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 ("IOCC") or the municipality of Schefferville.

The Naskapi left Fort Chimo on foot to make the 400-mile (640 km) journey to Schefferville overland. By the time they reached Wakuach Lake, some 70 miles (113 km) 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 (6 km) 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, 39-acre (160,000 m²) 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.

James Bay Agreement

A pivotal event in the history of the Naskapi occurred in early 1975, when, after separate visits to Schefferville by Billy Diamond, Grand Chief, Grand Council of the Crees (of Quebec) ("GCCQ"), and Charlie Watt, President, Northern Quebec Inuit Association ("NQIA"), the Naskapi decided to become involved in the negotiations leading to the signature of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement ("JBNQA").

The Naskapi entered into a contract with the NQIA, under which the latter was to provide logistical support, legal advice, and representation to a small team of Naskapi negotiators based in Montreal. That arrangement was not very successful, however, and the JBNQA was signed on 11 November 1975, without the Naskapi.

Shortly before the signing of the JBNQA, realizing that the demands on the Inuit were too great to allow them to represent the interests of the Naskapi in addition to their own interests, the Naskapi negotiators retained their own non-Native advisors and started to function as an independent negotiating body.

The signatories of the JBNQA were fully aware that it provided for the extinguishment of the Naskapi' Aboriginal rights in the Territory without granting them any compensatory rights or benefits. They also knew that the Naskapi, unlike certain others of Quebec's First Nations at that time, were willing to negotiate a settlement of their Aboriginal claims.

Thus, although the Naskapi had never filed a formal statement of claim or similar document, except for a draft history prepared by the late Alan Cooke, the parties to the JBNQA accepted the legitimacy of their claims, and they entered into an agreement-in-principle with the Naskapi in the Spring of 1977 to negotiate an agreement that would have the same principal features as the JBNQA. The result of the negotiations was the Northeastern Quebec Agreement ("NEQA"), which was executed on 31 January 1978.

Section 20 of the NEQA offered the Naskapi the possibility of relocating from the Matimekosh Reserve to a new site.

Move to Kawawachikamach

Between 1978 and 1980, technical and socio-economic studies of the potential sites for the permanent Naskapi community were carried out. On 31 January 1980, the Naskapi voted overwhelmingly to relocate to the present site of Kawawachikamach, built largely by Naskapi between 1980 and 1983. The planning and building gave Naskapi training and experience in administration and in construction and maintenance trades.

Between 1981 and 1984, the self-government legislation promised by Canada in Section 7 of the NEQA was negotiated. The outcome of those negotiations was the Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act ("CNQA"), which was assented to by Parliament on 14 June 1984.

The overriding purpose of the CNQA was to make the NNK and the James Bay Cree Bands largely self-governing. In addition to the powers then exercised by band councils under the Indian Act, most of the powers that had until then been exercised by the Minister of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development ("DIAND") under the Indian Act were transferred to the NNK and to the James Bay Cree bands, to be exercised by their elected councils. The NNK and the James Bay Cree bands were also given powers not found in the Indian Act, powers normally exercised by non-Native municipalities throughout Canada.

The NEQA had been negotiated under the assumption that Schefferville would continue to be an active centre of mining, outfitting, and exploration for the foreseeable future. Inquiries by the Government of Quebec to the Iron Ore Company of Canada ("IOCC") in the late 1970s had confirmed that assumption. Nevertheless, IOCC announced in 1982 its intention to close the mines at Schefferville immediately.

The closing of the mines at Schefferville had profound implications for the implementation of the NEQA, particularly for those provisions dealing with health and social services and with training and job-creation. Consequently, in the late 1980s, the NNK and the Government of Canada undertook a joint evaluation of Canada's discharging of its responsibilities under the NEQA. The evaluation was motivated more by the change in the circumstances of Schefferville and of the Naskapi than by any belief on the part of the Naskapi that Canada had wilfully neglected any of its responsibilities under the NEQA.

Northeastern Quebec Agreement

The outcome of those negotiations was the Agreement Respecting the Implementation of the Northeastern Quebec Agreement ("ARINEQA"), which was executed in September 1990. Among other things, the ARINEQA established the model for funding capital and O&M expenditures over five-year periods, created a Dispute Resolution Mechanism for disputes arising from the interpretation, administration, and implementation of the NEQA, the JBNQA, and the ARINEQA, and created a working group to address employment for Naskapi.