This article is written by Mick Lowe, who visited Nitassinan a few weeks ago.
Mushaua Innu are, or should be, Inco's worst nightmare
On the Rock
Feb. 22
Mick Lowe
UTSHIMASSIT (DAVIS INLET)--I don't know when it first dawned on me that the Voisey's Bay nickel deposit would not likely be developed - at least not in the first decade of the 2lst century, not in the form currently under study, and, in all probability, not by Inco.
It may have been on the evening of Thursday, February 5th, as I sat in this village of 700 approximately 60 kms south of the proposed mine site and watched, in utter astonishment, as representatives of the Voisey's Bay Nickel Company explained the mine and mill Environmental Impact Statement to members of the Innu Nation.
The meeting, which was resolutely shunned by everyone in the community except for a handful of elders, was opened by Jackie Penny, a human resources officer from VBNC's St. John's office.
"We like to open all of our meetings with a safety tip," the youthful and personable Penny explained, awaiting the translation of her words into Innu-eimun, still the overwhelming first language of choice for most of the people here. "You know, it's winter outside, and when we come indoors we track in snow on our boots and it melts on the floor, and turns into water. And that makes the floor slippery. So I'd just like to caution everyone to be careful when they're walking on the floor here."
One of the elders, a woman who I would learn later was named Monique Rich, immediately asked a question of the translator.
I took it to mean: "What did she just say?" When told, Rich made a non-commital affirmation but I, and not for the last time that night, shook my head in disbelief.
Here were gathered some of the most respected elders of the Innu Nation, a people whose abilities to survive for millenia in one of the most hostile environments on the face of the planet was often described as "heroic" by white anthropologists, journalists, and fur traders.
And yet here was a representative of some far-away mining company who had arrived in the community only hours before, offering a doubtless well-meaning, if somewhat simple-minded "safety tip" to a group whose collective wisdom about safety and survival on their land should inspire admiration, awe, and the most profound respect.
The moment was surreal, ironic and absurd. "If last night's meeting is the nub of the interface between VBNC and the Innu community, the company has a long, long way to go," I wrote in my notebook the next day.
In hindsight I realize that observation represents a considerable understatement.
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They are known as the Mushaua Innu, literally "The Innu of the Barren Lands" but I think of them now as "The People of the Caribou" because of their almost mystical attachment to the great George River Caribou Herd, which still migrates through northern Labrador each year in numbers that reach the tens of thousands.
I also think of them as "The People of the Mists" because of their uncanny ability to materialize - men, women, elders and children - as if out of a fog, at almost any time and any place on Nitassinan, as they call their homeland. And in this, I suspect, they are, or should be, Inco's worst nightmare.
Together with the Innu of Sheshatshiu, a community of 800 an hour-and-a-half by air to the south, the Mushuau Band constitute the 1,500 members of the Innu Nation of Labrador. Their brothers and sisters in Quebec are known variously as the Montagnais or Naskapi peoples, but they are all Innu.
The Mushuau Innu are arguably the most materially and culturally intact First Nation left in North America, according to anthropologist Adrian Tanner of Memorial University in St. John's. They are, quite literally, but one generation removed from an almost entirely traditional aboriginal lifestyle, as Monique Rich and her fellow elders are about to make clear to the representatives of the Voisey's Bay Nickel Company.
"She was born at Voisey's Bay," the translator says of Monique to Penny and her VBNC cohort Bill Napier. "She saw her first white person there when she was a little girl and her family went there to trade and hunt and fish. She's pissed at Voisey's Bay Nickel for coming around and starting digging a big hole in Mother Earth. This breaks her heart. That's her home. She was born and raised there, and her father was buried there."
Through the translator other elders begin to berate the company representatives. "If the Innu people went to London and started drilling on Queen Elizabeth's backyard, we'd go to jail. It's not okay, it's a violation," says an elder named Edward. "Voisey's Bay is Innu land. We as the Innu don't talk about destroying the land," Edward continued.
"My grandfather died there and was buried there, I think it was in 1922. What if I started drilling where your grandfather is buried? When the drilling started the Innu were not consulted. Did you ever hear that our leaders said you could drill?"
Napier, who does most of the talking for the company this night, listens impassively. "We recognize the Innu claim to Voisey's Bay, that's why we're negotiating an IBA (an Impact and Benefit Agreement with the Innu.)"
"I don't want no money. I don't want no money," Edward mumbles in pidgin English. "We're here to protect your homeland," Napier actually says. All of this is too much for Ruby, the young Innu woman who has been hired by the company to provide translation for the evening. "I have to say I'm very uncomfortable with what I'm being asked to tell my elders," she interjects, in English.
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"How did you think it went?" Napier, who seems abashed by the meeting, asks me when the two-hour plus session ends.
"Well, it's the start of a dialogue," I say hopefully. "But I wonder if these people want this project under any terms."
"It's pretty hard, in this day and age, to get a project like this off the ground without the support of the local community," Napier observes. It is the most percipient and forthright statement I've ever heard from an Inco employee about the realities of Voisey's Bay.
"But there just isn't much trust there," he concludes soberly. Well no shit, Sherlock.
Next week: More on the Mushuau Innu and why they pose such a threat to the Voisey's Bay project. |
