Beaver Lake Cree History

The Beaver Lake Cree is a small Indian community located in eastern Alberta, north-east of Edmonton and just outside of Lac La Biche. It currently has approximately 900 members. In the early 1800s, the Hudson's Bay Company built a trading post at Lac La Biche, and the locals hunted, fished and trapped fur to sell to the HBC agents. In the 1870's the Canadian government was involved in a gradual process of treaty making aimed at addressing Aboriginal title and opening up the lands for settlement. By the middle of the decade, food supplies for the plains Cree were running low with a rapid decline in buffalo, and geographical survey crews were running into tensions with the local inhabitants. In July of 1875, Cree warriors stopped a telegraph crew at the fork of the Saskatchewan River. In response the Canadian government sent Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris to meet with Cree, Chipewyan and Salteaux leaders beginning on August 15, 1876.

Discussions lasted for several days and included many pipe ceremonies. The pipe ceremonies were viewed by the Cree people as a mark of the solemnity of the occasion. In the presence of the pipe only the truth could be told and it was understood that promises made as part of such ceremonies would be kept. For their part, the Commissioners invoked the name of the Queen, and made the treaty promises in her name. Beaver Lake's immediate ancestors met with Commissioner Morris at Fort Pitt in September, 1876. There Morris gave this speech: 

… I see the Queen's Councillors taking the Indian by the hand saying we are brothers, we will lift you up, we will teach you, if you will learn, the cunning of the white man. All along the road I see Indians gathering, I see gardens growing and houses building; I see them receiving money from the Queen's Commissioners to purchase clothing for their children, at the same time I see them enjoying their hunting and fishing as before, I see them retaining their old mode of living with the Queen's gift in addition.

Chief Pay-ay-sis signed Treaty 6. He and the other chiefs surrendered approximately 195,000 square kilometres of land . In return for their land, they were promised that they would be able to hunt and fish to make a living from the land as they had always done, and they were promised that each band member would be paid $5.00 per year.

The promise to pay $5.00 per year to each Cree person has been faithfully kept every year.

The important text of Treaty 6 is:

The Plain and Wood Cree Tribes of Indians, and all other the Indians inhabiting the district hereinafter described and defined, do hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up to the Government of the Dominion of Canada, for Her Majesty the Queen and Her successors forever, all their rights, titles and privileges, whatsoever, to the lands included within the following limits…

Her Majesty further agrees with Her said Indians that they, the said Indians, shall have right to pursue their avocations of hunting and fishing throughout the tract surrendered as hereinbefore described, subject to such regulations as may from time to time be made by Her Government of Her Dominion of Canada, and saving and excepting such tracts as may from time to time be required or taken up for settlement, mining, lumbering or other purposes by Her said Government of the Dominion of Canada, or by any of the subjects thereof duly authorized therefor by the said Government.

There is a tension built into the treaty between the Crown’s right to take up land, and the enduring right of the Indians to hunt and fish. In the nineteenth century the amount of unspoiled land available for hunting and fishing was so huge that no amount of settlement seemed to affect the wildlife populations. For over one hundred years under the treaty there was always a meaningful opportunity to hunt and fish, so conflict between the Crown’s rights and the Indian’s rights did not arise.

But in the last two decades, the tar sands developments have encroached on such huge amounts of land that there is now a conflict between the viability of the treaty rights and the Crown’s right to continue to alienate land.

The law in this situation has recently been expressed by the Supreme Court of Canada. The Crown cannot take up so much land as to compromise the meaningful right to hunt. If game becomes so scarce that the Indians would have to travel too far, and expend too much effort to make the hunting worthwhile, then the treaty right is no longer meaningful. If that decrease in the abundance of fish and wildlife is caused by Crown actions, then the Crown actions can be declared unconstitutional.