探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation (Part 3)

攝影相片 Photograph above: Some like it cold ...

攝影相片 Photograph above: Some like it hot ...

攝影相片 Photograph above: The Ski-with-the-Cree campground

攝影相片 Photograph above: Arriving at the hunting camp after skiing 15 km in minus 30 to 40 degrees C weather on the Moose River.

攝影相片 Photograph above: Supper at the Cree Cultural Interpretive Centre at Moose Factory. The diagram I mentioned in this article is shown on the wall on the right (with the four-colour medicine wheel)

Sustainable Community

In Part 2 of this series, I mentioned Chief Seattle's Prophecy (or unconfirmed reported speech as some historians put it), which some of you might say is too doom-and-gloom and probably very outdated. But don't forget back in 1854, the patriarch of the Duwamish and Suquamish Indians of Puget Sound and a great warrior of his people, was under a lot of pressure from the "white man" to make concessions, sign treaties, and give up aboriginal lands. Such was the situation in what is now metro Seattle in the western United States. How about the Canadian natives and more specifically the Moose Cree First Nation people whom I recently visited? According to my aboriginal friends, things were not that much different in terms of forced assimilation (some called it "internal colonialism" 內部殖民主义). Here is a brief summary of and my thoughts on The History of James Bay Aboriginal People based on the diagram depicted on the wall of the Cree Cultural Interpretive Centre at Moose Factory.

Pre-European Contact Era: The community was sustainable both spiritually and materialistically. The traditional way of life provided a stable societal infrastructure with clear values, harmonious relationships between people; respect for elders, Nature and the Creator; and an abundance of resources from the environment.

Contact Era: To start with, 90% of the population died of imported deceases such as small-pox to which they had no natural immunization. The increasing demand for fur and other resources not only changed the economic independence of the aboriginals, but also exerted tremendous pressure on the natural environment to the extent that some species such as buffalos were hunted to near extinction. The encroachment of Christianity by missionaries who viewed aboriginals as savages also accelerated the erosion of the social, economic and ecological sustainability of the aboriginal community.

Post-contact Era: Industrialization and the loss of lands with or without treaties had resulted in poverty and deplorable social and economic conditions across the land. Loss of traditional values, culture, languages and way of life had eroded the spirit of the people. Family break-down, drugs, alcohol and other social problems had surfaced as symptoms (but not the original causes) of an unsustainable community. The government responded by implementing, among other things, the Residential School Program that aimed at forced assimilation of aboriginal children into the western society/culture. Currently, the government has agreed to negotiate/compensate the aboriginals for the abuses and suffering of those lost years. However, it seems that there is still a great deal of mistrust on the part of the aboriginals in dealing with governments and big resource industry.

The Future: The challenge facing the people is whether they can renew and revitalize the community and make it sustainable again. Healing is an important first step after years of hurt, abuses and neglect. To rebuild, the people will need to re-establish the three pillars of sustainable development.

(a) Social: The challenge is to re-introduce traditions, values and relationships to a whole new generation of young aboriginals who are bombarded by market-driven commercials and popular western culture. I do notice, however, that there are quite a number of users on Blogger, YouTube, and other internet media, who strongly identify with their aboriginal heritage and are taking advantage of what technology has to offer. On the down-side, one cannot rely on technology to deal with social problems. It would appear that education and raising awareness is the long-term solution to a lot of the deep-rooted social issues.

(b) Economic: A sustainable community will need a sustainable economy to provide the revenue it needs to survive and rejuvenate. My understanding is that the current Indian Act印地安法 does provide aboriginals with certain rights to harvest local resources as part of their traditional way of life, but at the same time it also confines the people to reserves which are usually far away from major economic centres. The promotion of eco-tourism is one way of bringing revenues to the community and is indeed the focus of several reports by the government (references: http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/fednor-fednor.nsf/en/fn00776e.html; http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/fednor-fednor.nsf/en/h_fn01621e.html). I believe that economic prosperity is a necessary although not sufficient condition for a sustainable community. It has been shown in the past that wind-fall from big resource development projects has caused more harm than good to aboriginal communities. To become sustainable, the community will also need to have in place the right environment, or winning conditions/factors, in order to succeed.

(c) Other Factors: In addition to (a) and (b) above, there are other factors that will also significantly determine the sustainability of a community. These may include (not in any order of importance): Resolution of long-standing legal issues (e.g. land claims, Residential School compensations, etc.); self-governance issue/model (with other jurisdictions and internally); municipal infrastructure (schools and teachers; roads and transportation, drinking/waste water, health/hospital and security, financial infrastructure, ...); geo-political power (links to other aboriginal players and political decision-makers); capacity building (knowledge and know-how of community leaders and workers); and other winning conditions or factors.

Having discussed the three main pillars of a sustainable community, I would suggest that the overarching driver still remains to be the determination of the people and their will to safe-guard their heritage and traditions in a world that is becoming more homogenized because of globalized trade and informatics technologies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: A special thanks to Clarence and Phil for helping me better understand The History of James Bay Aboriginal People during the Ski-with-the-Cree trip 2008. Please note I take responsibility for the opinions expressed in this article. If you find any mistakes or would like to make corrections, please submit them to me as comments.

... to be continued.