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00:00Prior to the signing of the treaties, you could travel as far and wide as you want.
00:24For people to survive you need food, and people lived off the land.
00:30It's well known that indigenous folks suffered from high rates of diabetes.
00:40For a long time we were set up to have low rates of health.
00:49They knew the potential that was in the north.
00:52It was just a lie. They knew how valuable the land was.
00:57It was just a lie.
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04:43they could put the railway through the country.
04:47And Treaty 5 just wasn't in the area that they wanted that railroad.
04:50Now, who are the representatives from the Crown?
04:53Yeah, so we have Morris as kind of the main person on the ground.
04:57And then under him, Makai is back on.
04:59Now, we know that in Treaty 4, he was only an advisor and he wasn't actually at the location.
05:04He had taken on the role of agricultural minister.
05:08He also didn't have influence in Treaty 4, so there wasn't a huge benefit to bringing him there.
05:13But now, because he did have influence in this area, he was brought on as a commissioner.
05:18So this is a big jump in his position.
05:21And obviously, Morris really trusts Makai at this point to ensure that, you know,
05:27the Crown's objectives are being achieved through the interpretations.
05:32And so he's essentially been given a large promotion.
05:36On the side of the Indigenous representatives, there are a handful of Muskego and Anishinaabe nations.
05:41It's very interesting, though, because there are a number of bands who signed later on, well into the 1900s.
05:47This treaty is a little bit more confusing because of all the adhesions that were signed.
05:52And even a year later, there's different commissioners, Makai and Morris, aren't traveling back up to that area.
05:57So the communication gets really muddy, even in the documentation of the treaties as to what is happening,
06:02the amount of land, the location of the land.
06:05Because these things, during the signing of Treaty 5, were left blank.
06:09Treaty 5 is also kind of a unique outlier.
06:13The treaties in that Alexander Morris became very frustrated in Treaty 3 and Treaty 4
06:19because you had these large groups and they were becoming aware of what was happening.
06:24And they were saying, nope, this is what we want.
06:27So for Treaty 5, they decided, we're going to do things differently.
06:30And they rented a steamboat and said, we're going to meet with the First Nations individually.
06:35We're going to hive them off into individual First Nations and really weaken the bargaining power of the Indigenous groups.
06:44Very interesting.
06:45And there is a significant decrease of land that is allotted in Treaty 5.
06:49It goes from 640 acres of land down to 160 acres of land.
06:53The argument they made is that in the South, agricultural people wanted the land.
06:59So it was important, therefore, to give a little bit more land.
07:01But it doesn't make sense that if the agricultural people don't want the land in the North,
07:08they should have gotten more land in the North because there was little agriculture.
07:13Their thinking was that they wanted to move more non-Aboriginal people into the South more quickly.
07:18And in the North, they looked down upon that situation.
07:22They stood their ground and just got a quarter of the land, you know, that was there.
07:27But in many cases, that still impacts, you know, the people all through Treaty 5.
07:33And so they went to Barron's River first, had them sign on to treaty, though didn't leave a treaty.
07:39And what has become apparent is actually hadn't finished writing out the treaty.
07:43And I understand that that was a tactic by Morris himself, so as to avoid having to give large sums of land away,
07:52or at the time be able to say, oh, this is where your land base is.
07:55Yeah.
07:56And Morris justified this to the Indigenous nations there by saying, oh, well, this is the North,
08:00and so you're not going to have a lot of settlers coming over here.
08:04So you're going to have all of this land to be able to hunt, fish and trap, basically retain your way of life.
08:09So you really just need this little bit of land.
08:11Yeah.
08:11Very interesting.
08:12Yeah.
08:12And an interesting note on that is that it was left blank, and the 160 was written in the following year.
08:19It was very questionable.
08:20Mm-hmm.
08:20When it comes to being further up north, it's a little bit easier to engage in your cultural food practices because you're so isolated.
08:32But then there are a lot of challenges put in place, such as being part of the treaty, in that you are allocated a specific part of land to live on.
08:42And so that results in kind of being limited in the area that you're able to hunt and fish and trap in.
08:51Prior to the signing of the treaties, you could travel as far and wide as you want, but unfortunately because of the signing of the treaties, we were given specific parcels of land, which limited that engagement that we would have and that relationship that we would have with the land.
