REFLECTIONS OF AN INNU ELDER
I was born at a lake called "Mishta Ashinit," near Tshenuamiu-shipu
(October 25, 1934). We did not spend much time in Sheshatshit, as
little as we could, because we felt that it's better to find food in
order to survive.
In the summer times my parents and other old people who were
with us made canoes, paddles, and when the winter came they
made sleds, snowshoes. It's only recently that everything changed
here.
In my childhood, I was always told that I should always hunt
with my father, and I did that. There were times that we did not
have food; the hunting was getting worse; no small animals around
like partridge, no rabbit. It was winter time. It was a hardship and
sad. I experienced it myself.
Today everything is here like stores, cars and everything. And in
Sheshatshit near the church by the beach, that's where Innu people
used to set their tents up because that's the only place that there
were no trees.
In winter times when Innu people travelled, men really worked
hard, they carried lots of gear. It was the same way in the summer
times, when they travelled on canoes. They lived by hunting, fishing
and trapping, and they travelled a lot.
Today I think everything is changed, it's not the same anymore but
I do know that some people still very much respect their tradition.
They still are in the country. But when we are in the community we
are much like white people. That's where we use their modern
ways.
It's just like the whites are controlling our lives and we cannot see.
And we don't realize what our ancestors did, especially the people
who brought us up here to continue their ways.
Everything is totally confusing to me. In my childhood more people
were happier in the country and did not want to stay in the village.
Today is the opposite, more and more people are seeming to want to
stay in the village for all kinds of reasons. Today it's hard to ask the
young ones to go in the country because it is almost like they are taken
in by white society.
And a long time ago, there were a few people that spent Christmas
in the country, they would always find something to eat and gather
together to celebrate.
I think one of my best memories is having lived much of my life
in the woods ... Nothing can compare with the time when I lived in
the woods. Materially, things might be better, but life isn't the
same.