00:00:02.370 --> 00:00:05.880
(water lapping)

00:00:05.880 --> 00:00:07.360
- [Narrator] Many, many years ago,

00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:09.420
thousands of years ago,

00:00:09.420 --> 00:00:11.370
tens of thousands of years ago,

00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:12.840
when time didn't matter,

00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:15.450
time was not a factor to our people,

00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:18.720
we were close to Gitchi
Manitou, the Creator.

00:00:18.720 --> 00:00:22.740
Anishinaabe learnt and
was given and was gifted

00:00:22.740 --> 00:00:27.740
the gift of love, the gift
of kindness, humility, truth.

00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:29.910
And when they were close to the Creator,

00:00:29.910 --> 00:00:31.860
close to Gitchi Manitou,

00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:34.350
and it come time for
him to tell Anishinaabe,

00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:35.370
"You have to go,

00:00:35.370 --> 00:00:38.160
you have a road to have a
responsibility out there."

00:00:38.160 --> 00:00:40.800
Anishinaabe, he had a hard time to leave,

00:00:40.800 --> 00:00:42.090
because he didn't wanna leave

00:00:42.090 --> 00:00:43.890
all those beautiful feelings that he had

00:00:43.890 --> 00:00:48.000
of love and kindness and caring and truth.

00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.560
Four times he had stopped,

00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:51.120
and each time the Creator said,

00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:52.320
"You have to go.

00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:55.980
I'll put something here for you
but you have to go further."

00:00:55.980 --> 00:00:57.900
At that eighth time where he stopped

00:00:57.900 --> 00:00:58.860
to turn around and looked,

00:00:58.860 --> 00:01:00.570
he couldn't see the Creator.

00:01:00.570 --> 00:01:02.340
He had come so far.

00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:04.260
And what he put there
at the end of that road

00:01:04.260 --> 00:01:07.930
was a very beautiful woman,

00:01:07.930 --> 00:01:11.430
and that very beautiful
woman was shkekimikwe,

00:01:11.430 --> 00:01:15.390
or namamalki, Mother Earth.

00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:17.730
And he put that Anishinaabe down

00:01:17.730 --> 00:01:20.790
onto what we call Turtle Island.

00:01:21.690 --> 00:01:23.610
You have a family here.

00:01:23.610 --> 00:01:26.190
This is a part of your being.

00:01:26.190 --> 00:01:28.140
This is a part of you.

00:01:28.140 --> 00:01:29.190
This is your mother.

00:01:30.090 --> 00:01:33.450
She is as much of a part of
you as the trees are to you,

00:01:33.450 --> 00:01:34.980
as the animals are to you.

00:01:34.980 --> 00:01:38.340
The birds, the fish, the medicines.

00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:41.250
All that surrounds you is your relations.

00:01:41.250 --> 00:01:43.200
That's all your family.

00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:44.580
And part of that responsibility

00:01:44.580 --> 00:01:46.590
is to take care of your family,

00:01:46.590 --> 00:01:48.090
take care and show your family

00:01:48.090 --> 00:01:51.990
that respect and that
kindness and that love

00:01:51.990 --> 00:01:54.690
and all that you learned
when you were at the Creator.

00:02:07.620 --> 00:02:10.870
(Dean speaking Ojibwe)

00:02:16.020 --> 00:02:17.370
- Good morning, I'm Dean Sayers.

00:02:17.370 --> 00:02:19.890
I'm the chief of Batchewana First Nation.

00:02:19.890 --> 00:02:22.720
I'm Ojibwe from the Crane Clan.

00:02:22.720 --> 00:02:25.530
We were placed here by the creator,

00:02:25.530 --> 00:02:29.760
and we really took
serious our inheritance.

00:02:29.760 --> 00:02:33.330
And we've been looking after
the fishery ever since.

00:02:34.410 --> 00:02:35.400
I'm really looking forward

00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:37.650
to sharing some of the insights today.

00:02:37.650 --> 00:02:39.480
Maybe we'll even get out on the lake.

00:02:39.480 --> 00:02:41.520
That would be really great
to have you guys join us

00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.260
as we venture out into our villages here

00:02:43.260 --> 00:02:45.110
in the eastern side of Lake Superior.

00:02:48.160 --> 00:02:51.580
(traditional drum music)

00:02:55.940 --> 00:02:59.610
(singer chanting in Ojibwe)

00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:22.710
We had territory that we looked after

00:03:22.710 --> 00:03:25.680
that was part of our inheritance.

00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:30.680
And the dominant clan in
this area, our governance,

00:03:31.470 --> 00:03:33.990
our social structures is the Crane Clan.

00:03:33.990 --> 00:03:38.400
So the Crane Clan, the crane
instructed us to fly around

00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:41.430
and find the area that we
were gonna take care of

00:03:41.430 --> 00:03:42.450
and look after.

00:03:42.450 --> 00:03:45.930
We chose Baawaating or Sault Ste. Marie

00:03:45.930 --> 00:03:48.120
and all the land on Eastern Lake Superior

00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:51.690
up to an area called Packasaw,

00:03:51.690 --> 00:03:52.950
inland to the Haida land

00:03:52.950 --> 00:03:55.260
where the water flows into Lake Superior.

00:04:02.390 --> 00:04:06.060
(Harvey speaking in Ojibwe)

00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:10.590
- So I know our people have
always fished commercially,

00:04:10.590 --> 00:04:15.180
boating as they known it
before in the past and today.

00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:17.580
But our people have
been coming here forever

00:04:17.580 --> 00:04:20.970
because of that whitefish at the rapids.

00:04:20.970 --> 00:04:24.510
It became a regular meeting area.

00:04:24.510 --> 00:04:27.420
People would come from all
over, Anishinaabe people.

00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:35.880
(Vernon speaking in Ojibwe)

00:04:48.330 --> 00:04:50.460
- I just wanted to
introduce myself that way.

00:04:50.460 --> 00:04:54.910
That's the way I was taught
how to introduce myself.

00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:58.290
My English name is Vernon, Vernon Syrette.

00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:02.490
This (speaking in Ojibwe),
this area was just

00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:05.010
a magnet area for people
to come in and trade.

00:05:05.010 --> 00:05:08.380
They would trade with the
Ottawa people, the Odawa people,

00:05:08.380 --> 00:05:11.760
the Potawatomi people, the
people of the Three Fires,

00:05:11.760 --> 00:05:13.860
they would trade with Iroquois people.

00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:15.900
They would trade with the
people at Wall Pool Island,

00:05:15.900 --> 00:05:18.990
Lake Superior, and trade
their fish for goods.

00:05:21.020 --> 00:05:26.020
- A lot of our people
still live that life.

00:05:26.340 --> 00:05:31.340
They gather medicines, they make medicine.

00:05:34.110 --> 00:05:36.470
A lot of our people are still traditional

00:05:36.470 --> 00:05:41.470
and it's been that way
since time immemorial.

00:05:41.490 --> 00:05:44.400
- The people at Batchewana also had

00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:47.220
a management system in
place, is what they observed.

00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:49.050
When they went down to trade

00:05:49.050 --> 00:05:51.750
with the people down in Mackinac Straits

00:05:51.750 --> 00:05:53.940
and Mackinac Island, families would trade

00:05:53.940 --> 00:05:56.040
and come to this area
and some of our people

00:05:56.040 --> 00:05:57.210
would go and live in that area

00:05:57.210 --> 00:05:59.490
for maybe a season of the fishery,

00:05:59.490 --> 00:06:01.110
just to monitor the fishery,

00:06:01.110 --> 00:06:03.390
to see and try and ensure
and let people know

00:06:03.390 --> 00:06:06.540
not to take too much of the resource.

00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:09.030
- Well, I growed up in
valley in Batchewana.

00:06:09.030 --> 00:06:11.370
It was a fishing village, eh.

00:06:11.370 --> 00:06:12.660
Everybody fished there.

00:06:12.660 --> 00:06:13.740
Everybody fished.

00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:15.120
Everybody, all the elders.

00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.600
So my grandfathers and everybody else.

00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:22.590
As I remember growing up,
I used to go with my dad.

00:06:23.450 --> 00:06:25.950
We didn't have the boats they have today.

00:06:25.950 --> 00:06:27.630
We had to row, row out there,

00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:33.450
out to the lake, set nets,
and go out and pull them.