09:05There were reports of starvation up in this area, right around Norway House.
09:09I think because of the starvation and the move into agriculture, they saw that there were better farming grounds in the south.
09:17So seeing what their neighbours were receiving or perhaps receiving in the treaties that were signed down there, they also wanted a treaty.
09:25So that makes a lot of sense.
09:27Like, you know, when you think about the possibility of some of the communities up in Norway House dealing with starvation at that time, you can't help but sort of tie that to today and associate it with how remote this area is and how difficult it is to even get in here, you know, and how difficult it must be to get food here.
09:45When I was raised in Cumberland, we had a lot of Nameel, which was a major force for us when I was growing up in the 1950s.
09:56We ate a lot of sturgeon.
09:59So we were able to survive, you know, through the fishing.
10:02But one of the contentions on the food sovereignty argument is that the dam that was built in 1962 knocked off that aspect of the people's livelihood.
10:12For people to survive, you need food.
10:16And people lived off the land.
10:19And what happened is that the dam destroyed that.
10:23People promised that it wouldn't have, you know, the big effect it would, but it did.
10:29It knocked off a lot of the fishing, hunting, trapping.
10:34A lot of the different types of plants that were around were gone.
10:38And a lot of things, it rearranged the river, you know, the river systems.
10:44And those are huge when it comes down to environmental impacts.
10:49Cumberland was a major delta in North America.
10:52And you were damaging that old delta.
10:56And you can't bring it back.
10:58You know, you could only try and do as good as you can with what you got.
11:05And that's basically what happened in Cumberland.
11:08A lot of their livelihood was lost through that.
11:11It's really important to provide support to communities, to be self-determining about what food they're putting on their table.
11:23And it goes beyond this concept of nutrition.
11:26It goes beyond this concept of a food guide.
11:28It's really about engaging in those relationships.
11:32It's really about reconnecting and reclaiming those cultural pathways to better engage in our food systems.
11:38We had the opportunity to go to Life Water Gardens, which is a hydroponic garden in a sea can in the community.
11:46That's not something I've ever seen before.
11:48Here we are at Pumatsunnipi Kistakannik.
11:53Life Water Gardens in English.
11:55We're a Norway house and we're growing our own plants, our own leafy greens in our hydroponic system.
12:01And it's only leafy green.
12:02So herbs, lettuces, pak choi, leafy greens in general.
12:08Okay.
12:09And what do you do with the leafy greens, you know, after they're grown?
12:12Can people come and buy them?
12:14Do you give them out to the community?
12:16In the beginning, 2019, when we first started, for two years we didn't sell anything.
12:21It's just getting people used to it.
12:24Right.
12:25Then we started selling just a year ago.
12:28The aim and goal was eventually to sell greens.
12:30Yeah.
12:30So someone must have identified a need for greens in the community, correct?
12:36Definitely.
12:36It's been an issue across the north for many years.
12:41Yeah.
12:41Sustainable, available greens and greens that are at a price that you can afford.
12:46Yeah.
12:46Here it's not the price thing as much as it is the freshness of the product.
12:52Right.
12:53But there's more than that.
12:54There's also food sovereignty for the community.
12:56Yeah.
12:57So that's the direction if we want to go.
12:58Right.
12:59What do you mean by food sovereignty?
13:01Every family in the past had a garden.
13:05And that has been lost over the years.
13:08We're keeping up with the times but still providing for ourselves.
13:11What's really great about life water gardens is that you can grow all year round through the winter.
13:17Can you tell us about the science of this place?
13:19We're in a sea can, a shipping container, and all the things necessary for growing leafy greens are all here.
13:27That includes temperature, wind, pH balance, nutrients, CO2.
13:34Typically plants get their nutrients and vitamins from soil, but here at the sea can, we don't use soil.
13:40It's all water, so all of the nutrients and stuff are added in, which makes all of our produce extremely nutrient rich.
13:48When chief and council first set this up, they kind of looked for the greenest thumb in town, which was my family, my dad, and Virginia.
13:56Like, we're not trained.
13:57We haven't gone to school to learn how to operate or run these things.
14:00We learn on the go.
14:03The sea can was created originally to bring down the rates of diabetes for indigenous people on reserve.
