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  Treaty 6: Bison to Agriculture

  When the Presbyterian mission at Prince Albert was established in the 1860s, bison could still be hunted nearby, but not for long.73 As the decade passed, it was becoming clear that the bison were in decline, and by the 1870s plains bands looking to trade in the pemmican empire or simply to feed themselves had to travel south far beyond their traditional hunting grounds to access this precious resource in any substantial capacity.74 Boreal forest-adapted bands also would have missed this resource, though perhaps to a smaller degree. Decimation of the bison, combined with violent plains warfare, alcohol, and another extensive smallpox epidemic in the late 1860s and early 1870s had tremendous effects on the Plains Cree. Cree leader Mistawasis declared, in a heated session with other band leaders during the 1876 Treaty 6 negotiations, that “we are few in numbers compared to former times, by wars and the terrible ravages of smallpox.”75 Nowhere in this speech did Mistawasis claim that the bison had been killed by white people. It was the First Nations, weakened by whiskey and energized by horse stealing and thoughts of pride and bravery, who had engaged in the fur and pemmican trade so heavily to procure guns and ammunition with which to carry out their wars with the Blackfoot nations. Star Blanket concurred with this assessment: “If we had been friends we might now be a host of people of all nations and together have power to demand the things some of you foolishly think you can get and insist on now demanding. No, that is not the road we took, but killed each other in continuous wars and horse-stealing, all for the glory we all speak of so freely.” Starvation and decline drove plains bands to sign several of the numbered treaties in western Canada.76

  Treaty 6, signed at Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt in 1876, is generally interpreted as a convergence of interest between the Crown and First Nations bands of the region. Although the treaty is referred to as a “Plains Cree” treaty,77 it was in fact signed between “Her Majesty the Queen and the Plain and Wood Cree Indians and Other Tribes of Indians.”78 “Plain and Wood Cree” might well be a reference not so much to the differences between individual bands as to the fact that bands living around Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt would have originated from both ecosystems and followed the pattern of traversing across the ecotone, drawing their living from both.

  The Crown advocated a transition to permanent agrarian settlement. First Nations bands, fearing the end of their way of life through the bison hunt, asked for help to transition to farm settlements. Both Mistawasis and Ahtakakup, considered by historians (citing Cree interpreter Peter Erasmus) to be the most important figures at the treaty signing, pushed hard to establish good terms in the treaty. They wanted help for their people to “learn to gain their livelihood from the earth in a new way.”79

  The treaty terms specifically referred not only to those to whom farming would be a new experience but also to those already involved in it: “It is further agreed between Her Majesty and the said Indians, that the following articles shall be supplied to any Band of the said Indians who are now cultivating the soil, or who shall hereafter commence to cultivate the land.”80 Clearly, at the time of treaty, some bands were already cultivating the soil, adding to their subsistence base through agriculture. Those bands requested further agricultural help, as promised in the treaties, and worked to ensure that cultivated fields were included in their reserve land entitlements.

  Reverend James Nisbet, the Presbyterian missionary at Prince Albert, wrote about the beginning of Native agriculture in the Prince Albert district. He claimed in 1869 that several families “cultivate small pieces of land both here and at a lake twenty miles distant.”81 Less than ten years later, Chief Ah-yah-tus-kum-ik-im-am (whose anglicized name was William Twatt) signed Treaty 6 in 1876. Twatt and his councillors came to the treaty signing from their home at Sturgeon Lake, twenty miles from the Prince Albert settlement. They immediately requested that their reserve be established on the north side of the lake. E. Stewart, the dominion land surveyor, later claimed that the best farming land was to be found on the north side.82 As well, the acting Indian agent reported houses and a garden, with potatoes and barley already sown, without any help from outside agents.83 The Sturgeon Lake band was already farming by 1876 and had chosen the best land in their home region. The terms of Treaty 6 clearly acknowledged contemporary First Nations farming practices, which quickly became an important aspect of First Nations land usage in the north Prince Albert region.

  Treaty 6 sought to extinguish Aboriginal title to a vast region of western Canada. The northern boundary ceded in the original treaty passed in a straight line running east-west through the boreal forest, north of the boreal edge. In today’s terms, the line would run west just north of latitude 54° north from the source of Mossy River and Macdougall Creek near Nipawin Provincial Park to the south end of Green Lake. This tract would have included land used by Woods Cree living around Candle Lake, Bittern Lake, Red Deer (Waskesiu) Lake, and the smaller lakes to the south, such as present-day Christopher and Emma Lakes. These families were not signatories to Treaty 6. The official treaty statement read thus: “Commencing at the mouth of the river emptying into the north-west angle of Cumberland Lake; thence westerly up the said river to its source; thence on a straight line in a westerly direction to the head of Green Lake.” Historian Bob Beal suggested in the 2005 Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan that there was a serious disconnect between the written treaty terms and their meanings, as understood by the assembled chiefs: “There was no indication that land rights surrender was even discussed or explained. Erasmus read the written treaty, including the legally worded surrender clause, to the assembled First Nations; but the semantic differences between the languages and cultures may well have been too vast for even the best translator to bridge.” Beal also noted that the territorial description of exactly which land was being surrendered might have been omitted in negotiations and added later. In the years following 1876, more bands who lived within the Treaty 6 region came forward to sign what are called “internal” adhesions.84

  Map 6. Treaty map of Saskatchewan. Treaty boundaries shown here are approximate lines, for visual reference.