00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:37.080
- The newcomers that were
coming into the country

00:06:37.080 --> 00:06:39.180
depended on that as well.

00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:41.250
They came to Batchewana,
people, for the fishery

00:06:41.250 --> 00:06:45.930
and 850 barrels of fish,

00:06:47.310 --> 00:06:49.770
400 barrels in one day of fish

00:06:49.770 --> 00:06:53.960
were supplied to the
people, to the newcomers

00:06:53.960 --> 00:06:56.100
who were then selling it down in Detroit

00:06:56.100 --> 00:06:57.780
and different areas.

00:06:57.780 --> 00:06:59.970
So they came and they
depended on Batchewana people

00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:03.000
to supply to meet their demand.

00:07:04.020 --> 00:07:05.370
- That's what we do in the building.

00:07:05.370 --> 00:07:07.290
Everybody fished, you know,

00:07:08.340 --> 00:07:11.250
to maintain what we had
to eat and everything.

00:07:11.250 --> 00:07:14.430
Sometimes we trade the
fish to get what we need.

00:07:14.430 --> 00:07:16.410
Sometimes we sell it.

00:07:16.410 --> 00:07:19.950
And that's how they did in the village.

00:07:19.950 --> 00:07:21.630
- And as the settler governments came in

00:07:21.630 --> 00:07:26.630
and seeing that resource
benefit the people of Batchewana

00:07:28.490 --> 00:07:31.650
by way of trade and by way of commerce,

00:07:31.650 --> 00:07:34.590
they began to try and monopolize it.

00:07:35.760 --> 00:07:38.420
(water rushing)

00:07:41.640 --> 00:07:44.390
(wood splitting)

00:07:47.550 --> 00:07:50.700
- [Dean] There are movements
on the part of Canada right now

00:07:50.700 --> 00:07:54.660
that will reduce our nation
to nation relationship,

00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:03.390
whereas they want to
place our relationship

00:08:03.390 --> 00:08:07.560
as indigenous people
under Canadian legislation

00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:11.820
and fall under part of
Canada's constitution.

00:08:11.820 --> 00:08:13.410
And I think the intent is good,

00:08:13.410 --> 00:08:17.320
but when you look at how
Canada does business,

00:08:17.320 --> 00:08:20.100
Anishinaabe law doesn't change.

00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:23.850
- And that smoke from the
fire go right up to the sky.

00:08:23.850 --> 00:08:25.830
To the Creator.

00:08:25.830 --> 00:08:27.120
- [Dean] Our law don't change.

00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:28.470
It's always the same.

00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:31.740
Natural law doesn't change
and it's all intertwined.

00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:34.560
Every fall, the whitefish will spawn.

00:08:34.560 --> 00:08:36.870
We can't make a law and change that.

00:08:39.330 --> 00:08:42.660
Canadian law changes depending
on who's in government,

00:08:42.660 --> 00:08:44.160
whether it's a conservative government

00:08:44.160 --> 00:08:45.960
or a liberal government,

00:08:45.960 --> 00:08:47.880
which law today may not be law tomorrow,

00:08:47.880 --> 00:08:50.610
and if we put ourself
under that constitution,

00:08:51.510 --> 00:08:54.450
we're jeopardizing our
inherited obligations

00:08:54.450 --> 00:08:55.970
and inherent rights.

00:08:55.970 --> 00:08:58.630
(pipe whistles)

00:09:11.740 --> 00:09:13.970
- When the Indians went fishing,

00:09:13.970 --> 00:09:16.800
they always talked to Mizhibozhoo.

00:09:19.260 --> 00:09:22.760
He's the caretaker of Lake Superior.

00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:25.930
Mizhibozhoo always helped the Indians,

00:09:28.750 --> 00:09:32.420
especially when they
were out there fishing.

00:09:33.930 --> 00:09:36.520
Because the Indian always fish.

00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:38.270
Always.

00:09:43.290 --> 00:09:46.130
(singer chanting)

00:09:48.280 --> 00:09:51.860
(Irene speaking in Ojibwe)

00:10:14.540 --> 00:10:17.210
White Sky Woman, that's my name.

00:10:26.710 --> 00:10:30.540
When they baptized me,
they baptized me Irene.

00:10:38.430 --> 00:10:43.430
I would like to stay on this
land, (speaking in Ojibwe).

00:10:45.390 --> 00:10:49.380
I would like to stay
here until I'm a hundred.

00:10:56.060 --> 00:10:57.310
Yeah, the frog.

00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:00.950
Yeah, I remember that.

00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:07.210
When me and my dad, all of
us, we go across the lake

00:11:10.690 --> 00:11:14.680
and we go and see Mukee
Waabkoong Nimoyaah.

00:11:14.680 --> 00:11:16.510
She was sitting there.

00:11:17.830 --> 00:11:20.580
We'd go there, put tobacco there.

00:11:23.670 --> 00:11:27.670
(speaking in Ojibwe) she'd say.

00:11:28.930 --> 00:11:30.510
Come on and see me.

00:11:32.330 --> 00:11:35.000
I don't know where she is today,

00:11:36.010 --> 00:11:38.430
but she is not there no more.

00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:54.990
- There was a war between
French and the English,

00:11:54.990 --> 00:11:56.700
the war of the plains of Abraham.

00:11:57.630 --> 00:12:00.600
And they eventually came here, the British

00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:05.520
more of a "we won the war and
we're gonna claim this now

00:12:05.520 --> 00:12:06.810
for the crown."

00:12:06.810 --> 00:12:09.530
And we said, "well, this
was never the crown's land,

00:12:09.530 --> 00:12:10.740
and it's not your land.

00:12:10.740 --> 00:12:11.730
This is our land."

00:12:11.730 --> 00:12:13.950
There was actually a royal proclamation

00:12:13.950 --> 00:12:15.750
that was made around that time.

00:12:15.750 --> 00:12:17.670
We allied with the British.

00:12:17.670 --> 00:12:21.350
The British promised us
that they would protect

00:12:21.350 --> 00:12:25.650
our language, our land,
our law, our spirituality.

00:12:27.150 --> 00:12:31.050
And 1763, they said, "this is your land.

00:12:31.050 --> 00:12:32.940
We know that all around the Great Lakes,

00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:37.440
it's your land and we're gonna
protect that land with you,

00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:40.650
for you, protect everything
that it is about your nation.

00:12:40.650 --> 00:12:42.000
We're gonna work with you."

00:12:50.250 --> 00:12:53.790
- My name is Mariam Agawa, Mariam Agawa.

00:12:54.970 --> 00:12:58.350
I was from the McKay family.

00:12:58.350 --> 00:13:03.060
And if we're talking about
the fishermen that were here,

00:13:03.060 --> 00:13:05.940
this was the main work around here,

00:13:05.940 --> 00:13:07.830
employment, I guess you'd say.

00:13:07.830 --> 00:13:11.250
It was logging and it was fishing.

00:13:11.250 --> 00:13:15.860
My dad, he fished from Gros Cap

00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:20.280
all the way up to Otter
Head, my dad fished.

00:13:23.050 --> 00:13:25.140
- [Narrator] And we'd
move with the fish too,

00:13:25.140 --> 00:13:27.960
so that we would fish
at certain times of year

00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:29.340
in certain areas.

00:13:29.340 --> 00:13:33.120
So you just didn't wander
around out there aimlessly

00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:36.510
and just put a net anywhere,
there was a science to it.

00:13:36.510 --> 00:13:39.080
When, how, where size of the mesh,

00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:41.080
and you'll hear that with the fisherman.

00:13:42.060 --> 00:13:45.100
- Okay, my name is Percy Thomas Agawa,

00:13:45.100 --> 00:13:47.640
my Anishinaabe name is
(speaking in Ojibwe)

00:13:47.640 --> 00:13:49.830
and I live Goulais Bay Mission.

00:13:49.830 --> 00:13:50.730
I am a fisherman.

00:13:50.730 --> 00:13:53.910
I do many things, but
fishing is one of them.

00:13:53.910 --> 00:13:57.000
I have seven children.

00:13:58.500 --> 00:14:00.510
I have I don't know
how many grandchildren.

00:14:00.510 --> 00:14:02.700
If I said 16 I could be lying,

00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:05.760
but then you wouldn't know, so I got 16.