14:09And so far, so good in terms of targeting the health of our people, right?
14:14And so that's, like, where my heart is for this thing, you know?
14:16I'm hitting.
14:17That's amazing.
14:18Yeah, that's amazing.
14:18It is.
14:19It truly is.
14:19I have a question just along that line.
14:21If we go back, you said that sort of the main motivator for this to start up was because of, you know, diabetes being rampant in the community.
14:29So can you talk about that period of time before you guys were here?
14:33Right.
14:33So it's well known that indigenous folks suffer from extremely high rates of diabetes, right?
14:42If we're going way back, it was, you know, the treaties were created and indigenous people were put on lands that were not viable for gardening or very poor levels of gardening.
14:53So for a long time, we were set up to have low rates of health.
14:57And when we're on reserve and we're talking about access to food, we only have a couple stores.
15:02So what they put in there, we have to eat.
15:04And when you go to the store, grab a head of lettuce, that's probably about $10, $8, $9.
15:10But you can go buy a bag of chicken nuggets for $3, $4, right?
15:15So those prices and stuff really drive our health rates down, not only in diabetes, but in all sorts of other things.
15:23There are a lot of things that contribute to type 2 diabetes in our communities, like the access to healthy and nutritious food, the increase in processed foods being available in our communities, the lack of physical activity, not being able to go out on the land and do these things.
15:41There's so many things that contribute to type 2 diabetes.
15:43A lot of the solutions for type 2 diabetes are very ingrained in kind of Western ways or Western health systems.
15:53And not many of them are based in an indigenous way of knowing or indigenous way of doing in that going back to what our lives were like kind of pre-settlement on reservations and really engaging in those systems that allowed us to live healthy lives.
16:12And prior to working at the sea count, I was a paramedic, so I got to see very firsthand the health of our people and or the lack of health of our people, I should say.
16:22I got to see very firsthand, it was heartbreaking, really, you know, we don't have access to healthy food and our health typically declines the older we get.
16:35And so a lot of our people don't make it to become elders, they don't have that experience and it's really sad, it's sad, it's, it sucks.
16:44You know, I want to see my people live long, healthy lives, it can be very bleak on the reserve, trying to live here, exist here, thrive here.
16:54It can be very bleak, so my hope for the Life Water Gardens is that not only will it increase rates of health, which it is, but it will increase rates of hope so people will feel that there's something to look forward to.
17:08We're trying all of whatever we can to make work, right, but leafy greens is where we're at right now.
17:22So things that grow really good are lettuces and herbs.
17:25What works, we run with.
17:27Yeah.
17:28Yeah.
17:29It all comes back to sovereignty, right?
17:30Yeah.
17:31Having control of what you eat.
17:32Having control of what we eat, not having to pay an arm and a leg.
17:37Not only dependent on government, but also dependent on other nations.
17:40Exactly, right?
17:41We get to have our own produce that we grew, that we provided, and that is like providing health to our people.
17:49And there's something so powerful in that idea of providing for ourselves as an Indigenous nation.
17:55Nationhood, that's what nationhood is.
17:57Yeah.
17:58And I think people don't realize that to have sovereignty, you need a nation that is healthy and well, and that's how food is connected.
18:04It's kind of interesting when we talk about sovereignty, it sort of means to be your own, right, and to do things on your own.
18:12But in order to have sovereignty, you first must have community, right?
18:16So we're building community to gain sovereignty.
18:19That's it.
18:20And it's very, it's neat.
18:21Yeah.
18:22It's really neat.
18:23It's powerful work.
18:24It is.
18:25It is powerful work.
18:26Real cycle breaking shit.
18:27Yes, I like that.
18:30Right, right.
18:31You know, it became really clear when we went into Treaty 5 that food would become a strong part of our conversations when we're talking with everybody.
18:41Just how remote it is made it really clear that getting food to the location was difficult and it was expensive.
18:50So we wanted to explore what the community was doing to try to combat that.
18:57We actually buy the plants for the high school and then we go and deliver after.
19:01Right.
19:02Put the lid on.
19:03Sure.
19:04Now we're ready for travel.
19:06Cool.
19:07Short little travel to the school.
19:09Awesome.
19:10Off we go.
19:11Good stuff.
