Western Woodland Cree

The Western Woodland Cree identify themselves as iyiniwak, “real or true people.” Today, they reside in communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, with a population of approximately 40,000. Although their pre-contact population is not known, some research suggests a pre-contact population for the Moose, Swampy, and Woodland Cree of 20,000.

The Western Woodland Cree can be divided into separate peoples coinciding with geographical range and dialect: Swampy (Maskekowak) at Nelson River; Rocky or Missinippi Cree (Nihiawak) at Churchill River, in northwestern Manitoba; and Woods Cree (Sakawiyiniwak) in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and northwestern British Columbia. The Rocky or Stone Cree constitute a major branch occupying portions of northern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. To the north of the Western Woods Cree are the Athapaskan-speaking Chipewyan; to the east, the Swampy and Moose Cree; to the west, the Dene-Tha branch of the Beaver; and to the south, the Plains Cree.

The Western Woods Cree of Ontario live in the following communities: Brunswick House (includes Northern Ojibwa), Chapleau Cree, Constance Lake (includes Northern Ojibwa), Flying Post (includes Northern Ojibwa), Matachewan (includes Northern Ojibwa), Missanabie Cree (includes Northern Ojibwa), and New Post. In Manitoba, Western Woods Cree communities are Chemahawin, Cross Lake, Fisher River, Grand Rapids, God’s Lake, Mathias Columb, Moose Lake, Nelson House, Norway House, Oxford House, Split Lake, and The Pas. The Western Woods Cree of Saskatchewan live in Canoe Lake, Cumberland House, Lac la Ronge, Peter Ballantyne, Red Earth, Shoal Lake, Sturgeon Lake, and Waterhen Lake. Alberta Western Woods Cree communities are Bigstone Cree, Driftpile, Duncans, Fort McMurray (includes Chipewyan), Grouard, Little Red River, Lubicon Lake, Sawridge, Sturgeon Lake, Sucker Creek, Swan River, Wabasca, and Whitefish Lake.

The Western Woodland Cree of the Upper Churchill and Athabasca rivers have often been misidentified as Athapaskan. Although some Swampy Cree moved west to the Nelson River from south of Hudson Bay in the late 1700s, the Rock and Strongwoods Cree were long-time residents in the west. The Cree today are descendants of peoples who inhabited the boreal forest west of the Nelson River and Lake Winnipeg for centuries before the fur trade, and their history has been a complex one of amalgamation, migration, and relocation.

According to archaeological evidence, the Western Woodland Cree have occupied northern Manitoba since 1200 C.E. and were the original inhabitants of the Churchill drainage basin as far west as the Peace River, Alberta, since about 1400 C.E. Their western limits, however, are still debated by archaeologists. Although Cree territory was temporarily abandoned after the 1781 smallpox epidemic, by the mid-1800s the Cree had returned, as did other “Home Guards” Cree who had elected to remain near HBC posts to supply provisions to the fur traders.

Following the establishment of inland trading posts, the Cree settled at the Albany River in Manitoba and Saskatchewan with other Cree bands to become the Rock Cree, who speak the Woods Cree dialect. After 1715, they traded at the HBC’s York Factory, where they were known as the Michinipi, and later, from 1717, at the Churchill post. The Cree continued to hunt throughout the period of fur-trade competition in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing not only on beaver but on moose, caribou, lynx, and wolves. Women fished, collected plants, trapped small game, constructed lodges, prepared hides and pelts for clothing, cut wood, cared for children, and hauled toboggans. They also decorated clothing with elaborate floral bead and quill work.

Traditionally, Cree spiritual relationships to animals were viewed as the product of harmonious interactions between the hunter and the master spirit of each species. Some Cree believed that the spirit Kicimanitow created the earth and its inhabitants, while others believed that the earth and its inhabitants had always existed. The religious ceremonies of the Cree of the Saskatchewan River system included the Goose Dance or Goose Feast, which symbolized the cultural importance of waterfowl to the Cree and was characterized by a sacred pipe ceremony, speeches, prayers, singing, and drumming. The purpose of Cree ceremonies was to maintain spiritual relationships of respect between Cree and the animals, which was expressed by the proper treatment of the bodies and bones of animals killed. During the early 1800s, for some groups such as the Red Earth Cree, the Goose Dance was incorporated into the Saulteaux-influenced Midewiwin ceremony. This followed an influx of Saulteaux from southern Manitoba, Ontario, and Minnesota.

The economic shift to fur trapping, particularly of non-migratory animals such as beaver, reduced the size of the hunting groups to nuclear or polygynous families during the fall and winter. Hunting groups were led informally by male leaders known as okiamaw, who were respected for their experience, and decisions were implemented through a process of group consensus. A hunter maintained a special place in the community, although status was also achieved as a shaman. The competitive fur-trading environment between 1760 and 1821 contributed to increased harvesting of fur-bearing animals, and the result was a gradual depletion of game and a growing dependence upon fur traders for tools and food. Compounding the Cree’s difficulties was a smallpox epidemic in 1781, which forced a move southwards to the Saskatchewan River drainage basin. By the end of the century the Cree had returned north, to form new groups around trading posts.

The closing of HBC posts after the amalgamation of the HBC with the North West Company (NWC) in 1821 shifted trading west into the Saskatchewan River area and south into Cumberland House at The Pas. Posts located near fishing sites became principal gathering sites for the Cree. Encouraged by ready access to store supplies, the Cree grew increasingly sedentary. At the same time, the Cree’s exposure to Christianity through missionaries increased after 1840. Although some groups such as the Red Earth Cree were reluctant to adopt Christianity, by 1878 many Cree had been converted. At Pelican Narrows, Saskatchewan, the majority of Cree were converted by an Oblate priest.

In the political arena, the Western Woodland Cree Elijah Harper, as a member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, generated national media coverage in 1990 by blocking ratification of the Meech Lake constitutional accord on the ground that it failed to recognize aboriginal rights. On another front, the cause of the Lubicon Cree of northern Alberta has attracted nation-wide attention over the last decade. Overlooked when Treaty 8 was drawn up, the Lubicon have been struggling for more than fifty years for recognition of their rights, a struggle that intensified after oil and gas development began on their lands in 1979. In protest against such incursions, as well as against their lack of a reserve and the social problems (alcoholism, suicide, and the like) that accompanied their abysmal living conditions, the Lubicon organized a nation-wide museum boycott of a native exhibit at the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988, and that same year they set up blockades outside their community preventing access to any company lacking a Lubicon-issued permit. The RCMP were sent in to dismantle the roadblocks, and twenty-seven people were arrested in the ensuing confrontation. Subsequently, the province of Alberta and the Lubicon signed an agreement concerning the size of a proposed reserve, but negotiations with the federal government then broke down. The federal government’s next step was to arrange the creation of a new band with more compliant leadership, which accepted the offer previously turned down by the main body of the Lubicon. This did not solve anything, however, and in the early 1990s the Lubicon kept up their fight. Eventually, in 1995 the new federal Liberal govermnent announced its intention to begin reopen negotiations with the Lubicon.