00:14:06.930 --> 00:14:10.650
Going back to my childhood,
I had grandparents,

00:14:10.650 --> 00:14:14.270
of course, the grandparents
have older, older friends

00:14:14.270 --> 00:14:19.270
like themselves and they
used to set nets here

00:14:19.890 --> 00:14:23.070
in Goulais right out from the beach,

00:14:23.070 --> 00:14:25.770
maybe 40, 50 feet of water.

00:14:25.770 --> 00:14:27.270
So if you had a house full of kids,

00:14:27.270 --> 00:14:28.920
they'd come and ask if
the kids could come,

00:14:28.920 --> 00:14:31.830
give them a hand, and
they'd chopped the hole

00:14:31.830 --> 00:14:33.690
because they were very sensitive.

00:14:33.690 --> 00:14:35.110
They don't want you to chop the line,

00:14:35.110 --> 00:14:36.240
'cause they're gonna lose their net.

00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:38.340
They get that done, then
they pull the net in,

00:14:38.340 --> 00:14:40.290
and you take the fish out.

00:14:40.290 --> 00:14:41.370
And when they're done taking the fish out,

00:14:41.370 --> 00:14:43.410
they put the net back in.

00:14:43.410 --> 00:14:46.560
And at that time, that
was just for consumption.

00:14:46.560 --> 00:14:50.520
And so our pay for that whole day's work

00:14:50.520 --> 00:14:52.920
would be maybe a dozen herring.

00:14:52.920 --> 00:14:54.600
But I mean, there was something back then,

00:14:54.600 --> 00:14:59.340
you know, you take it home
and everybody had a meal.

00:14:59.340 --> 00:15:01.000
And my mother would always say,

00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.200
"here's what my men got.

00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:05.100
You're having supper.

00:15:05.100 --> 00:15:06.690
That's their pay."

00:15:06.690 --> 00:15:08.960
You know, and we were
always proud of that, eh?

00:15:09.900 --> 00:15:12.840
- I have a picture of my dad here.

00:15:14.520 --> 00:15:18.960
Him and Frankie Dagle is
standing on the government dock,

00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:20.970
but this is in Otter Head.

00:15:20.970 --> 00:15:25.970
That's where they men nets,
had ice stored in that shed.

00:15:27.810 --> 00:15:30.150
But they fished up there.

00:15:30.150 --> 00:15:35.130
And we used to go from here
and we'd go up the lake.

00:15:36.570 --> 00:15:39.760
I remember my dad fishing trout

00:15:40.770 --> 00:15:45.420
and he's always looking for
a gravel bed to fish trout.

00:15:45.420 --> 00:15:49.860
And they would catch,
they'd set their nets there,

00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.940
different kind of fish in different areas.

00:15:56.070 --> 00:16:01.070
- Mid 1800s, 1870s, we were
given a communal license.

00:16:01.260 --> 00:16:04.200
It was became illegal for us
to hunt and fish like that.

00:16:05.580 --> 00:16:10.530
So we were given on a grid,
a square out in Lake Superior

00:16:10.530 --> 00:16:12.840
or a square here, and a square
there, maybe another square.

00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.030
And then we had to fish
that amongst two licenses

00:16:15.030 --> 00:16:18.120
for all of our villages,
and we were starving,

00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:20.400
'cause that's where you'd have to fish.

00:16:20.400 --> 00:16:22.490
You couldn't move like that anymore.

00:16:22.490 --> 00:16:26.490
- My grandma was born somewhere in 18,

00:16:26.490 --> 00:16:30.900
I don't know if it was
1850s or before that.

00:16:32.040 --> 00:16:37.040
She was (speaking in Ojibwe)
when she was baptized.

00:16:37.050 --> 00:16:42.010
So that would put her 12 or
13 years old at that time.

00:16:42.010 --> 00:16:44.060
(speaking in Ojibwe) means a young woman.

00:16:45.490 --> 00:16:49.500
So she talked about them having,

00:16:49.500 --> 00:16:52.320
the community having a net out here,

00:16:53.430 --> 00:16:55.800
made of (speaking in Ojibwe) moose hide,

00:16:55.800 --> 00:16:57.780
the same way you lace a snowshoe.

00:16:57.780 --> 00:17:01.950
It was made and it was
made like a scoop net,

00:17:01.950 --> 00:17:03.840
a big fishing net.

00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:07.070
So everybody in the
community could go out there

00:17:07.070 --> 00:17:09.150
in their canoes or little boat

00:17:09.150 --> 00:17:11.640
and they'd go scoop a couple of fish.

00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:14.550
The fish were always alive in that bag.

00:17:14.550 --> 00:17:15.690
They'd go catch a cup.

00:17:15.690 --> 00:17:17.610
They didn't know what kind
of fish it was gonna be,

00:17:17.610 --> 00:17:18.960
but it was fish.

00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:20.820
And that was their supper.

00:17:20.820 --> 00:17:24.500
The whole community did
that, not just them.

00:17:24.500 --> 00:17:27.000
- I was fortunate to be
fishing with this old fella,

00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:29.520
he had the patience to allow me

00:17:29.520 --> 00:17:32.280
to make the mistakes that I was making,

00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:36.630
and when we would get
suckers, of course we can't,

00:17:36.630 --> 00:17:38.230
nobody wants to buy a sucker,

00:17:38.230 --> 00:17:41.160
so I would break the head
and throw them back in

00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:43.740
because I didn't want to catch 'em again.

00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:47.340
And he said to me, "what are you doing?"

00:17:47.340 --> 00:17:49.890
Well, I said, "there's no money in them.

00:17:49.890 --> 00:17:52.500
I'm just throwing them back in the water."

00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:55.380
I said, "if I don't do this," I said,

00:17:55.380 --> 00:17:58.230
"we're gonna catch 'em again tomorrow."

00:17:58.230 --> 00:18:00.570
"No, no," he said, "you don't do that.

00:18:00.570 --> 00:18:02.190
You don't do that," he said.

00:18:02.190 --> 00:18:03.330
"You let 'em go.

00:18:04.200 --> 00:18:05.910
See all these other fish we got here."

00:18:05.910 --> 00:18:08.470
He said, "them whitefish and them trout?"

00:18:08.470 --> 00:18:11.970
He said, "if it wasn't for him," he said,

00:18:11.970 --> 00:18:14.970
"they'd have no place to lay their eggs."

00:18:14.970 --> 00:18:17.760
So he said, "he serves a purpose.

00:18:17.760 --> 00:18:22.200
The Creator don't like one
fish better than the other.

00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:24.930
Everything is put here
for a purpose," he said.

00:18:24.930 --> 00:18:26.040
"Now this is what you do.

00:18:26.040 --> 00:18:27.660
You let 'em go."

00:18:27.660 --> 00:18:29.850
And so I'd let them go.

00:18:31.230 --> 00:18:35.070
And it's true as I said about
the next day, sure enough,

00:18:35.070 --> 00:18:37.320
we get that fish again the next day.

00:18:37.320 --> 00:18:39.900
"Look at here," I said, you
see these bite marks on him?

00:18:39.900 --> 00:18:41.520
I said, "we took them water already."

00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:44.090
"That's okay," he said,
you know, "let 'em go."

00:18:49.250 --> 00:18:53.370
- Old Woman Bay, my grandma
used to tell a story about it.

00:18:53.370 --> 00:18:58.370
And she said that there
was a (speaking in Ojibwe)

00:18:58.500 --> 00:19:00.060
they called her.

00:19:00.060 --> 00:19:04.560
She was a bad old woman,
and she did things

00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:07.710
to people in the village.

00:19:07.710 --> 00:19:11.160
So they banished her.

00:19:11.160 --> 00:19:13.990
Punishment was banishment in them days.

00:19:13.990 --> 00:19:18.760
So anyway, they say the
story was that she left

00:19:18.760 --> 00:19:21.170
and she went along the ice

00:19:21.170 --> 00:19:23.540
and she went all the way along the ice,

00:19:23.540 --> 00:19:26.830
and when you crawl, when
you're out on the ice,

00:19:26.830 --> 00:19:28.860
you can hear in the wintertime,

00:19:28.860 --> 00:19:32.700
it goes (vocalizes) on the ice
(vocalizes) goes like that,

00:19:32.700 --> 00:19:34.680
that it makes that sound.