19:12It was pretty amazing going to the Life Water Gardens location.
19:16They're working closely with the school system there to get greens into the cafeteria so that kids get to eat salads essentially every day.
19:24Which is amazing because that type of food is not readily accessible.
19:28Or if it is accessible, it's extremely expensive and makes it prohibitive for people to get access to.
19:37When I was just still going to school, a lot of our people went to work at the E.B. Campbell Dam.
19:43At that time it was called Spore Rapids.
19:46When we were there, we wanted to go to school.
19:48So we went to ask to see if we could go to school at the school that was there.
19:53But they said we couldn't.
19:55They didn't allow us to go to school.
19:57But it's interesting.
19:58They didn't allow us to mix in with their children.
20:02You know, when we were there, I used to go and watch on the fence and watch the children play.
20:07But we couldn't go and play with them either.
20:10And that's the way it was, you know, in that period in time.
20:22Yeah, I've got this.
20:23Yeah, I've got the doors.
20:24Okay.
20:25Great. Thank you.
20:28Come on in.
20:29That's the hostage in my land.
20:30Oh, I love this. Look, it's circular.
20:34Oh, yeah.
20:39Oh, my God, it's a parade.
20:41How are you, Kyle?
20:42How are you doing?
20:43Good. Hello.
20:44Hi there.
20:45Okay, cool.
20:46Smells delicious in here.
20:48Well, we tried.
20:49I think we use pretty much everything that they grow over there here at the school, whether it be in salads, soups, sauces, whatever the case may be, or as garnishes.
21:00It's a product that's superior.
21:01It holds longer.
21:02And there's no chemicals involved.
21:04There's no preservatives or anything like that.
21:06Well, it's interesting because we just drove over here, and it was about a three-minute drive to get the food from the growing place to where it's actually being used, which is so different than, say, trucking it in, obviously.
21:17Sure.
21:18I mean, everything that comes up north here, obviously, it's at a cost.
21:21Yeah.
21:22Whether it be environmentally, dollar-wise, the product has been aged, and it's not coming to us the freshest it ought to be, right?
21:28Right.
21:29So I've got a question for you, Josh.
21:30Yes.
21:31So you work directly with the students.
21:32How is that incorporating them into the food preparation?
21:35Well, I noticed that it really helps them feel more part of the game, and it's a little different than, you know, just making it small meals for just to learn how to cook.
21:45And it's been really fun because, like, the developmental of some students who just kind of just get it.
21:49This is our first year here.
21:50This is Julia.
21:51Hi, Julia.
21:52She's from here.
21:53She grew up here.
21:54Yeah.
21:55And she's helped us with caterings.
21:56Wow.
21:57She's helped us with breakfast programs.
21:58She's helped us with all kinds of things.
22:00And now she's one of the top students telling other kids what to do.
22:02That's awesome.
22:03So I'm watching everybody around.
22:04Yeah.
22:05I'm kidding.
22:06Well, me, I think this class is for, like, kind of building what you want to know for, like, later on in life.
22:11Not everybody can learn that.
22:12Like, not many people have the chances.
22:14I feel like this class brings out a lot in me, and it's really fun.
22:19This program is not too dissimilar to what you would find in the South, except for the fact it's been rearranged to make it applicable to the people and students in this community.
22:28Because there's not a whole lot of opportunities for people to sort of get life lessons.
22:33And, you know, we push them pretty hard sometimes.
22:36You know, and we also kind of look at this as a safe place for kids to hang out if they don't want to be walking the halls or if somebody's bullying them.
22:42They can always come in and wash pots.
22:43Yeah.
22:44You wouldn't believe how many kids want to just come in here and wash pots and dishes.
22:46Yeah.
22:47We're trying to make it so that when they walk out into the world, rather than getting kicked in the teeth and being disappointed, they have a skill set.
22:54We teach them four basic things that they're going to know for sure.
22:57They'll learn how to use a knife.
22:59They'll learn how to use all the equipment in here.
23:02They'll learn about sanitation.
23:04And they'll learn about teamwork.
23:06And so if some young person goes down to the city or another place in town to get a job, but if they walk in with some confidence, the chef asks them, do you know how to use a knife?
23:15They can say yes.
23:16Do you know about sanitation and food safety?
23:19They can say yes.
