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The Cree Indians of James Bay
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16780 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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9 / 1989 |
4,729 Words |
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Bryan and Cherry Alexander
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Canada's Cree Indians have been living on the eastern shores of James Bay, hunting and trapping fur-bearing animals, for several thousand years. Recently, however, their traditional way of life has come under increasing pressure from a variety of sources.
Most notably, industrial activities like forestry, mining, and hydroelectric development have gradually encroached upon their land. The southern part of the Cree territory is already crisscrossed by rail lines and roads, and a large portion of their lands have been flooded. But perhaps the biggest threats of all to Cree traditional life-style and culture is coming from animal rights groups and their supporters.
It is thought that the Cree probably first moved to the James Bay area soon after the end of the last Ice Age. Their forebears lived as nomads, eking out a living from the taiga (sub-arctic coniferous forest) by hunting, trapping, and fishing. With the arrival of "white men" (notably the Hudson Bay Company and fur traders) in the area, small settlements, mainly on the coast of James Bay, grew up and gradually provided the Cree with "permanent" homes. Their livelihood, however, remained in the forests, where they hunted and trapped far into the interior.
The land on which the Cree live was part of the unilateral grant by Charles II of England to the Hudson Bay Company in 1670. It was transferred to the Dominion of Canada after confederation and later claimed by the government of the province of Quebec. The Cree, however, saw its history differently; as far as they were concerned, they had never relinquished the aboriginal rights to their ancestral lands, and the European presence represented an increasing intrusion and misuse of their homelands by white men.
Obliged To Live With The 'Project Of The Century'
In 1971, plans for an extensive hydroelectric complex brought these feelings to a head. Described as the "project of the century" by Quebec's then Prime Minister Bourassa, the plans called for a vast hydroelectric complex encompassing 176,000 square kilometers of northern Quebec's boreal forests and tundra--an area approximately twice the size of Ireland.
A company was set up--the Societe d'Energetic de al Baie James (SEBJ), a subsidiary of Hydro Quebec--and assigned the task of managing the whole scheme. The logistical problems were immense; five airports and villages had to be built, and hundreds of kilometers of road had to be constructed across the taiga. Some 215 dams and dikes had to be erected, requiring 156 million cubic meters of landfill. All their construction was to encompass several major rivers, the main one being the La Grande (Great) River, which from its source one thousand kilometers north of Montreal flows eight hundred kilometers from east to west before reaching James Bay.
With a project of this kind and scale, unanticipated or underestimated problems were inevitable. One major problem was the degree of opposition the scheme would encounter from Quebec's native Indians and Inuit.
The hydro project posed potentially the most dramatic threat to the Cree's traditional culture since white men first arrived in the James Bay area some 350 years
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