00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:37.170
All the way up the lake, she went.

00:19:38.010 --> 00:19:43.010
And when she got up to Old Woman Bay,

00:19:43.570 --> 00:19:47.880
she sees land, sees all the land there,

00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:51.150
and sees the rocks and that up there,

00:19:51.150 --> 00:19:53.460
so she crawls up there.

00:19:54.570 --> 00:19:59.570
So she gets up there and I
don't know whatever happened

00:19:59.760 --> 00:20:03.160
if she froze in time or
what happened to her,

00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:07.260
but when I was a child
going by there on the boat,

00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:10.280
my mom and dad would point her out

00:20:10.280 --> 00:20:14.940
and it was a shape of a
woman's face and a body,

00:20:14.940 --> 00:20:19.500
like you could see, and her
hair flowing down her back.

00:20:19.500 --> 00:20:24.500
And she's still up there in
Old Woman Bay to this day.

00:20:25.020 --> 00:20:28.380
But banishment pretty well
meant death in those years

00:20:28.380 --> 00:20:30.270
because there was no food.

00:20:30.270 --> 00:20:32.490
If they didn't get together
and have food together,

00:20:32.490 --> 00:20:36.120
well, they have make meals together,

00:20:36.120 --> 00:20:37.710
they didn't have anything.

00:20:42.120 --> 00:20:46.050
So, you know, things like that,

00:20:46.050 --> 00:20:50.580
that stays, hopefully
stays in my mind, you know,

00:20:50.580 --> 00:20:53.250
for a while yet, because, you know,

00:20:53.250 --> 00:20:57.420
it's getting to the point
where we as a native nation,

00:20:59.550 --> 00:21:00.930
we're losing everything.

00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:04.140
We're losing our language,
we're losing our ways,

00:21:04.140 --> 00:21:09.140
you know, even our caring and
sharing, you know, kindness.

00:21:12.510 --> 00:21:17.370
Years ago when I was a child, they would,

00:21:17.370 --> 00:21:20.370
as soon as you came into somebody's house,

00:21:20.370 --> 00:21:25.370
they knock on the door,
(speaking in Ojibwe) they'd say.

00:21:25.770 --> 00:21:28.080
"Somebody's knocking on the door."

00:21:28.080 --> 00:21:30.690
(speaking in Ojibwe)
"come on in" they'd say.

00:21:30.690 --> 00:21:35.190
Everybody had a teapot
in them days, big teapot.

00:21:36.080 --> 00:21:38.690
As soon as they'd come
in, they offered them tea,

00:21:38.690 --> 00:21:43.690
bannock, homemade jam,
applesauce, whatever they had.

00:21:44.010 --> 00:21:46.830
And if it was supper time,

00:21:46.830 --> 00:21:50.610
they would always just
never ask the person

00:21:50.610 --> 00:21:51.870
if he was hungry or anything,

00:21:51.870 --> 00:21:53.690
they just put another plate on the table.

00:21:53.690 --> 00:21:58.690
(speaking in Ojibwe) "sit
down here, come and eat here."

00:21:58.710 --> 00:22:00.560
And most cases, they'd sit down

00:22:00.560 --> 00:22:03.630
and they'd have supper with them, eh?

00:22:03.630 --> 00:22:07.770
Today, lots of times I go someplace,

00:22:07.770 --> 00:22:10.050
you don't mean to go there at supper time,

00:22:10.050 --> 00:22:12.990
but you just happen to
be there at that time,

00:22:12.990 --> 00:22:14.400
what do they do?

00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:16.710
They pick all the plates off the table

00:22:16.710 --> 00:22:20.710
and they push the pots
to the back of the stove

00:22:20.710 --> 00:22:22.700
and they say, "come in!"

00:22:23.610 --> 00:22:26.040
You know, and never offer you to eat.

00:22:26.040 --> 00:22:29.070
So we're losing the
caring and the sharing.

00:22:32.070 --> 00:22:37.070
- My dad, he'd go out fishing with a net

00:22:40.890 --> 00:22:45.890
bring in a box full of fish,
share it with the Indians.

00:22:49.590 --> 00:22:53.940
It was always that name, share.

00:22:56.850 --> 00:22:58.560
You share with them.

00:23:01.460 --> 00:23:03.300
So that's what we did.

00:23:05.950 --> 00:23:07.140
- They said they would give us a quota

00:23:07.140 --> 00:23:09.840
of like 200 and some thousand pounds.

00:23:09.840 --> 00:23:14.440
You know, I mean, our
fishermen would be so poor

00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:18.660
because, you know, but it's a good thing

00:23:18.660 --> 00:23:20.370
that they never, ever accepted the quota,

00:23:20.370 --> 00:23:24.900
because that would've
killed our people there,

00:23:24.900 --> 00:23:27.660
I think in regard to, you
know, being an active fishery,

00:23:27.660 --> 00:23:30.840
being active on the
management of the fisheries.

00:23:34.540 --> 00:23:39.540
- All the Indians, they
lived in Baawaating.

00:23:40.380 --> 00:23:42.240
They lived there.

00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:43.400
They were happy.

00:23:44.510 --> 00:23:48.110
And my mother always fished, always fished

00:23:53.520 --> 00:23:58.520
went out to the lake, and
not only that, she trapped.

00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:03.010
She was a trapper

00:24:05.250 --> 00:24:06.550
Same with my dad.

00:24:08.630 --> 00:24:11.370
He was a trapper too.

00:24:11.370 --> 00:24:14.290
And he always fought the white man.

00:24:17.930 --> 00:24:22.930
And he said, "I'll never,
never get a license,

00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:32.520
because I have the treaty book that says

00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:38.560
that I can fish without a license

00:24:39.690 --> 00:24:44.690
as long as the green grass
grows and the water flows,

00:24:47.700 --> 00:24:49.040
by Queen Victoria."

00:24:52.500 --> 00:24:57.500
- And if you accept somebody
else's delegated authority,

00:24:58.230 --> 00:25:00.120
then you're saying that your constitution

00:25:00.120 --> 00:25:01.710
as Anishinaabe is out.

00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:20.030
- Hiya, Greg.

00:25:20.030 --> 00:25:21.110
- Come on in.

00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:26.970
- My name is Greg Agawa.

00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:29.010
I'm a Batchewana First Nation member.

00:25:29.010 --> 00:25:30.120
I've been back to my fishing,

00:25:30.120 --> 00:25:30.950
that's what I've been
doing most of my life

00:25:30.950 --> 00:25:32.580
when I was around here.

00:25:33.810 --> 00:25:37.920
Sometimes I get mad at our
First Nation, Dean, the council,

00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:42.090
because they don't seem to
understand what the treaty means

00:25:42.090 --> 00:25:45.080
or what the agreements
we made with them means.

00:25:45.080 --> 00:25:48.030
They just seem to go along and collect

00:25:48.030 --> 00:25:50.930
a couple of those dollars that
we get from the government.

00:25:52.350 --> 00:25:54.000
It's not supposed to be that way.

00:25:54.990 --> 00:25:57.420
We are supposed to be the ones in control

00:25:57.420 --> 00:25:59.070
and the governments are
supposed to be doing

00:25:59.070 --> 00:26:02.130
what we tell them, but
they turned it right around

00:26:02.130 --> 00:26:04.830
where they're in control.

00:26:04.830 --> 00:26:07.290
- [Dean] The government, the Crown,

00:26:07.290 --> 00:26:09.960
had issued a mining permit

00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:12.360
up at Mamass Harbor.

00:26:12.360 --> 00:26:15.720
It was illegal because
there was no treaty.

00:26:15.720 --> 00:26:16.830
There was supposed to be a treaty

00:26:16.830 --> 00:26:19.410
before anybody did any development.

00:26:20.850 --> 00:26:25.680
- Batchewana as a First
Nation owns all this land

00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:27.960
from here up to Packasaw.

00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:31.160
They owned the lake, the water, the land.

00:26:31.160 --> 00:26:33.240
And it is because of a treaty agreement

00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:35.550
we made with the Crown
many, many years ago.