23:20Do you know how to use that piece of equipment?
23:22They can say yes.
23:23Right?
23:24Have you ever worked with this many people before?
23:25They can say yes.
23:26I just wanted to ask all three of you your input on, you know, the impact on the community, not just here, but how is that impacting, you know, the wider community beyond the school?
23:36I'd say over 95% of all the kids in town who have a job have all taken this class.
23:41We also try to teach them that people rely on them to show up, how important it is to be on time to just be there.
23:47Yeah.
23:48I think that's a huge impact on the community right there, that we're building kids with a work ethic that can stand up anywhere.
23:54The students make everything.
23:55Yeah.
23:56You know, I just kind of orchestrate.
23:57It's kind of like a ballet or whatever the case may be.
24:00It's not always a pretty ballet, but it works out.
24:03Well, I still believe we're the best restaurant in town with the best prices by a mile.
24:06Yeah.
24:07So it's open to the public?
24:08To a degree.
24:09Okay.
24:10I mean, parents can come by, the bus drivers come in here and stuff like that.
24:13You know, it's amazing how many people that used to just want pizza and fries and burgers are now eating this.
24:19Yeah.
24:20Yeah.
24:21Josh, I got a question for you.
24:23What, in your mind, is the importance of students having access to, like, really good quality food?
24:30Well, it starts from, you know, better nutrition, really.
24:35And, like, because it's so hard for these kids to do what they got to do when, at home, it's not really the best environment.
24:41Yeah.
24:42So, I see, like, you know, sometimes I can notice they're having a bad day, so I'll just kind of put them aside and do something.
24:47I'm like, Andrew's doing the dishes today.
24:48How about?
24:49Yeah.
24:50Or just kind of, you know, just clean up.
24:51You just tell, but without trying to pull it out of them.
24:54I'm like, you know.
24:55Yeah.
24:56You're just kind of like, hey, guys, it's okay.
24:57You don't have to tell me nothing.
24:58Just do the work.
24:59Yeah.
25:00Get into it.
25:03While we've been up in the north, I've seen the impact of food.
25:07I mean, there's a lot of food that's really unhealthy, or it's really expensive to access food that's really healthy.
25:14So, you know, it's really crucial to see a project like Life Water Gardens and seeing the domino effect that that one project has on a whole community is really inspiring.
25:26And some of the early editions of the Canadian Food Guide, the science that was utilized to create the guidelines was science that was collected through nutritional experiments in residential schools on Indigenous children.
25:48They knew that Indigenous children in residential schools were starving, and they were like, that is our baseline.
25:55We can take these hungry children and experiment on them and be able to see the effects of different vitamins and different minerals on their health by providing certain foods and not providing other foods.
26:07And they were able to kind of develop nutritional guidelines based off of the provision or the lack of provision of healthy foods to Indigenous children in residential schools.
26:16I grew up in the public school system, and we saw those Canadian Food Guide posters all over the place.
26:23And so to make that association that that's where that information and that guide was based from is absolutely shocking.
26:31I'm not surprised, but I'm also shocked that the Canada Food Guide is so impacted by the experimentation on Indigenous young people in residential and industrial schools.
26:43It's really important that people in this country of Canada understand that the basis of the Canadian health industry was at the degradation of Indigenous people.
26:53One of the unique aspects of the school in Norway House is that they incorporate land-based learning into the curriculum.
27:03We were just in the culinary arts section, and Josh, who is the sous chef, said that you take some of the students fishing or hunting.
27:10I'm curious to know, from your perspective, what is the importance of food, food sovereignty to land-based learning and the health and wellness of a people?
27:17Land-based learning is very important because it ties people to the land. The culture is so much tied to the land.
27:26We're trying to bring that sort of thing back, and it just promotes a healthy person all around.
27:32Prior to processed foods, there was no diabetes or health problems in that way.
27:40And that comes from the healthy foods that people were eating from the land.
27:44But because of the way food has changed, people aren't eating as much of the healthy food, the wild food that their bodies were used to.
27:55Maybe just for someone like myself that doesn't know what land-based learning is, can you just spell that out for me?
28:02Just the activities that people would traditionally do on the land.
28:06Usually what I do is I start out with canoeing in September.
28:09We just have a little camp area close to the school.
