Cold Lake First Nations
The Cold Lake First Nations are among the Canadian First Nations in the province of Alberta . They belong to one of the five groups of the Dene , speak a dialect group of the Northern Athapasques and call themselves Denesuline , but they are mostly known by their Cree name, Chipewyan . In May 2008 there were 2,342 people among them, 1,189 of whom lived in the five reserves with a total area of almost 220 km².
history
- see also the history of Alberta
Early history
Oral tradition from the Cold Lake First Nations suggests a way of life that is analogous to what we know of the Ice Age .
Fur trade
Already in 1716 the Dene of the region were affected by the attacks of the southern Cree . These Cree had obtained rifles through fur trading with European fur trading companies, which changed the balance of power in their favor.
The groups around Cold Lake were not included in the fur trade until after 1800 and undertook trade trips to the east coast. They used the waterways over the Hudson and James Bay , from there to Hochilaga and the St. Lawrence River . But these contacts also brought unknown contagious diseases, of which smallpox killed the majority of the tribal groups in two serious epidemics. In this climate of cultural uncertainty, the first missionaries were able to achieve relatively quick successes from 1844 onwards.
Contract No. 6 of the Numbered Contracts
With the beginning of Canada's settlement policy, contractual agreements were made, the so-called Numbered Treaties . Contract No. 6 of 1876 concerned, besides the Woodland and Plains Cree, and a few Nakota, only one group of the Dene, the one from Cold Lake. The leaders or leading groups of the tribes should choose a land suitable for them, which should be protected from then on. Uldahi (Matthias Janvier-Jackfish) selected a piece of land at Willow Point, from where their area stretched 20 miles south and west. This included a substantial portion of Cold Lake itself, which they called Luwe Chok Tuwe . While the tribe lived on this and its neighboring lakes in the summer, they moved to Primrose Lake in the winter .
Consequences of the Métis rebellion
This lake also served them as a retreat in 1885 when the Métis and some Cree groups rose. However, some of them moved south due to family ties with Crees and reached Frog Lake on May 5, 1885, immediately after the Frog Lake massacre . The main group of the tribe feared acts of revenge by federal troops and holed up at Cold Lake. A priest who was present offered to contact the military chaplain of the troops. Nevertheless, the military disarmed the Indians and divided the tribe: women and children were taken to a camp on Reiter Creek , the men remained in the army camp.
They were only released after several weeks, and those who returned found their homes looted. When the main group arrived at Cold Lake at midnight, there was an army unit there. According to tradition, the senior officer ordered the Indians all to be shot. One of the old people said goodbye to one of the children, his grandson, and passed him on until the child was passed on to the soldiers. Apparently that was enough to prevent the mass execution.
In 1890, several Dene families traveled from Heart Lake to Primrose Lake . Many of them settled on Cold Lake, where marriage contacts were made. But this time the people from Heart Lake wanted to stay permanently.
When the land surveying began in 1902, the Indians from Cold Lake were accused of having participated in the Métis rebellion and thus forfeited their contractual land rights. In addition, in the opinion of the Indian agents, the only 330 tribesmen were not entitled to such a large land. Their land shrunk to 73 square miles so they could no longer make a living from hunting. In addition, most of the country was south of the Beaver River . Since part of the tribe wanted to stay on the lake so as not to have to give up fishing, they wanted to exchange part of the Beaver area for a piece of land on the lake. So they gave up 16 square miles of the western part of the Beaver area in exchange for English Bay - where English troops had camped in 1885 - on Cold Lake. During this time, a missionary operated the influx of Francophone settlers who were settled on French Bay .
Forced assimilation
The boarding school-style schools used by the Canadian government to attempt to assimilate Indian children across the country , a practice for which the Prime Minister of Canada apologized on June 11, 2008, were also established at Cold Lake. The children were taken out of their families and had to attend Onion Lake or the Blue Quills Residential School , a condition that lasted until 1971 and almost completely destroyed the local Dene culture.