00:26:36.780 --> 00:26:41.780
And it's a treaty agreement
that at the time they made it,

00:26:41.910 --> 00:26:44.520
our people didn't wanna
make no treaty agreement

00:26:44.520 --> 00:26:47.110
with the immigrants that were here

00:26:48.180 --> 00:26:49.710
for the very reason they knew

00:26:49.710 --> 00:26:51.390
what they were going to do with the land

00:26:51.390 --> 00:26:53.640
and the water and everything else here.

00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:56.460
It's pretty well come true.

00:26:56.460 --> 00:27:00.090
What they feared is happening.

00:27:05.010 --> 00:27:08.700
Before 1850, my dad used to tell me

00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:10.500
that if one of our people got up

00:27:10.500 --> 00:27:13.950
and went against the government,
in the middle of the night,

00:27:13.950 --> 00:27:15.120
they'd come and get 'em.

00:27:15.120 --> 00:27:17.610
They'd take 'em in the bush and shoot 'em.

00:27:17.610 --> 00:27:21.030
See, at that time they could shoot us,

00:27:21.030 --> 00:27:23.220
because we weren't considered human.

00:27:23.220 --> 00:27:24.690
We were considered animals.

00:27:26.610 --> 00:27:28.710
- We borrowed a cannon
in Sault St. Marie here,

00:27:28.710 --> 00:27:32.490
and we paddled up there in 1849.

00:27:32.490 --> 00:27:34.980
We got up there and we
fired one shot into the mine

00:27:34.980 --> 00:27:37.620
and they arrested us and
they took us to Toronto,

00:27:37.620 --> 00:27:38.450
the chiefs.

00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:43.290
- They keep on throwing
garbage in the lake.

00:27:43.290 --> 00:27:45.720
They keep on cutting
our land, our forests,

00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:50.720
and they devastate the place
all for a couple dollars.

00:27:52.110 --> 00:27:55.920
- So we actually sent our
leadership down to Niagara

00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:58.170
the following year, the
governor general of the day,

00:27:58.170 --> 00:28:01.980
I think it was Colburn
said, "they're right.

00:28:01.980 --> 00:28:04.090
The Chiefs of Batchewana, the
chiefs in that area are right.

00:28:04.090 --> 00:28:06.240
Released them.

00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:07.920
Get a treaty with them."

00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:11.430
After that little bit
of a scuttle up there,

00:28:12.450 --> 00:28:14.550
that cannon, they threw it
in the water on the way back,

00:28:14.550 --> 00:28:16.440
and that's one of the fishermen
knows where that cannon is.

00:28:16.440 --> 00:28:18.570
We're gonna see him today too.

00:28:18.570 --> 00:28:21.450
They needed to legalize
this mine on Mica Bay.

00:28:21.450 --> 00:28:22.650
That was the main intention.

00:28:22.650 --> 00:28:24.300
But they figured, well,
let's just get everybody

00:28:24.300 --> 00:28:26.460
at the same time and settle the whole area

00:28:26.460 --> 00:28:29.310
and get a treaty so that
then it's legal for us

00:28:29.310 --> 00:28:33.360
to open up for settlement
the whole area in 1850.

00:28:34.830 --> 00:28:37.200
- We as First Nation people
have to look after the land

00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:39.300
and have to look after that lake,

00:28:39.300 --> 00:28:41.460
have to look after the fish, the animals,

00:28:42.380 --> 00:28:45.180
because they have a right
to be here as well as we do.

00:28:45.180 --> 00:28:48.810
And the more forest we cut,

00:28:48.810 --> 00:28:50.880
the last place they gotta go.

00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:54.990
And lots of time they come
down here, come and visit us,

00:28:55.850 --> 00:28:57.990
because they have no place else to go.

00:28:58.940 --> 00:29:00.310
- But Batchewana said,

00:29:00.310 --> 00:29:02.960
"no, we're not gonna sign the treaty."

00:29:03.930 --> 00:29:08.310
We said, "we expect to get an annuity,

00:29:08.310 --> 00:29:10.680
an annual payment to us.

00:29:11.670 --> 00:29:12.840
And we wanted in the treaty,"

00:29:12.840 --> 00:29:17.280
so that we would get not
only the treaty payment,

00:29:17.280 --> 00:29:20.400
which is an annuity, but we wanted to have

00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:22.470
an escalator clause so that every year

00:29:22.470 --> 00:29:25.650
that the crown made money,
we would make money.

00:29:25.650 --> 00:29:28.110
And we had been in the
business for a while.

00:29:28.110 --> 00:29:29.480
We were always treating as a people

00:29:29.480 --> 00:29:30.810
and we were fairly educated.

00:29:30.810 --> 00:29:35.550
We actually brought a lawyer
to the treaty negotiations.

00:29:35.550 --> 00:29:37.530
And of course the ground said
if the lawyer don't leave,

00:29:37.530 --> 00:29:39.210
there'd be no treaty for anybody.

00:29:39.210 --> 00:29:43.380
It was illegal for a lawyer to
work for an Indian in Canada,

00:29:43.380 --> 00:29:46.650
that stayed in the books
till the 1950s, 1951.

00:29:46.650 --> 00:29:48.690
What the Crown decided to do was that

00:29:48.690 --> 00:29:51.870
if Batchewana is not gonna
sign off on this mine up here,

00:29:51.870 --> 00:29:53.340
then we'll make two treaties.

00:29:53.340 --> 00:29:56.820
The Robinson Superior Treaty
and the Robinson Huron Treaty.

00:29:56.820 --> 00:29:58.980
And they made the Robinson Superior Treaty

00:29:58.980 --> 00:30:00.660
come down below that mine,

00:30:00.660 --> 00:30:04.050
superior chiefs would sign off on the area

00:30:04.050 --> 00:30:04.880
where the mine is,

00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:07.420
and Batchewana would be
a part of Lake Huron,

00:30:07.420 --> 00:30:09.120
which really doesn't make sense

00:30:09.120 --> 00:30:11.910
when we have almost 200
miles of coastline here

00:30:11.910 --> 00:30:15.450
that's Batchewana Robinson Superior.

00:30:15.450 --> 00:30:19.350
So in that 1850 treaty,
the Robinson Treaties,

00:30:19.350 --> 00:30:22.920
we retain title and we
reserved this for ourselves.

00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:24.960
We shared the benefits from it,

00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:27.120
but we retained underlying title.

00:30:27.120 --> 00:30:29.010
- We didn't want to give up all the stuff

00:30:29.010 --> 00:30:30.600
that we had to give up.

00:30:30.600 --> 00:30:33.200
But in 1850, we did make a good treaty

00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:37.160
for what we'd look after
for all the time, eh,

00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:41.610
but then the government
in their good wisdom

00:30:41.610 --> 00:30:45.600
made up their own little
treaty and put it in place

00:30:45.600 --> 00:30:47.580
and made us go by it
whether we liked it or not,

00:30:47.580 --> 00:30:48.530
or else get killed.

00:30:51.750 --> 00:30:55.430
- We're at an old fisherman, an elder

00:30:55.430 --> 00:30:58.560
who had a tremendous responsibility for us

00:30:58.560 --> 00:31:02.670
looking after our fishery,
more so up the lake.

00:31:02.670 --> 00:31:05.220
His name was Angus Kakopshe.

00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:09.060
But this fish shack was on Lake Superior

00:31:09.060 --> 00:31:10.260
in front of his house.

00:31:11.190 --> 00:31:13.380
He was the actual last caretaker

00:31:13.380 --> 00:31:14.730
of Lake Superior Provincial Park,

00:31:14.730 --> 00:31:16.860
and they burnt his cabin out up there.

00:31:18.360 --> 00:31:20.580
And I have not been
here since I was a kid,

00:31:20.580 --> 00:31:21.720
so I thought maybe we'd just come down

00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:23.550
and take a peek in here.

00:31:23.550 --> 00:31:25.470
It was traumatizing to our people

00:31:25.470 --> 00:31:28.950
not being able to exercise
the full obligation

00:31:28.950 --> 00:31:30.900
that we have of looking after the land.

00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:33.180
Pretty cool stuff.

00:31:33.180 --> 00:31:34.920
There's an old fish scale in here,

00:31:34.920 --> 00:31:37.290
and some looks like mason jars,

00:31:37.290 --> 00:31:40.320
some remnants of a fish net, anchors.