28:12Teach them how to use an axe and how to start a fire and those sorts of things and build shelters.
28:18We get into snaring in November.
28:20And then in January, we start ice fishing.
28:22And we also try and promote that, you know, everything that we're related to everything there.
28:28So we honour whatever we harvest.
28:30We put down tobacco every time we harvest fish or any animal.
28:36What is some of the impact that you're seeing with the youth or, you know, in a broad sense, the community?
28:41For a lot of them, it's a first time experience.
28:44For some, they go out with their parents all the time.
28:46But I think it's a real positive impact for those that have never been out.
28:51We're going to head out tomorrow and do some land-based learning.
28:54I'm definitely a fish out of water, no pun intended.
28:57But, you know, any advice for someone like myself that's going out for the first time and what to expect maybe?
29:04Dress warm as first, right?
29:07Stand with your back to the wind.
29:08You'll stay warmer that way.
29:10Try to stay on your feet.
29:11Don't be sitting down on the ice.
29:13And don't get wet, right?
29:15If you get wet, you're going to get cold.
29:18We're very fortunate that one of the people from the community, Lester, is going to take us out onto the ice.
29:32And he's going to show us how to ice fish.
29:35And he's going to teach us about the land-based education that's happening and how he's taking kids out there and teaching them how to get food, how to get quality food on their own.
29:47We're here.
29:52I felt really alive, actually, being in the back of that sled.
29:56You know, you're feeling the elements, you're in the cold.
29:58I felt really grateful, too, that the community was hosting us in that way to be able to go to their fish camp and have them share some of their teachings with us.
30:07We never used to have stores.
30:26Our greatest teacher is our Mother Earth, and that's who we feed off.
30:31That's why we have the water for fish.
30:35The bush, we have rabbits.
30:37We have the moose.
30:38We have the caribou.
30:40We have beavers, muskrats, lynx.
30:43So everything comes together, even the wood, to keep us warm.
30:49Everything I do, I just focus on social media, whoever wants to come out and learn.
30:54Even adults, younger children.
30:56Yeah.
30:57So most of the time, it's more or less mental health, and there's some of our younger youth that are crying out for help.
31:08I help them with their addictions and without even telling them, without them even knowing the fitness.
31:17It's so peaceful hearing the birds.
31:20You get exercise, fresh air, and then all that stuff kind of fades away.
31:28These relationships that we foster to our foodways, they matter to our health and our wellness.
31:33So it was really neat to go and see that it not only works in my community, but this actually works for so many Indigenous communities.
31:41We're starting to see this really big shift in how communities are tackling the challenges that they're dealing with in terms of nutrition and food security.
31:52Yeah, well, I'll grab this one first.
31:55Get a little bit of ice out.
31:57Must come in.
31:59They basically drill a hole, feed a net all the way under for about a football field length, and then pull it out the other end.
32:07They leave it there for about 24 hours, sometimes 48 hours.
32:11And that's that.
32:14Net is ready.
32:15So we're going to pull the net from the other end now.
32:18And it's really coming down to that nation's sovereignty that they're having and really taking back and reclaiming practices and not relying heavily on the Canadian government anymore.
32:32I'll lift that spot over there, look.
32:36Oh, pickerel.
32:38White fish.
32:40Sucker.
32:41That's good there.
32:42Good.
32:43Woo hoo.
32:44We're starting to recognize that a lot of the supports and interventions that are in place, they're not fixing anything, they're providing band aid solutions.
33:00And so really starting to think about what can we do to prevent these challenges for future generations.
33:06It's a lot of work, but there are so many people that are really working towards bettering their communities.
33:12It's awesome.
33:15Scoop there.
33:17I'm hoping it'll happen in my generation, but the good thing is knowing that there's people doing the work now so that future generations are able to say that they can fully engage in food sovereignty.
33:31It's a Cree tradition.
33:32It's a Cree tradition.
33:33It's a Cree tradition.
33:34Tell him that.
33:35Tell him that.
33:36Be real serious.
33:37Okay.
33:38Well, this one's ready to go.
33:39No, you've got to use a fresh one.
33:40A fresh one.
33:41A fresh one.
33:42What do you have to do here when you're in the catch fish, Cree traditions?
33:44You have to kiss them enough.
