Davis Inlet was a Naskapi community in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, formerly inhabited by the Mushuau Innu First Nation. It was named for its adjacent fjord, itself named for English explorer, John Davis, who in 1587 charted the region as part of ongoing efforts to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific.
The residents of Davis Inlet were relocated to the new community of Natuashish, 15 km (9.3 mi) away, in 2002. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The community developed around 1924 during a period of sparse caribou populations when the Innu began spending their summers along the shoreline of Davis Inlet. This location was chosen because of its accessibility, its offering of other non-caribou food sources, and the presence of a trading post, operated by the Hudson's Bay Company, that was able to supply traps, ammunition, tobacco, butter, sugar and flour to the Innu in exchange for furs. Davis Inlet was also frequented by Roman Catholic missionaries, whom the Innu found helpful[ citation needed ]. In the following years the Innu began the process of sedentarization, transitioning from a nomadic lifestyle to a more sedentary one, travelling inland to hunt caribou in the fall and winter, but spending the summer at Davis Inlet. Without prior consultation the Newfoundland government, promising better opportunities for fishing and hunting, oversaw the 1948 relocation of the Innu of Davis Inlet to the small community of Nutak in northern Labrador. [5] However, two years later the Innu surprised government officials by returning to Davis Inlet, having made their way back through the interior of Labrador on foot. The government continued to consider relocation of the Innu, and in 1967 with the urging of government officials and missionaries the Innu of Davis Inlet moved and settled on Iluikoyak Island on a year-round basis, establishing the Davis Inlet community (known as Utshimasits by the Innu). [6]
Problems with the new site for the Davis Inlet community began as early as 1969. Settling on Iluikoyak Island inhibited the ability of the Innu to continue their traditional means of providing food by hunting caribou on the mainland and the community struggled adapting to its new-found dependence on store-bought food. Iluikoyak Island is solid rock, and because working the rock was seen as too expensive, the houses provided by the government for settlement were made without basements or water supply network and sewage systems. [7] The houses were also small, poorly constructed, and not designed to house extended families. It was soon discovered that water supply on the island was insufficient, and most of it contaminated. Waste began to pile up, and diseases such as tuberculosis began to appear. [6]
Many of the adults in Davis Inlet battled alcoholism and on Valentine's Day, 1992, six unattended children aged between six months and nine years died in a house fire while their parents were drinking at a Valentine's Day dance. [8] About one-quarter of all adults in Davis Inlet had attempted suicide in the previous year, and between 1973 and 1995, there were 50 alcohol-related deaths in the community of 465. [6] [7] As a result of the February 1992 fire, the Mushuau Innu and Innu Nation held an internal enquiry published as Gathering Voices: Finding Strength to Help Our Children. [9]
Inhalant abuse was another problem in Davis Inlet, with 47 children being recognized as chronic abusers of solvents, some as young as age 5. In 1993, a video (recorded by Simeon Tshakapesh who later served as Chief of Davis Inlet) was released to the media of 6 children in Davis Inlet between the ages of 11 and 14 huffing gasoline in an unheated shack in winter and shouting that they wanted to die. [10] [11] [12] Shamed by the negative publicity and international outcry surrounding the events in 1993, the Canadian government agreed to move the Innu to mainland Labrador, and in 2002 at a cost of nearly $200 million the community of Davis Inlet was relocated to Natuashish. However, the problems of suicide, alcohol and solvent abuse followed the community and in 2008 they voted to outlaw alcohol entirely. [7] The prohibition bylaw was upheld in a subsequent referendum in March 2010. [13]
In December 1993, the Mushuau Innu Band Council banished a provincial court judge and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) from the community. The public reasoning for the expulsion concerned Innu dissatisfaction with the practice and application of the Canadian Criminal Code to its people. The Innu also stated that the RCMP did not have jurisdiction over their community. [14] [15] The standoff continued until March 1995 when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Government of Canada and the Mushuau Innu Band Council to establish Indigenous police officers to assist the RCMP. [16]
In November 1999, international Indigenous rights organization Survival International released a report on the Labrador Innu entitled Canada's Tibet: The Killing of the Innu. The report called the Innu of Davis Inlet "the most suicide-ridden people of the world". [17]
In November 2000, Davis Inlet, along with Sheshatshiu, took the unprecedented step of asking the Canadian federal government to step in and assist with a local addiction crisis. [18] In 2001, 35 Innu children from Davis Inlet were sent to the former Grace Hospital in St. John's for treatment for gas sniffing. [19] According to paediatrician and geneticist Dr. Ted Rosales, who served on the treatment team in 2001, approximately 24 of the youths were diagnosed as having FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder). [20] [21]
The Davis Inlet crisis was profiled in the 1996 documentary film Utshimassits: Place of the Boss . [22]
Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung wrote in his book, Man and His Symbols , the following: "Their inner centre is realised in exceptionally pure and unspoiled form by the Naskapi Indians, who still exist in the forests of the Labrador peninsula. These simple people are hunters who live in isolated family groups, so far from one another that they have not been able to evolve tribal customs or collective religious beliefs and ceremonies. In his lifelong solitude the Naskapi hunter has to rely on his own inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals or customs to help him along. In his basic view of life, the soul of man is simply an ‘Inner companion’, whom he calls ‘My friend’ or ‘Mistapeo’, meaning ‘Great Man’. Mistapeo dwells in the heart and is immortal; in the moment of death, or just before, he leaves the individual, and later reincarnates himself in another being". [23]
Jung also wrote: "Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to find their meaning and test their truth can enter into a greater connection with the Great Man. He favours such people and sends them more and better dreams. Thus the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their contents in art. Lies and dishonesty drive the Great Man away from one’s inner realm, whereas generosity and love of one’s neighbours and of animals attract him and give him life. Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world of nature. They help him to foretell the weather and give him invaluable guidance in his hunting, upon which his life depends...Just as the Naskapi have noticed that a person who is receptive to the Great Man gets better and more helpful dreams, we could add that the inborn Great Man becomes more real within the receptive person than in those who neglect him. Such a person also becomes a more complete human being”. [23]
Labrador is a geographic and cultural region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the primarily continental portion of the province and constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its population. It is separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle. It is the largest and northernmost geographical region in the four Atlantic provinces.