00:31:41.850 --> 00:31:42.810
But we never forgotten

00:31:42.810 --> 00:31:45.660
and we never lost sight of
those original obligations.

00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.680
I'm wondering if we
might be able to stop by,

00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:51.750
I tried to get ahold of
you guys the other day,

00:31:51.750 --> 00:31:54.900
to come and interview
Olaf for a little while

00:31:54.900 --> 00:31:56.430
for a documentary we're making,

00:31:56.430 --> 00:31:57.960
a documentary about the fishery

00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:00.630
and he's got such a way with words,

00:32:00.630 --> 00:32:04.560
but I thought, we need him
in this too if it's okay.

00:32:08.780 --> 00:32:11.310
- In the summertime on a nice clear day,

00:32:11.310 --> 00:32:13.890
you take a stovepipe, and
you put it in the water

00:32:13.890 --> 00:32:17.680
and you look down,
there's no ripples in it.

00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:19.980
You can still see it
laying on the side there.

00:32:21.230 --> 00:32:23.220
That cannon has a lot of history.

00:32:23.220 --> 00:32:25.620
There has been a lot
of people wanting to go

00:32:25.620 --> 00:32:28.300
and lift it up and take it home.

00:32:28.300 --> 00:32:33.300
I used to go two or three
times in the summer,

00:32:33.300 --> 00:32:35.790
say, "well, we'll pay you to take it up."

00:32:35.790 --> 00:32:38.480
I said, "maybe that cannon
is there for a purpose."

00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:48.250
My name is Olaf Bjornaa.

00:32:51.360 --> 00:32:56.250
In my family, there was seven of us.

00:32:58.930 --> 00:33:01.770
I went to work when I was about 13.

00:33:03.310 --> 00:33:07.350
I don't read or write,
but I ain't tongue tied.

00:33:10.710 --> 00:33:12.840
Fishing used to be my livelihood.

00:33:12.840 --> 00:33:14.790
Around here there wasn't that many,

00:33:14.790 --> 00:33:17.250
you were either a fisherman or a logger.

00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:21.750
A bit of mining come after, but yeah,

00:33:21.750 --> 00:33:26.010
there we used to get at least
two or three license holders.

00:33:26.010 --> 00:33:29.900
Gros Cap was a bunch of fishmen there.

00:33:29.900 --> 00:33:31.550
And then the Goulais Bay Mission,

00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:34.980
they'd come right up in the Batchewana,

00:33:34.980 --> 00:33:36.800
fished here by the island.

00:33:37.710 --> 00:33:40.340
They fished the islands

00:33:40.340 --> 00:33:45.340
They went over to Michipicoten Harbour.

00:33:45.760 --> 00:33:47.390
There was some freshman out there,

00:33:47.390 --> 00:33:48.990
but never like there used to be.

00:33:49.890 --> 00:33:54.540
The game warden was too busy
hunting us to break to law.

00:33:55.440 --> 00:33:58.970
- Well, they used to come
up right here, really,

00:33:58.970 --> 00:34:01.920
and he had their side arms, he'd pat them,

00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:04.320
pat them, and kinda look at me.

00:34:04.320 --> 00:34:06.810
- I used to have more arguments with him

00:34:06.810 --> 00:34:09.510
than you can shake a stick at.

00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:11.310
Let's jump in.

00:34:11.310 --> 00:34:12.140
Oh.

00:34:15.980 --> 00:34:18.630
- My name is Alan James
Sayers, everybody calls me Jim.

00:34:18.630 --> 00:34:20.760
Everybody knows me as Jim Sayers.

00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:21.840
I'll be heading out.

00:34:22.710 --> 00:34:24.660
Get the boat started,

00:34:24.660 --> 00:34:26.700
and we got some gill nets ready to go.

00:34:26.700 --> 00:34:27.660
We're on my vessel.

00:34:27.660 --> 00:34:31.890
It's called the Gordonna J,
it's named after my parents,

00:34:31.890 --> 00:34:33.420
Gordon and Donna.

00:34:33.420 --> 00:34:38.420
They were instrumental in
pursuing our treaty right to fish.

00:34:39.450 --> 00:34:42.510
I owned the company, it's
called Crane Fisheries.

00:34:42.510 --> 00:34:45.540
It's my totem, my clan.

00:34:48.950 --> 00:34:51.600
Here we got the wheelhouse
and we'll get her started.

00:34:52.740 --> 00:34:53.670
- Okay.

00:34:53.670 --> 00:34:55.470
- My dad, when I was seven years old,

00:34:55.470 --> 00:34:58.590
got into a car accident
and was a quadriplegic.

00:34:58.590 --> 00:35:02.280
So he spent a lot of time
reading, doing some research,

00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:04.950
he determined that we had a treaty right

00:35:04.950 --> 00:35:07.080
to commercial fish that
we didn't need a license,

00:35:07.080 --> 00:35:09.210
not from the federal or
provincial government.

00:35:09.210 --> 00:35:12.540
So we engaged the Batchewana First Nation.

00:35:12.540 --> 00:35:14.300
Now the Batchewana First Nation

00:35:14.300 --> 00:35:19.300
who weren't all commercial
fishermen had to be,

00:35:19.530 --> 00:35:21.840
I guess, influenced to pursue this.

00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:26.840
But the idea was to prove
that the 1850 Robinson Treaty

00:35:28.380 --> 00:35:30.900
was valid in a living document.

00:35:43.190 --> 00:35:45.690
(engine revs)

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:49.080
- My name is Ian Agawa

00:35:49.080 --> 00:35:52.530
and I'm a Batchewana First
Nation commercial fisherman.

00:35:52.530 --> 00:35:55.230
And we are here at the Goulais Bay dock

00:35:55.230 --> 00:35:56.980
located at the end of Mission Road.

00:35:58.170 --> 00:36:00.670
(engine revs)

00:36:04.340 --> 00:36:06.270
We're at about 95 feet here.

00:36:06.270 --> 00:36:08.250
I'm not sure exactly
where the fish might be,

00:36:08.250 --> 00:36:10.920
but usually when you
start to set your nets,

00:36:10.920 --> 00:36:12.690
you, you know, try to cover

00:36:12.690 --> 00:36:14.220
as much different depths as you can,

00:36:14.220 --> 00:36:16.230
And then when you go
to lift them, you know,

00:36:16.230 --> 00:36:17.190
if they're more in the shallow,

00:36:17.190 --> 00:36:18.990
then you could target
the fish in the shallow

00:36:18.990 --> 00:36:19.830
or in the deep.

00:36:20.850 --> 00:36:23.820
But I believe it's written
right in the treaties that,

00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:25.830
you know, we're allowed to do this.

00:36:25.830 --> 00:36:28.080
They can check the anglers out

00:36:28.080 --> 00:36:32.370
and the licensed people that
have to follow the regulations,

00:36:32.370 --> 00:36:34.950
But as a native commercial fishermen,

00:36:34.950 --> 00:36:36.750
we don't have those restrictions,

00:36:36.750 --> 00:36:38.790
because it's said right in a treaty

00:36:38.790 --> 00:36:41.730
that we're allowed to hunt
and fish as we did then,

00:36:41.730 --> 00:36:44.640
And we will continue to do so.

00:36:46.230 --> 00:36:48.630
- In regards to MNR, even
though a lot of things

00:36:48.630 --> 00:36:51.770
have changed and they got a lot better,

00:36:51.770 --> 00:36:54.840
guys my age that have been around

00:36:54.840 --> 00:36:58.410
and had to deal with the old
regime, I guess you could say,

00:36:59.530 --> 00:37:01.950
it's still hard to deal with them.

00:37:01.950 --> 00:37:04.080
The word trust comes into play.

00:37:04.950 --> 00:37:06.720
- Every time we used to see an airplane,

00:37:06.720 --> 00:37:09.930
we used to look up and say,
"uh-oh, here comes the MNR."

00:37:09.930 --> 00:37:11.280
Airplane, there was the yellow airplane.

00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:14.360
Sure enough, that airplane
would circle around once,

00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:16.770
and first thing you know,
he'd come right down at us.

00:37:16.770 --> 00:37:18.120
- I fished around there, yeah.

00:37:18.120 --> 00:37:22.200
And Ministry of Natural
Resources would come hounding me.

