes that the Naskapi themselves decided to move in the hope of finding employment, housing, medical assistance, and educational facilities for their children.Although officials of Indian and Northern Affairs were certainly aware of the intention of the Naskapi to move from Fort Chimo to Schefferville and may even have instigated that move, they appear to have done little or nothing to prepare for their arrival there, not even by warning the representatives of the Iron Ore Company of Canada or the municipality of Schefferville.
The Naskapi left Fort Chimo on foot to make the journey to Schefferville overland. By the time they reached Wakuach Lake, some north of Schefferville, most of them were in a pitiable state, exhausted, ill, and close to starvation.
A successful rescue effort was mounted, but the only homes that awaited the Naskapi were the shacks that they built for themselves on the edge of Pearce Lake, near the railroad station, with scavenged and donated materials. A short time later, in 1957, under the pretext that the water at Pearce Lake was contaminated, the municipal authorities moved them to a site adjacent to John Lake, some four miles north-north-east of Schefferville, where they lived without benefit of water sewage, or electricity, and where, despite their hopes in coming to Schefferville, there was no school for their children and no medical facility.
The Naskapi shared the site at John Lake with a group of Montagnais, who had moved voluntarily from Sept-Îles to Schefferville with the completion of the railroad in the early 1950s.
Initially, the Naskapi lived in tiny shacks that they built for themselves, but by 1962 Indian and Northern Affairs had built 30 houses for them, and a further four were under construction at a cost of $5,000 each.
Move to Matimekosh
In 1969, Indian and Northern Affairs acquired from the reluctant Municipality of Schefferville, a marshy, site north of the town centre and adjacent to Pearce Lake. By 1972, 43 row-housing units had been built there for the Naskapi, and a further 63 for Montagnais, and most of the Naskapi and Montagnais moved to this new site, known today as Matimekosh.For the first time in their lengthy history of relocations, the Naskapi were consulted in the planning of their new home. Indian and Northern Affairs sent officials to explain the new community to the Naskapi, a brochure was published, models built, and progress reports issued. Particular interest among the Naskapi centred on the type of housing that they would receive. Possibly for financial reasons, Indian and Northern Affairs wanted them to live in row houses, whereas the Naskapi had a strong preference for detached, single-family residences. In the event, Council was persuaded to accept row housing, but it did so only on the condition that the houses were adequately sound-proofed, which turned out not to be the case.
Perhaps because it was the first such process in which they had been involved, the Naskapi placed considerable faith in the consultation undertaken by Indian and Northern Affairs. It is a source of considerable bitterness even today that, in the minds of many Naskapi, not all of the promises or reassurances that were made were lived up to. Two examples are most commonly cited: the insistence of Indian and Northern Affairs' representatives that the Naskapi live in row houses that, in the event, proved not to be adequately soundproofed and that had a variety of other faults; and the fact that the brochure prepared by Indian and Northern Affairs showed a fully landscaped site with trees and bushes, whereas no landscaping was done, and no trees or bushes were ever planted.
Incidents like those may seem very minor to persons with long experience of large and impersonal institutions such as government departments, but they happened to the Naskapi when they were in a very formative stage of their relations with Indian and Northern Affairs and when they had still not forgotten their callous treatment by the Hudson's Bay Company. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that these matters are still spoken of frequently today and that they maintain very considerable importance and significance for many Naskapi.