33:45Yeah.
33:46Yeah.
33:47Yeah.
33:48Yeah.
33:49Yeah.
33:50Yeah.
33:51Yeah.
33:52Yeah.
33:53Yeah.
33:54Yeah.
33:55Yeah.
33:56Yeah.
33:57Yeah.
33:58Yeah.
33:59You're legit now.
34:00There we go.
34:01Yeah.
34:02I've never been ice fishing before in my life, and it didn't bring me any luck.
34:04I didn't catch any fish.
34:05Sometimes you'll feel them bite, too.
34:06Oh, really?
34:07Oh, yeah.
34:08And then you'll pull it up.
34:09They're smart, those fish.
34:10I was just thinking about food and the fish and the hunting and, you know, trapping.
34:27How does that relate to treaty?
34:30It's our treaty, right?
34:31We can hunt any time of the year.
34:33And that's what I do.
34:34I get my food all year round.
34:36You know, there's our table right here.
34:39And it's the community's table.
34:42You can get food, just go drill a hole, throw it in.
34:45You have food next day rather than running to the store.
34:50We used to have a lot of gatherings and people laughing and taking care of each other and
34:55saying, hey, you need help here?
34:57We'll help you.
34:58Yeah.
34:59Yes.
35:00It's really powerful talking to Lester and seeing his passion around land-based education
35:07for the youth in the community.
35:09He firmly believes that this is something that everyone in the community should be doing.
35:13Indian Affairs was trying to save on costs, so at the time the commissioners were instructed
35:32to reduce all of the terms for the treaties that were signed after five.
35:37So six going forward.
35:39Interesting.
35:40Yeah.
35:41Wow.
35:42When it came to Treaty Six the next year, they were again meeting with the big group.
35:46And then when they swung back in, in the early 20th century into northern Manitoba,
35:51again went back to the meeting individually with the First Nations in Treaty Five.
35:57And the PAW was aware of the Treaty Six gathering at Fort Carleton and said, we want the same terms as them.
36:03And the commissioners went, no, no, no, no.
36:06Your land is worth less.
36:08So we're giving you less land and giving you less money.
36:10They needed title to the land and they needed to begin extracting resources and attaining some form of money.
36:18Yeah.
36:19Those mineral rights were probably a huge part of their motivation because all of a sudden,
36:23that became more of something they were going after.
36:27And I'm really curious to know what changed in the economic environment of, say, North America,
36:33where all of a sudden mineral rights were something that they really needed to obtain.
36:37They weren't looking at it in Treaty Five for agricultural purposes.
36:41They were looking at it as a transportation route, the water resources, Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba,
36:47all the lakes up north, but minerals.
36:49They knew the potential that was in the north for that.
36:54So I think it was just a lie.
36:57They knew how valuable the land was, but they said, your land isn't worth as much.
37:02So we're going to give you less of it.
37:04It just doesn't make sense.
37:06It's one of those things in history that you look back and you say, oh, everything was done up front
37:11and everything was done the same way, but it wasn't.
37:16Treaty Five was a good example of that in history.
37:19You know, people looked down upon our people and when they had a chance to really cut down three quarters,
37:26you know, of the land base, they did it.
37:29I'm also curious about the concept of the depth of a plow and whether that still applies to this treaty or not.
37:37Well, they do say that all of the treaties are comprehensive, treaties one to eleven.
37:41So understanding that the clause of the depth of a plow, it applies to all of the treaties.
37:48To share the land to the depth of a plow is something that I have heard consistently.
37:54Indigenous groups understood that they were bringing in settlers to have farms to grow crops
37:59and would be plowing the land.
38:00And so that was the idea that that would be the interest of Europeans and of Canadians,
38:06that we're going to share the land with the land particular to the depth of a plow.
38:10As far as I know, the matter has not been litigated to date in terms of that specific understanding,
38:17but certainly it comes out.
38:19It's part and parcel of this, in my view at least, of this concept of sharing the land.
38:26That was going to be the relationship, not giving up all of our interest to our land.
38:31It really speaks to the injustice of resource extraction here in so-called Canada.
38:36Yeah, if they still retain that terminology within the treaty,
38:39but still their motivation was to gain access to those minerals, it really is contradictory.
38:44Hmm.