00:37:22.200 --> 00:37:24.030
- In the past when I was the chief,

00:37:24.030 --> 00:37:28.500
we ran into this where the
Ministry of Natural Resources

00:37:28.500 --> 00:37:31.050
were indicating to the fish buyers

00:37:31.050 --> 00:37:33.000
that if you buy off of
Batchewana fisherman,

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:34.680
you're gonna get a ticket,
they're gonna get fined,

00:37:34.680 --> 00:37:36.320
blah, blah, blah, blah, so.

00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:40.520
- Buying our fish,
restaurants, stores, whatever.

00:37:40.520 --> 00:37:42.620
And overnight, they just (slaps hand),

00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:46.530
the ministry went to every
one of them stores and said,

00:37:46.530 --> 00:37:49.050
"if you buy those guys' fish that are,

00:37:49.050 --> 00:37:51.270
they're fishing without a license.

00:37:51.270 --> 00:37:52.590
Now," they said,

00:37:52.590 --> 00:37:54.990
"we're going to take your license.

00:37:54.990 --> 00:37:57.680
You won't be able to have
a store or a meat market."

00:38:00.660 --> 00:38:01.490
- Hi.

00:38:01.490 --> 00:38:02.320
- How you doing?

00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:03.150
- Good, yeah?

00:38:03.150 --> 00:38:04.780
Hi guys.
- [Worker] How you doing?

00:38:04.780 --> 00:38:05.620
- Hey, hi.

00:38:05.620 --> 00:38:06.890
Good.

00:38:06.890 --> 00:38:09.450
It smells fishy around here.

00:38:10.860 --> 00:38:11.790
Not bad, no?

00:38:12.900 --> 00:38:15.240
- I'm James Agawa,
better known as Seagull.

00:38:16.140 --> 00:38:18.540
Born, raised here in Batchewana.

00:38:18.540 --> 00:38:21.300
When I first went to school, I
never knew my name was James.

00:38:21.300 --> 00:38:23.520
People called me Seagull my whole life.

00:38:23.520 --> 00:38:25.950
So when I went to school,
they asked all the kids,

00:38:25.950 --> 00:38:28.650
"is there anybody here I
haven't called their name?"

00:38:28.650 --> 00:38:30.420
Put my hand up.

00:38:30.420 --> 00:38:31.680
"What's your name?"

00:38:31.680 --> 00:38:32.640
I said, "Seagull."

00:38:32.640 --> 00:38:33.780
"Nope.

00:38:33.780 --> 00:38:35.550
You must be James."

00:38:35.550 --> 00:38:39.990
So James Agawa, better known as Seagull.

00:38:39.990 --> 00:38:41.490
Well, this is my fish plant.

00:38:43.650 --> 00:38:45.870
We started this two years ago.

00:38:45.870 --> 00:38:48.150
We needed to get modern.

00:38:48.150 --> 00:38:51.930
This building is what we
needed for a long time.

00:38:51.930 --> 00:38:54.000
I've been smoking fish
since I was 15 years old

00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:57.810
at Fair Glad Fisheries, where
I learned how to handle fish.

00:38:57.810 --> 00:39:01.740
It's our smokehouse, state of the art.

00:39:02.790 --> 00:39:04.290
Set it, forget it.

00:39:04.290 --> 00:39:07.170
- Yeah, we started out
in that little wee boat.

00:39:07.170 --> 00:39:08.520
This is where we are today.

00:39:11.730 --> 00:39:14.790
- Ended up, I bought my own boat,

00:39:14.790 --> 00:39:16.770
I bought a 65 foot boat.

00:39:16.770 --> 00:39:18.570
It's an oldie, but it's a goodie,

00:39:18.570 --> 00:39:23.040
and can't imagine not ever having a boat.

00:39:23.040 --> 00:39:25.230
I don't know how I got along without one.

00:39:25.230 --> 00:39:27.060
It's called the Coranet,

00:39:27.060 --> 00:39:30.240
and it's the heart and soul
of my entire operation.

00:39:37.140 --> 00:39:39.870
- I was charged with
fishing without a license

00:39:39.870 --> 00:39:44.790
because we had an Ontario
license up until then.

00:39:44.790 --> 00:39:46.110
We had two licenses, really.

00:39:46.110 --> 00:39:49.670
One here and one, I think
Angus had one in Batchewana,

00:39:49.670 --> 00:39:51.500
but we were fishing,

00:39:51.500 --> 00:39:54.840
we were charged with
fishing without a license.

00:39:54.840 --> 00:39:59.400
And I think it was 1981 when we decided

00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:01.510
we're not gonna take the license.

00:40:01.510 --> 00:40:05.010
We have a right to fish, we have a treaty.

00:40:05.010 --> 00:40:06.270
It's in our treaty.

00:40:06.270 --> 00:40:07.770
We have a right to fish.

00:40:07.770 --> 00:40:11.640
So when we started fishing,
they started charging us.

00:40:11.640 --> 00:40:14.070
- The license that we had
and we were fishing on it,

00:40:14.070 --> 00:40:17.370
there was approximately
three or four of us fishing

00:40:17.370 --> 00:40:19.020
on that license.

00:40:19.020 --> 00:40:21.480
The amount of quota that was on that

00:40:21.480 --> 00:40:23.130
wouldn't sustain one fisherman.

00:40:24.270 --> 00:40:26.340
- I said, "according to the Indian Act,

00:40:26.340 --> 00:40:30.150
I'm supposed to exercise my
right where my ancestry begins.

00:40:30.150 --> 00:40:32.000
And it began here in Agawa Bay.

00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:35.220
You want to charge me
with fishing Agawa Bay?

00:40:35.220 --> 00:40:38.490
You're gonna look damn
stupid in front of a court.

00:40:38.490 --> 00:40:41.880
Charging Mr. Agawa fishing in Agawa Bay

00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:43.980
where his ancestry began."

00:40:43.980 --> 00:40:45.090
- They think when they see a boat,

00:40:45.090 --> 00:40:47.310
it's like a big vacuum
cleaner, especially a tugboat,

00:40:47.310 --> 00:40:49.950
and it just goes along
and sucks up all the fish.

00:40:49.950 --> 00:40:51.900
That's not how nets work.

00:40:51.900 --> 00:40:54.810
A gill net is made a certain size of web

00:40:54.810 --> 00:40:56.790
to catch a certain size of fish.

00:40:56.790 --> 00:40:59.280
We use a four and three quarter inch mesh

00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:01.770
where only fish from
two and a half pounds,

00:41:01.770 --> 00:41:05.370
three pounds, to maybe
six pounds get caught.

00:41:05.370 --> 00:41:07.260
The little guys go right through.

00:41:07.260 --> 00:41:12.260
So there's always a supply of
fish for the years to come.

00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:15.240
- I remember them talking
at one point in time

00:41:15.240 --> 00:41:17.970
when we were fishing, the
Ministry of Natural Resources

00:41:17.970 --> 00:41:22.970
showed us a big pie on this blackboard.

00:41:26.170 --> 00:41:29.490
This one is for that one.

00:41:29.490 --> 00:41:34.490
All the pieces of that
pie, who it belongs to,

00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:37.620
and Batchewana Band had a
little sliver like that,

00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:44.480
and I'm not the sharpest
knife in a drawer,

00:41:44.850 --> 00:41:49.200
smartest guy around, but Jesus Christ,

00:41:49.200 --> 00:41:52.620
by being generous, look at
this, I'm thinking to myself,

00:41:52.620 --> 00:41:57.620
we own that whole pie and we
share that with everybody.

00:41:58.620 --> 00:42:00.160
Look how much is there for us though?

00:42:00.160 --> 00:42:02.010
A little wee sliver.

00:42:02.010 --> 00:42:03.750
It's shameful.

00:42:03.750 --> 00:42:05.070
That is shameful!

00:42:05.910 --> 00:42:08.490
I said to the ministry,
"you know what we need?"

00:42:08.490 --> 00:42:09.760
He says, "no.

00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:11.820
What do you need?"

00:42:11.820 --> 00:42:13.170
"We need a new pie.

00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:15.870
And in that new pie," I said,

00:42:15.870 --> 00:42:19.470
"we'll share that in our own way."

00:42:19.470 --> 00:42:22.300
- It's a right, it's not a privilege.

00:42:22.300 --> 00:42:23.490
It's our right.