  Source: Based on maps from Office of the Treaty Commissioner, Saskatchewan, and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada,

  http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100032297/1100100032309.

  Adhesions caused tremendous angst in Ottawa, where Indian Department costs, particularly “annuity” or yearly treaty payments per person, were skyrocketing. Ottawa responded with “shock and alarm,” noted historian A.J. Ray, primarily because “no one in government had any idea of how many Indians lived in the surrendered territories.” Furthermore, the agreements were clear: First Nations groups could wait to sign their adhesions while they decided where to settle on reserves; when they did, they could expect not just yearly annuities but also those in arrears, back to the signing of the treaty. Ottawa MPs roared: “How many more ‘stragglers’ could be expected”?85

  According to a contemporary observer, John Sinclair of the Anglican mission at Stanley, several people from the region “presented themselves at Carlton during the time Treaty was being made with those Indians and asked to be paid but they were told that their part of the country was not fit for agricultural purposes and therefore could not get anything.”86 According to reports, they presented themselves again when treaty payments were being made the next year at Sturgeon Lake but were once again refused. Their firm demands would soon push Ottawa to action. As industrial exploitation, particularly lumbering and commercial fishing in the region north of Prince Albert, began to take hold throughout the decade following the treaty, the issue became more important. The bands that clearly occupied the region but were refused treaty adhesion and annuity payments complained directly to the surveyor who had come into the region to define timber limits. He replied that the bands were occupying territory that had been ceded in 1876.87 If so, the bands argued, then compensation was due. These bands continuous
ly petitioned the Crown throughout the 1880s amid growing discontent, starvation, and unrest among their plains brethren.88

  The comment “not fit for agricultural purposes” was telling, particularly compared with the experiences of the Sturgeon Lake band members who had already made some transition toward including farming as part of their forest edge lifestyle. The intent of all signatories to Treaty 6 was to replace the bison lifestyle with a mix of grain and cattle farming. For those Woods Cree bands for whom bison was not central but merely one aspect of a mixed boreal way of life, loss of the bison was perhaps not as traumatic as it was for some of the Plains Cree bands. Indeed, other forest lifeways—fishing, trapping, and hunting—were virtually unaffected. The kind of agriculture practised by (and expected of) the north Prince Albert bands was small scale, transitional, and supplementary to other ways of making a living. They pursued a highly diversified way of life that moved seasonally throughout the region, accessing game, fish, and birds and trapping fur-bearing animals. Adding agriculture in some ways substituted for the bison hunt. Loss of the bison hunt confined the Plains Cree to their reserves, where, as they made the transition to agriculture on a large enough scale to supply food to their people, they required extensive government assistance. The Woods Cree of the north Prince Albert region largely continued a diversified way of life drawn from the forest edge environment.

  Treaty 6 Adhesion: Boreal Agriculture

  On a cold day in February 1889, at the north end of Montreal Lake, Woods Cree and Rocky Cree families from Lac La Ronge and Montreal Lake met with representatives of the Crown to sign an external adhesion to Treaty 6.89 After years of agitation and repeated requests from the boreal bands in the north Prince Albert region, the Crown finally agreed to offer treaty. The difference between an internal adhesion and an external adhesion was crucial: an internal adhesion added people to existing treaty stipulations; an external adhesion added both new people and new lands to an existing treaty. In the latter, treaty terms were at least somewhat negotiable.

  The external adhesion attempted to sort out a dual problem. On the one hand, there were bands with homes in the north Prince Albert region, within the boundaries of Treaty 6, that had not been offered treaty. Securing an external adhesion, which acted essentially as a new treaty, clarified the uncertainty of who was, and who was not, in treaty relationship with the Crown. Although there is nothing in the official records to act as confirmation, an external adhesion could negate continuing calls for arrears in treaty annuity payments. The government did not want news of the new treaty to spread: “Mr. Dewdney was anxious that the business should be kept quiet in order that outside Indians might not be attracted to the District.”90 Meeting in winter, and sending runners ahead to alert people to attend the meeting, also limited attendance.

  The second problem came from the commercial interests of investors in Prince Albert. Surveyors, scouting and marking out timber berths, realized that the boundaries of Treaty 6 did not entirely cover the potential area of forest resources that the Prince Albert community believed was within their economic sphere. In short, the land ceded by Treaty 6 did not correspond to the boundaries of the Saskatchewan District of the North-West Territories91 or Prince Albert’s intended commercial empire of northern boreal resources. Officials at Indian Affairs explained: “The object in getting the surrender just now is in order that the Govt might legally dispose of the lumber in that Section permits to cut which have in some cases already been issued.”92 It was a somewhat frantic and belated effort to legally rectify a serious error—the government was issuing timber permits on land that had possibly not yet been ceded by treaty.

