Identification and Historical Overview

The Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Subarctic occupy a region of almost three million square kilometres, extending from the coast of Labrador to the Peace River, Alberta. The northern boundary corresponds with the coniferous treeline while the southern boundary is variable, spanning the lower St Lawrence River and the northern Great Lakes and extending west to include Rainy River, Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, and the northern prairies to the North Saskatchewan River. The pre-contact population was sparse and has been estimated at between 30,000 and 35,000.

The Subarctic Algonquians were known historically by several names but generally have been identified as the Cree, Ojibwa, Montagnais, and Nascapi. Innu is now used to describe both Montagnais- and Nascapi-speaking peoples. Based upon environmental adaptations, historical experience, and linguistic affinity, the Subarctic Algonquians can be divided into several groups known as the Innu, James Bay Cree, Moose Cree, Western Woodland Cree, Northern Ojibwa, and Saulteaux. Though these divisions are somewhat arbitrary, each group views itself as distinct.

Linguistically, the Subarctic Algonquian speakers (Innu, James Bay Cree, Moose Cree, and Western Woodland Cree) are bounded in the north by the Inuit, in the northwest by the Na-Dene, in the southwest by the Blackfoot (Plains Algonquian) and Siouans, in the southeast by Eastern Algonquians, and in the south by the Ojibwa (Central Algonquians). The Ojibwa (Northern Ojibwa and Saulteaux) are bounded to the south by other Central Algonquian peoples and to the southwest by Siouans.

Archaeological and biological evidence supports the theory that the Subarctic Algonquians made successive migrations from Siberia via the Bering Strait, across a now submerged land. For their part, Subarctic Algonquians have their own beliefs and traditions concerning how they came to be in the subarctic; these beliefs and traditions are founded in rich oral creation stories and translate into a spiritual and economic attachment to their lands.

Before contact with Europeans, the Subarctic Algonquians occupied enormous areas of the boreal forest, characterized by little diversity in animal species and extreme fluctuations in their populations. Exhibiting a basic uniformity in technical and social culture, and similarities in languages, they relied for their livelihood on fishing and hunting large game animals such as moose and caribou and small game such as beaver, muskrat, hare, squirrels, and porcupine. These provided not only food and clothing but raw materials (bones, antlers) used in the manufacture of tools such as needles, awls, spears, fishhooks, and bowstrings, as well as skins for housing. Since game and fish were subject to random and irregular population cycles and spawning periods, many Subarctic Algonquians were transient. Population size varied depending upon how plentiful resources were at a given time and how easily they could be taken. Fishing sites not only provided food but were locations of social and ceremonial importance, permitting large concentrations of peoples. Cross-cousin marriage – the marriage of children of siblings of opposite sex – was practised to maintain social connections between dispersed groups and over generations. The Saulteaux, located in the southern rim of the Subarctic, established a more diversified economy which included agriculture, wild rice harvesting, fishing, hunting, and trapping.

The Subarctic Algonquians developed an economic pattern that was typically subarctic in nature: fluid seasonal coalescence and dispersion which served social, ceremonial, and economic requirements. Social relations were dominated by ties of kinship, which revolved around the nuclear and extended family. The division of labour between men and women was not rigid since each could do the work of the other. A dependence upon migratory food sources limited the development of territorial ownership and political organization. The latter was characterized by informal leadership by individuals who were able to demonstrate hunting ability and wisdom. A skilled and generous hunter made critical decisions concerning locations to find game and to camp. Personal autonomy, however, was paramount for all groups, and was expressed in a strong ethic of self-sufficiency and independence. Religious practices were embedded in hunting activity and included the shaking-tent rite, in which a shaman conversed with the spirit world in a specially constructed lodge, careful respect for the disposal of bones, and ceremonial drumming. The Saulteaux and some Cree groups participated in a healing and religious organization called the Midewiwin in which members acquired healing skills through personal initiation and instruction.

There is no evidence that the Subarctic Algonquians lost their traditional methods of tool technology or their economic effectiveness after contact with Europeans in the seventeenth century, although the introduction of trade goods had a significant impact on settlement and warfare. Large-game hunting was initially aided by fur-trade goods such as muskets, knives, axes, and ice chisels. In the boreal forest, however, early muskets were less efficient than native bows and arrows. Reloading was slow, firing mechanisms failed in cold weather, ammunition was expensive and restricted to posts, the muskets frequently required repair, and malfunctioning often resulted in deadly accidental shootings. European technology, particularly guns and steel traps, contributed to the over-trapping of fur-bearing animals and the depletion of other natural resources.

By the nineteenth century, the influx of trade goods and ecological pressures had contributed to a large reduction in the size of caribou populations, which in turn resulted in an economic shift to increased trapping and dependence on small game animals and fish. Many Subarctic Algonquian groups responded to diminished caribou populations by alternating between hunting large game and trapping more sedentary species. Simultaneously, and indeed throughout their encounter with Europeans, the Subarctic peoples were exposed to diseases, especially smallpox, measles, and alcoholism, that also contributed to significant population decline.

The trade monopoly held by the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) beginning in the mid-seventeenth century encouraged a sedentary settlement pattern in which the location of trading posts became central to Subarctic Algonquian settlement and social organization. This facilitated the work of Christian missionaries who began religious instruction among some Subarctic Algonquians such as the Innu in the seventeenth century. Not all groups accepted Christianity: among the Saulteaux of Rainy River, Christianity was proscribed until the late nineteenth century. Increasingly, the Subarctic Algonquians were confined to settlements and reserves through various treaties and, at the same time, the adoption of European practices and ideas together with large-scale economic development (mining, logging, and hydroelectric projects) in their former territories eroded their egalitarian social system and traditional economic activities.

In the twentieth century, there were fewer opportunities for economic independence in the welfare system than there had been in the fur trade; prolonged dependency on welfare and temporary employment forced many out of their communities for long periods to seek wages. Welfare dependence, along with the residential school system, seriously undermined the social fabric of aboriginal society, and, in the midst of these conditions, the task of holding communities together often became the sole responsibility of women.

Informal native leadership had been replaced in the nineteenth century by elected chiefs and councillors under the regime of the Indian Act. During the 1970s and 1980s many groups were able to assume greater control over the management of their local affairs and the development of their economic resources. Today, band councils and tribal councils provide the political structure for community action.