Mailing address:
3536 - 106 Street
Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4
403-436-5652
FAX: 403-437-0719
January 5, 1992
Enclosed for your information is another review of John Goddard's book on
the struggle of the Lubicons.
* * * * *
>From ALBERTA NATIVE NEWS, December, 1991
SETTING THE LUBICON STORY OUT FOR THE WORLD TO SEE
LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE
by John Goddard
Douglas and McIntyre;
228 pages.
Review by Dale Stelter
For some time, the Lubicon Lake Band of northern Alberta has been gaining
international support for its decades-long land rights dispute. The
Lubicon maintain that they have never signed a treaty with the federal
government and therefore have never given up Aboriginal title to their
traditional lands.
And now, there is a powerful book available that holds a relentless
magnifying glass up to the campaign that has been waged against the Lubicon
by Canadian and Alberta governments, and large and powerful resource
exploitation companies. LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE reveals that grimy
and despicable campaign in well-researched, well-documented detail.
It's all there: the wholescale invasion of Lubicon territory by dozens of
oil and gas companies, the long and fruitless years in court, the 1988
declaration by the Lubicon of sovereignty over their traditional lands, the
federal government's 1989 surprise take-it-or-leave-it (and grossly
inadequate) settlement offer to the Lubicon, and the "divide and conquer"
efforts of the federal government in hastily creating the Woodland Cree
band. And there's more. Lots more.
The initial portion of the book is devoted mainly to historical materials,
and some parts of the Lubicon story are documented, or related in detail,
for widespread reading for the first time. For example, during the 1940s,
an Indian Affairs official named Malcolm McCrimmon removed more than 700
people from the treaty lists of northern Alberta and cut the Lubicon
membership almost in half. Two inquiries censored McCrimmon, but he was
placed in charge of implementing inquiry recommendations, and most of his
removals remained in effect.
Or, during the 1960s, the residents of Marten River, a community in Lubicon
territory, were persuaded to move to nearby Cadotte Lake. Many people were
unhappy with the move, but when they tried to return home, Marten River was
bulldozed. Two years later, the site next to Marten River became the first
producing oil field in Lubicon territory.
At the same time, LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE tells the story of a small
Indian band that has waged a courageous struggle of resistance against
monumental and staggering odds. As Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak says,
"We've been counted down and out so many times, but we've refused to give
in to anybody. We're still here."
As Chief Ominayak also points out, John Goddard has done an excellent job
of documenting a long-standing and extremely complex story. For example,
he has sorted out all of the intertwined and tangled threads of the
campaign being waged against the Lubicon, and laid them out in
chronological sequence.
LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE is also written in a rivetting, highly
readable manner that grasps your attention and never lets go.
Hopefully, LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE will receive wide circulation in
the mainstream society, as the Lubicon have for some time been relying
heavily upon the raising of public support for their cause. Furthermore,
the Lubicon continue to come under siege from Daishowa of Canada, a
subsidiary of a huge Japanese transnational pulp and paper company, and are
saying that if the trees are cut down, they are finished as a people.
If enough people read LAST STAND OF THE LUBICON CREE, the already
formidable ranks of people around the world who are placing the Canadian
government under a merciless spotlight, and demanding justice for the
Lubicon, will be bound to increase.