  Adhesion to Treaty 6 kept the major original terms of the treaty but ceded additional land. Treaty 6, designed primarily to promote agricultural development, has generally been described as incompatible with boreal forest bands. The overtly agricultural terms of Treaty 6 included grants of agricultural implements, stock, harness, and instruction in their use. As historical consultant Joan Champ noted, “these provisions hardly recognized the reality of the Woodland Cree’s environment and lifestyle,” tied to the hunting, fishing, and trapping cycle.93 Yet recorded negotiations between the treaty party and the First Nations at Montreal Lake showed a keen understanding of the specific agricultural components that would work well in their boreal lifestyle.

  Boreal forest bands also had farming experience. The Sturgeon Lake band had land under cultivation at the time of the original treaty in 1876. By 1889, when the northerly bands signed the adhesion, agricultural pursuits were common. Reverend John A. Mackay, a mixed-blood Anglican missionary who held several roles in the Prince Albert diocese, including acting as the missionary in charge of Stanley Mission in the mid-1800s, travelled back and forth through the region from Stanley Mission to Prince Albert. Fluent in Cree, Mackay was an important figure in the region and knew many of the people intimately. As Bill Waiser writes, “he ran a 15-acre agricultural operation, including a mill that made the mission almost self-sufficient. He also used a small printing press to begin to produce Cree translations of the Scriptures and religious services. In fact, there was little that the priest could not turn his hand to, a talent that was surpassed only by his capacity for northern travel. He was an imposing figure. With his flashing eyes, bushy eyebrows, and long clerical garb, he looked every part the prophet and reportedly feared no one but God.” Mackay’s fifteen-acre farm was an experiment in northern farming and gardening that had a significant impact on local bands.94

  In his travels to and from Prince Albert and his northern mission post at Stanley, Mackay noted extensive potato and garden plots cultivated by boreal forest families, often on lakeshores or islands where good land could be found. Agricultural pursuits resonate through First Nations oral histories from the region, which speak of a long history of gardening, particularly at the sites of winter trapping camps. Potatoes and other root vegetables would be planted in the spring, just as families were packing up to take their furs to market, to fish, and to engage in summer work.95 These plots would be ready for harvest in the fall when the families returned to their trapping camps and would supplement the family’s food requirements over the winter.96 Nonetheless, agricultural pursuits at La Ronge, through both the mission and the more traditional gardens grown at the trading post and by many locals on their trapping grounds, showed a widespread, though not intensive, integration of agriculture as one facet of the boreal landscape. The northern bands, though centred on and adapted to a boreal environment based on resource harvesting, incorporated agricultural pursuits in their seasonal lifestyle and cultural worldview.

  To a certain extent, the boreal bands of the region went through a fairly rapid sea change in 1889–90, moving from a mixed boreal-based lifestyle to one that anticipated greater importance for agriculture. This sea change was expressed in the adhesion and annuity documents. During the 1889 negotiations, the chiefs of both bands at first rejected the agricultural components of Treaty 6. Chief James Roberts of La Ronge commented that “there are some things offered to them by the Government, such as cattle, which would be no use to them, and they would like to get something instead.” The adhesion documents also reported that “William Charles [of Montreal Lake] would not like to receive any cattle just now, as they have no means of looking after them at present.”97 A boreal lifestyle built on seasonal movements for hunting, fishing, and trapping was not compatible with the sedentary occupation required for raising cattle. In addition, wolves abounded in the boreal forest; keeping cattle safe was not an easy task. Benjamin Bird, a senior councillor with the Montreal Lake band, was clearly not afraid to contradict his chief. He stated that the Montreal Lake band “would like to have an Instructor to look after them and teach them the mode of farming,” but the document does not state which kind of farming Bird was thinking about.98 The men retired to their tents to discuss the treaty terms and come to a compromise regarding the agricultural components of the treaty.


  When they came back, James Roberts revised his requests. Probably recognizing the success of Mackay’s Stanley Mission farm (which had some livestock), the band asked for a bull, three cows, an ox, and pigs. They also requested “three ploughs for the whole Band, (small light ones that can be carried in canoes),” along with a few scythes to cut hay for the animals. In lieu of what the government would still owe them, they requested the balance in ammunition and twine for nets. The chief went on to note that, “in regard to a horse, harness, and wagon, which would be of no use to him, he would like to get something as an equivalent … 1 tent, 1 stove, and 4 sets of dog harness.” Roberts presented an interesting compromise between the needs of a boreal band and the agricultural promise held out in Treaty 6. He clearly believed (after some convincing) that agricultural implements had a place and could be used with some success. But some agricultural requirements were clear: “Next Spring they will plant their potatoes where they have been accustomed to. They want, next Spring, seed potatoes to plant; about twenty bushels would be sufficient to supply those who have none.”99 Whether planting potatoes is defined as simple gardening or a local boreal adaptation that showed a marked acceptance of agriculture, the point remains: First Nations understood the scale of agricultural possibility as one aspect of their boreal lifestyle. During negotiations, they created a fine balance between current needs, such as extra twine, ammunition, and dog harness, and future needs and possibilities, including scythes and plows and more seed potatoes to expand production.