QUEBEC LETTER:CLEMENCE SIMON sits by the side of a service station contemplating her feet, which are encased in moccasin boots. "I was used to walking in my moccasins," she says wryly. "When I changed them for trainers, my ankle swelled up."
Nearby, there’s a burst of laughter. “Not your ankle again!” mocks a girl with a pierced lip, shod in high-tech trainers and leaning against a pick-up as she smokes a cigarette. They both laugh.
Simon’s ankle swelled up after she walked hundreds of kilometres from Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam, a native American reservation in the northern wastes of Quebec. She and 13 other women have been on the road for 10 days. Along the way they have picked up supporters from other reservations. Now they are 40 strong.
They’re heading for Montreal for a demonstration against provincial government plans to open the far north to mining and energy companies, part of a 25-year strategy to increase exports to resource-hungry emerging economies. With the big melt freeing up arctic shipping routes, there are billions to be made sending timber, iron ore and lithium to Asia.
According to the official bumf, there’s something in it for the natives as well, namely jobs and all-round better conditions. But the Innu are not so sure, especially since the public power company installed pylons for a $6.5 billion hydroelectric project on their ancestral lands without asking for permission. The project will provide the megawatts for large-scale mining in their area. They fear it will flood their hunting grounds.
Last month, several Innu women were arrested for blocking the road leading to the project. Élise Vollant explains how she took to Facebook after her release to express her frustration: “I said all Innu had to be strong and united, to work together as one people.”
It prompted a huge reaction, with messages of support from as far afield as Poland and Japan. Vollant started to organise a protest march to Montreal. “At one point I was going to pack it all in, but I began to feel a new strength inside,” she says.
The campaign is all about identity, she says. Hunting is important to her people, who have held on to their customs despite attempts to resettle them in houses and to assimilate their children in church-run residential schools, where many suffered untold abuse and neglect. Now, parents are trying to teach their children the old ways, including how to fish salmon, hunt Canada geese and caribou and gather medicinal plants from the forest.
“Without nature, what will become of us?” asks Paquerette Mollon. “The older I get, the more I want to live like my parents. They were nomads. They lived in the forest. I want to live like they lived, in nature.”
Resettlement and assimilation brought alcohol, drugs and violence to the community, she says. “That’s when all our problems started.”
Noella Michel knows all about these problems. Like many on the reservation, the mother of three was addicted to amphetamines for years. “When the doctor examined me, he said I was lucky my heart hadn’t been permanently damaged,” she says.
She found her strength by going back to traditional ways. “The forest helped me beat my drug problem. It gave me a certain power.” She carries a stick decorated with eagle feathers and ribbons. “All our prayers are in there,” she says.
At 15, Jade Simon-Jourdain is one of the youngest walkers. “I’m doing this for my baby, she says. Still at high school, she is mother to a 10-month-old. She wants to be a police investigator or perhaps a construction worker. Like the others, she is sceptical about the jobs the mines will bring.
“I dunno. I just don’t want a BS life,” she says. What does that mean? “It’s when you only have enough to pay your bills and food, with nothing left over.”
The marchers work as a tag team, taking it in turns to walk stretches of 5km at a time. Those off duty drive cars and pick-ups laden with pans, food and mattresses, arranging accommodation for the nights ahead on Facebook as they chatter in the Innu language and drag on cigarettes.
They’re still a good 400km from Montreal but morale is high. That is, until they learn that their accommodation for the night in a community centre has fallen through. The only alternative is a chicken coop offered by a farmer just down the road. Jokes about eating chicken for supper and eggs for breakfast soon wear thin.
There’s talk of some participants finding a motel room for the night. After unloading mattresses and blankets, everyone gathers together in an airless room for a progress report. The chickens, it turns out, are downstairs. “Even if it’s small, at least we’re all together. I’ll sleep standing up,” quips one of the marchers, sending a ripple of laughter through the room. Everyone stays.
After a bowl of pasta, it’s time to turn in. Vollant runs through a checklist of the marchers, ticking off names with a pen. Montreal is still a good 400km off, but there is no going back now. “Our land is the last thing we have left,” she says. “It’s our identity.”