World wars, flu epidemic, end of semi-nomadism
Since Uldahi, who died in June 1882, had not found a successor, the group at Heart Lake began in 1912 not only to elect their own chiefs and headmen , but also to demand an independent reservation. They gathered in the summer of 1913 along with the Cold Lake Dene on a hill on Reiter Creek. After three weeks, Alexi Janvier (Nanuchele) was elected chief, but no separate reserve was to be set up.
Returnees from the First World War brought with them the Spanish flu , from which more than half of the tribe died in November.
In the meantime, under pressure from the government, the Dene had gone over to farming, but above all to raising cattle. So almost all owned horses, and cattle were mostly bred. A steam plow was bought, along with a tractor. For example, Reserve 149 was 70% arable land. But a significant part of the land is now leased to white farmers.
During the Second World War, the chief forbade the young men to participate, as it was the " red coats " who were supposed to protect the tribe, as the treaty said, not the other way around. Food stamps were issued during the war.
Cold War and Cold Lake Air Weapons Range
In 1930, the federal government passed the Alberta and Saskatchewan Acts , which allowed all war-related land to be confiscated, if necessary, without further inquiries and consultations. At the same time, the Indians were not allowed to leave their reservations without the permission of the Indian agent. After 1946, the government implemented an electoral system for the chiefs to enforce the majority principle against the consensus principle. In addition, many war veterans had to be housed in government agencies, some of which became Indian agents. The Air Force was also interested in a test area on Primrose Lake . For this, the Dene should finally give up their traditional way of life and their land and receive compensation for 20 years. This in turn should be renegotiated after this deadline, because by then the Cold War could have ended. But the compensations were small, the test area still exists today.
The deprived of their lifestyle reacted, as happens everywhere under such circumstances: they took refuge in alcohol and other drugs , and they could only live on state welfare, which further exacerbated the depression. In addition, there was complete neglect by the government. The first power line was not laid until 1964, while the latest technology was installed in the neighboring test area of the Luftwaffe . The aid to which the Indians were entitled was evidently embezzled, because they hardly received anything. Meanwhile, the Regional Office of the Department of Indian Affairs moved to the 27th floor in the CN Tower in Edmonton .
The residential schools were not closed until 1971, but this meant that students were taught outside the reservation. On the other hand, on October 28, 1971, the Dene blocked the office in the CN Tower in a sit-in , demanding a school on the reservation. This blockade not only ensured that the Dene at Cold Lake received their own reservation school, but also that other tribes followed their example.
When the reservations were to be dissolved in 1971, the tribes in Alberta merged, including the Cold Lake chief and two tribesmen. The red paper was set against the white paper - with success.
As many women of the Cold Lake tribe married members of the Air Force, there was a sharp increase in the number of members and numerous conflicts. Furthermore, the Air Force succeeded in playing the tribes off against each other and paying extremely low compensation for the test area they still owned. Another reserve, 149 C, is now intended as compensation.
In recent years, particular emphasis has been placed on computer training and the oil industry has also reached Cold Lake. There is one casino that the tribe expects to get jobs from, but at the same time fears negative side effects.
Reservations
The largest reservation is Cold Lake 149 east of Bonneyville , which covers 145.281 km². In addition there are 4,134 hectares on Beaver Creek (149B), 96.2 hectares in the area of the Blue Quills First Nation , 71.6 hectares on the south shore of Cold Lake (149A) and 149C, the compensation land for the huge area of the Air Force, which will be Covers 5 ha.
literature
- H. Blair, S. Rice, V. Wood and J. Janvier: Daghida: Cold Lake First Nation works towards Dene language revitalization , in: B. Burnaby and JA Reyhner (eds.): Indigenous languages across the community. Proceedings of the annual conference on stabilizing Indigenous languages , Toronto, May 11-14, 2000, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff 2002, 89-98.
Web links
- Cold Lake First Nations website
- History, PDF 88 kB
- Traditional area , archive.org, August 14, 2012
See also
Remarks
- ↑ This and the following essentially from: NA Janvier: The Dene of Cold Lake , undated