The Innu / Ilnu or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period, are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the northeastern portion of the present-day province of Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to their traditional homeland as Nitassinan or Innu-assi.
The Naskapi are an Indigenous people of the Subarctic native to the historical country St'aschinuw, which is located in northern Quebec and Labrador, neighbouring Nunavik. They are closely related to Innu Nation, who call their homeland Nitassinan.
Nunatsiavut is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inuit Association submitted a proposal for limited autonomy to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The constitution was ratified on December 1, 2005, at which time the Labrador Inuit Association ceased to exist, and the new Government of Nunatsiavut was established, initially being responsible for health, education and cultural affairs. It is also responsible for setting and conducting elections, the first of which was executed in October 2006. An election for the ordinary members of the Nunatsiavut Assembly was held on May 4, 2010. The Nunatsiavut Assembly was dissolved on April 6 in preparation for the election. Its incumbent president is Johannes Lampe who assumed office in 2016.
Labrador is a federal electoral district in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 1949.
Nain is the northernmost permanent settlement in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, within the Nunatsiavut region, located about 370 km (230 mi) by air from Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The town was established as a Moravian mission in 1771 by Jens Haven and other missionaries. As of 2021, the population is 1,204 mostly Inuit and mixed Inuit-European. Nain is the administrative capital of the autonomous region of Nunatsiavut.
Labrador Airways Limited, operating as Air Labrador, was a regional airline based at the Goose Bay Airport in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It operated scheduled daily passenger and freight services throughout Labrador and Quebec, as well as charter operations with the options of landing in remote and off strip destinations with skis, wheels and floats. The airline's main base was Goose Bay Airport, with a secondary hub at Lourdes-de-Blanc-Sablon Airport, Quebec. Its motto was "The Spirit of Flight".
Torngat Mountains is a provincial electoral district for the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. As of 2011 there are 2,130 eligible voters living within the district. The district takes its name from the Torngat Mountains.
The Mushuau Innu First Nation is a First Nations band government located in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The band has one reserve which has been located near the community of Natuashish since 2002 when it moved from Davis Inlet. The reserve has an area of roughly 44 square kilometres.
Rigolet is a remote, coastal Labrador community established in 1735 by French-Canadian trader Louis Fornel. The town is the southernmost officially recognized Inuit community in the world. Located on Hamilton Inlet, which is at the entrance to fresh water Lake Melville; Rigolet is on salt water and is accessible to navigation during the winter. Although there is no road access, the community is accessible by snowmobile trail, the Rigolet Airport, or seasonally via a coastal ferry from Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
Sheshatshiu is an Innu federal reserve and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The reserve is approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Some references may spell the community's name as Sheshatshit, the t spelling is more traditional in the Innu-aimun language, but the u is used more commonly in English to avoid inappropriate connotations. The name means "a narrow place in the river".
Natuashish is an Innu community in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The community is inhabited by the Mushuau Innu First Nation. Natuashish became a federal Indian reserve in 2003.
The Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation is located in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. This First Nations band government is centred on the community of Sheshatshiu.
Simon Pokue was the Utshmau or chief of the Mushuau Innu First Nation in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada from May 2004 until May 2007, when he was replaced by Utshmau Prote Poker. He was elected as deputy chief in March 2010.
George River, formerly the East or George's River, is a river in northeastern Quebec, Canada, that flows from Lake Jannière mainly north to Ungava Bay.
Prote Poker is a former Utshmau (chief) of the Mushuau Innu First Nation in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, who served between 2007 and 2010. He was selected by the Mushuau Innu in May 2007, replacing the incumbent Utshmau Simon Pokue. He championed an alcohol ban in the community, which was approved in 2008. He was defeated by Simeon Tshakapesh when he ran for re-election in March 2010. He and others later launched a lawsuit alleging that the election was tainted, including the use of alcohol to buy votes. Tshakapesh denied the allegations.
Randy Edmunds is a Canadian politician in Newfoundland and Labrador. He was elected to the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly in the 2011 provincial election. A member of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador, he represented the electoral district of Torngat Mountains until 2019.
NunatuKavut is an unrecognized Inuit territory in Labrador. The NunatuKavut people are the direct descendants of the Inuit that lived south of the Churchill or Grand River prior to European contact, with recent European admixture primarily from English settlers. According to recent censuses completed by Statistics Canada, the vast majority of individuals living in NunatuKavut communities identify as Métis as opposed to 'Inuit' or 'Mixed-Inuit'.
Utshimassits: Place of the Boss is a Canadian documentary film, directed by John Walker and released in 1996. The film focuses on Davis Inlet (Utshimassits), an Innu community in Labrador which was the site of a major humanitarian crisis in the 1990s, and explores how the community's roots as a forcible resettlement of the previously nomadic Mushuau Innu First Nation contributed to the crisis.
The Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL) is a political organization representing the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. It represents these First Nations to the Secrétariat aux affaires autochtones du Québec and to the ministry of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs of Canada. The AFNQL is composed of representatives from 43 communities in the Abenaki, Algonquin, Atikamekw, Cree, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Innu, Huron-Wendat and Naskapi nations, as well as from the Mohawks. The AFNQL does not represent the Inuit or any Inuit community; they are represented by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.