I work on Nitassinan .
It is generally said that Canadians have little history and a lot of geography. It's actually the opposite. In Canada, as Quebec, there is no shortage of stories or genealogy. Indian legends, stories of colonization, family stories, baffles steeples. However, there is a more approximate idea of public land that extends north. Intertwining paths of wood, animal feeling, portages, rivers, canoe, trail or trails of trappers Snowmobile or dog sled. Many lakes have forgotten their names, others have two or three, some have never been and never will.
This territory, called the Innu Nitassinan . It stretched from the southern Lake Piekogami the treeline, the Ashapmushuan Labrador territory Naskapi. It is a big part of the Canadian Shield that covers it.
a northern land, old threadbare by massive glaciers, carved by great rivers, covered with spruce, aspen, birch and jack pine. Those who have never lived on the Nitassinan feel that one must fear the winter, spring and in fact its clouds of black flies are sometimes more intimidating.
The Innu have learned to live, like the Cree, Attikameks and all other Algonquian tribes. They went up north for the winter hunt and trap, and came home to live the summer near the mouths rivers.
When, like me, there is outdoor guide in the boreal forest, you get used to equip themselves to meet any emergency. The material is sturdy, light, cheap and they usually impress our people with excellent equipment, often quite expensive and not always well suited to this environment. However, I do not feel proud of how I cope with my ax in the forest, saw my tape and my gray. I often think of those who were returning Nitassinan wood in the fall with something other than the ones they were wearing. Some skins, knife beaver-tooth and a stone-working skin.
For these people, neither winter nor summer, were a threat, the forest was their home, both homes, groceries and hardware. The Innu have created a culture here that is a true model of adaptation and collaboration with its environment, a culture diametrically opposed to ours which has so often need to clear up before moving.
My summer range, are the rivers. In summer, the forest is not always welcoming.
Sometimes in old growth forest, spruce and pine are sufficiently spaced so that we will feel welcome in other places, dirty wood make almost impenetrable forest. And then the land is interspersed with rivers, lakes, ravines, where the trunks of windfalls lying form green walls. Who wants to travel in the forest in this season, walking paths are the best routes. And then on the water, black flies and mosquitoes leaving the traveler to travel in peace. My
paths, this is the Mistassini River with boulders, the Samaaqua the Ouesimesca and sometimes even Mistassibi River to big waves. With the River Rats, the Mycosis, rivers and Butterfly Gervais they form the watershed of the Mistassini that drains into Lake Saint-Jean.
My territory of winter it is between Mistassini River Rats, mainly in free territory. The concept of free territory is unknown in Europe. These are lands that belong to someone of their own, everyone collectively. You can take a concession, but not buy the land itself. For a guide to outdoor activities, is the ability to draw, within the reasonable resources needed: dead wood for heating, water from lakes and rivers, fish at .
map and satellite image: MRC Maria Chapdelaine
This territory, called the Innu Nitassinan . It stretched from the southern Lake Piekogami the treeline, the Ashapmushuan Labrador territory Naskapi. It is a big part of the Canadian Shield that covers it.
a northern land, old threadbare by massive glaciers, carved by great rivers, covered with spruce, aspen, birch and jack pine. Those who have never lived on the Nitassinan feel that one must fear the winter, spring and in fact its clouds of black flies are sometimes more intimidating.
The Innu have learned to live, like the Cree, Attikameks and all other Algonquian tribes. They went up north for the winter hunt and trap, and came home to live the summer near the mouths rivers.
When, like me, there is outdoor guide in the boreal forest, you get used to equip themselves to meet any emergency. The material is sturdy, light, cheap and they usually impress our people with excellent equipment, often quite expensive and not always well suited to this environment. However, I do not feel proud of how I cope with my ax in the forest, saw my tape and my gray. I often think of those who were returning Nitassinan wood in the fall with something other than the ones they were wearing. Some skins, knife beaver-tooth and a stone-working skin.
For these people, neither winter nor summer, were a threat, the forest was their home, both homes, groceries and hardware. The Innu have created a culture here that is a true model of adaptation and collaboration with its environment, a culture diametrically opposed to ours which has so often need to clear up before moving.
My summer range, are the rivers. In summer, the forest is not always welcoming.
Sometimes in old growth forest, spruce and pine are sufficiently spaced so that we will feel welcome in other places, dirty wood make almost impenetrable forest. And then the land is interspersed with rivers, lakes, ravines, where the trunks of windfalls lying form green walls. Who wants to travel in the forest in this season, walking paths are the best routes. And then on the water, black flies and mosquitoes leaving the traveler to travel in peace. My
paths, this is the Mistassini River with boulders, the Samaaqua the Ouesimesca and sometimes even Mistassibi River to big waves. With the River Rats, the Mycosis, rivers and Butterfly Gervais they form the watershed of the Mistassini that drains into Lake Saint-Jean.
My territory of winter it is between Mistassini River Rats, mainly in free territory. The concept of free territory is unknown in Europe. These are lands that belong to someone of their own, everyone collectively. You can take a concession, but not buy the land itself. For a guide to outdoor activities, is the ability to draw, within the reasonable resources needed: dead wood for heating, water from lakes and rivers, fish at .
map and satellite image: MRC Maria Chapdelaine
0 comments:
Post a Comment