38:53Lester offered to take us to the signing location of where Treaty 5 was signed.
38:57I felt really in the moment, being, you know, in the sled, being pulled by Lester in a skidoo,
39:03and I was just really thinking about, yeah, the journey of treaty.
39:07Like, how people had to take these long journeys to be able to even communicate and gather and meet,
39:14to be able to have these negotiations.
39:16Getting to the location was pretty interesting because there's a few historical buildings that are left,
39:23and there's a store that's essentially built right up next to it.
39:28It's not something that's really been protected.
39:32We see these old buildings there, and if you drove by, you really wouldn't know that this is a historical site,
39:41a really significant Hudson's Bay post.
39:44Oh, yeah, there it is.
39:541875, Treaty Number 5.
39:56It's made here.
39:58Wow, look at that.
39:59Whereby the Soto and Swampy Crete ceded their rights.
40:03Huh.
40:04That's a pretty strong statement.
40:07I think people really need to understand the importance of treaty to food,
40:13and it's that the land is where we get our food from,
40:17and essentially each and every one of us depends on the land for that reason.
40:22It's why our ancestors advocated so hard for certain clauses around land,
40:27around resources, around hunting, trapping, and fishing rights,
40:30is because they knew the importance of food as it has to do with the survivance of a people.
40:35I'm pretty upset by that whole comment.
40:39Well, and I don't think we've ever come across anything that says anything about ceding rights.
40:43Like, we've seen a lot of terminology around ceding of land.
40:47We'll even look at some of the imagery that you, I don't know, it looks like a boat.
40:51Oh, yeah.
40:52We've got the imagery of settler people coming in, it looks like.
40:55You're totally right.
40:56Like, this is an Indigenous person, and this is Christopher Columbus.
41:00Yeah.
41:01Yeah, that's probably what that is.
41:02And then here we've got the crown.
41:04Yeah, and the shields and everything like that.
41:06Yeah.
41:07And then industry, you're right, like.
41:08But where is the Indigenous representation even in the symbology on this plaque?
41:11Yeah, it's not there, that's for sure.
41:13I think when treaties were being signed, and specifically when Treaty 5 was being signed,
41:17I don't think the chiefs ever thought that there would be such a lack of control over food and sustenance.
41:22But you can see today that there's steps to regain that control, because that's essentially what it is.
41:27It's about controlling how you eat.
41:30That's a theme throughout all the treaties is the fact that control was completely taken away over education, over food, over your legal rights.
41:39And this is just one more element of control that had been taken away.
41:42And you can see steps to regain that control, and that's encouraging.
41:46I think of a renewed sense of the importance of being self-sustained, being able to go out in the land and survive.
41:56And that's what food sovereignty really is about.
41:59I want to know more about the deceding of their rights, because what group of people gives away their rights?
42:06Yeah.
42:07None.
42:08And that's not what the treaties were about.
42:09And we know that now.
42:10Absolutely.
42:11Like we do.
42:12I mean, I know that now, you've known that the whole time.
42:14But to see the contradiction printed here is a slap in the face, that's for sure.
42:18Yeah, this is not correct.
42:20We know that rights were never given up.
42:23Yet, by the time the Indian Act comes around, rights are being completely abolished.
42:28And that's when this plaque was made, which was 1937.
42:32We know that that's around the height of the implementation of the Indian Act.
42:35So that term was probably put in here at that time as something that, you know, was actually not necessarily true, but something that was happening.
42:45It's curious you mentioned the Indian Act, because that's where we will be going next is Treaty 6, where the signing of Treaty is happening.
42:53And then you have the Indian Act, which they're both signed in 1876.
42:57Yeah.
42:58I'm really curious about exploring the Indian Act and its contradictions to the treaty and what that means.
43:05Absolutely.
43:06A lot of significance.
43:08As we go through the journey of exploring these treaties, the one thing that we keep coming back to is the implementation of the Indian Act and how the Indian Act completely undermined what the treaties were all about.
43:20You're my burden, the words that fell.
43:30You're the lion, the ringing bell.
43:35You're the thousand, you're the angels and the roar and you're the beacon people are, you're thefeed.
43:46You're the amount of love, you're the saint that knows you're trying to hear, the fever and I drink.
44:00In your silence she knows
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