00:42:23.490 --> 00:42:26.790
And it's something that
we take very serious,

00:42:26.790 --> 00:42:29.730
and with the right comes responsibility.

00:42:29.730 --> 00:42:31.600
Instead of working together,

00:42:31.600 --> 00:42:33.570
they're hoping that they can say,

00:42:33.570 --> 00:42:36.150
"well, look, you know, those
Indians couldn't do it,

00:42:36.150 --> 00:42:38.310
so we gotta go and look after it."

00:42:38.310 --> 00:42:40.320
- I've never been in any court battle

00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:45.320
to say that I could fish,
but I would die for fishing.

00:42:46.140 --> 00:42:47.820
That's what it means to me.

00:42:47.820 --> 00:42:52.110
I would be on the front
line and to see it continue.

00:42:52.110 --> 00:42:54.330
It's a necessity.

00:42:54.330 --> 00:42:56.640
It's something that we need to do.

00:42:56.640 --> 00:42:58.380
- We did go to provincial court.

00:42:58.380 --> 00:43:02.520
We were convicted of commercial
fishing without a license,

00:43:02.520 --> 00:43:07.000
and we refined $503 per count.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:09.000
- Who pays the superior court?

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:11.010
Who pays the provincial court?

00:43:11.010 --> 00:43:12.180
Provincial government.

00:43:12.180 --> 00:43:14.380
They'll say, "you got two strikes you

00:43:14.380 --> 00:43:16.920
as a First Nation person"

00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:20.310
and they bring down the third one.

00:43:20.310 --> 00:43:22.170
Supreme Court didn't see it that way

00:43:22.170 --> 00:43:23.670
when it was Sparrow case.

00:43:23.670 --> 00:43:25.920
And it applies to us as well.

00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:27.180
Priority user.

00:43:27.180 --> 00:43:31.860
It's an inherent right to
fish as a First Nation person.

00:43:31.860 --> 00:43:34.080
It's not a gift from anybody.

00:43:34.080 --> 00:43:35.190
You're born with that.

00:43:35.190 --> 00:43:38.490
- A little bit of rain and fog,
so we'll turn on the radar.

00:43:39.810 --> 00:43:44.810
- That started the court challenge
and the judicial process.

00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:47.490
So basically that kind
of punted everything

00:43:47.490 --> 00:43:50.250
into the crown's lap,

00:43:51.290 --> 00:43:56.290
and they didn't really know
what to do to pursue it.

00:43:56.700 --> 00:43:59.560
We were promised that we could each have

00:43:59.560 --> 00:44:04.260
a commercial fishing
license, that we would have

00:44:04.260 --> 00:44:08.250
enough quota to make a decent living

00:44:08.250 --> 00:44:11.070
if we were to withdraw the proceedings.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:12.930
So obviously we didn't.

00:44:12.930 --> 00:44:16.620
We knew that we had them on the ropes.

00:44:21.780 --> 00:44:24.330
- In 2010, I think, or 2011,

00:44:24.330 --> 00:44:29.330
we actually just took full
page ad out in the Sault Star,

00:44:29.430 --> 00:44:34.140
the Toronto Star, the Sudbury
star, the Ottawa Citizen,

00:44:34.140 --> 00:44:37.380
and the Thunder Bay
Chronicle, full page ad saying

00:44:37.380 --> 00:44:39.930
"all of this land is ours.

00:44:39.930 --> 00:44:41.760
We're asserting jurisdiction.

00:44:41.760 --> 00:44:43.800
Our law will apply here.

00:44:43.800 --> 00:44:46.110
We recognize that we
have outstanding issues

00:44:46.110 --> 00:44:47.670
on a number of fronts with a number

00:44:47.670 --> 00:44:50.820
of implementation
agreements with treaties.

00:44:50.820 --> 00:44:53.310
In the meantime, however,
we are making assertions

00:44:53.310 --> 00:44:56.790
and our laws will apply
throughout this territory."

00:44:56.790 --> 00:44:59.600
- So ever since we asserted our rights,

00:44:59.600 --> 00:45:02.040
people are taking notice.

00:45:02.040 --> 00:45:07.040
The government, the private
sector, and different companies

00:45:07.650 --> 00:45:12.650
that want to extract the minerals.

00:45:13.190 --> 00:45:15.840
I know they look for gold.

00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:19.860
They look for all, silver,
whatever, diamonds.

00:45:19.860 --> 00:45:24.860
And ever since that the
assertion, those people,

00:45:27.720 --> 00:45:32.370
those companies now have
to come to our table

00:45:32.370 --> 00:45:35.400
and make an arrangements with us

00:45:35.400 --> 00:45:37.980
in order to do business on our lands.

00:45:40.680 --> 00:45:42.780
- They approach me,

00:45:42.780 --> 00:45:44.820
and they're gonna wanna
look in my fish box.

00:45:44.820 --> 00:45:45.690
I'm gonna tell them no,

00:45:45.690 --> 00:45:47.820
and I'll cover up the fish with a tarp

00:45:47.820 --> 00:45:51.960
and tell them exactly that, you know,

00:45:51.960 --> 00:45:54.630
this is a treaty license
that we're fishing.

00:45:54.630 --> 00:45:56.280
I hate using the word license,

00:45:56.280 --> 00:45:59.190
because a license can be taken away.

00:45:59.190 --> 00:46:02.100
It's an inherited right,

00:46:02.100 --> 00:46:05.520
and they can't take that
inherited right from us.

00:46:05.520 --> 00:46:08.020
(engine revs)

00:46:09.270 --> 00:46:10.640
This whole lake out here is just like,

00:46:10.640 --> 00:46:12.000
we come and go off of it.

00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:16.320
These are our fish and
we're managing the fishery,

00:46:16.320 --> 00:46:17.700
you know, in the fall time,

00:46:17.700 --> 00:46:19.410
Mother Nature takes care of itself.

00:46:19.410 --> 00:46:21.690
It'll be blowing for weeks and weeks,

00:46:21.690 --> 00:46:23.670
sometimes those fish are spawning

00:46:23.670 --> 00:46:27.270
and we have to respect
it too at the same time.

00:46:27.270 --> 00:46:29.670
And maybe even leaving it in better shape

00:46:29.670 --> 00:46:31.500
for the next generation.

00:46:31.500 --> 00:46:36.500
You know, like, I want my son
and my daughter to do this.

00:46:37.300 --> 00:46:39.000
You know, if they choose to do it,

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:40.600
there'll be fish there for them.

00:46:41.820 --> 00:46:43.800
- I just like to make
things better for our people

00:46:43.800 --> 00:46:45.600
so that our people can get

00:46:45.600 --> 00:46:48.920
what they were supposed
to get from the start.

00:46:48.920 --> 00:46:52.470
And the treaty agreements is
what we should be getting,

00:46:52.470 --> 00:46:53.740
but we're not getting.

00:46:56.100 --> 00:47:00.420
- So we have legal documentation,
we have the agreements,

00:47:00.420 --> 00:47:04.100
we have research, expert research,

00:47:04.100 --> 00:47:08.460
and we really have a lot of say here.

00:47:08.460 --> 00:47:11.820
We actually have consent as opposed to

00:47:11.820 --> 00:47:13.320
free prior informed consent

00:47:13.320 --> 00:47:15.630
under the United Nations declaration

00:47:15.630 --> 00:47:17.970
and United Nations Declaration

00:47:17.970 --> 00:47:22.170
on the Rights of Indigenous
People has a clause, clause 46,

00:47:22.170 --> 00:47:27.170
which allows for the government
or the main government,

00:47:28.230 --> 00:47:29.970
Canadian government to have a veto

00:47:29.970 --> 00:47:32.520
over in the best interest of the state.

00:47:32.520 --> 00:47:37.470
So we assert this whole
territory as it is ours.

00:47:37.470 --> 00:47:40.020
And on the left here is our wind farm.

00:47:40.020 --> 00:47:42.090
This is our second largest wind farm.

00:47:42.090 --> 00:47:45.030
And we have 11 wind turbines here.

00:47:45.030 --> 00:47:49.020
It's a good revenue stream
for us, but this is our land.

00:47:49.020 --> 00:47:51.630
We partnered 50% with a company,

00:47:51.630 --> 00:47:56.250
and we get an annual return
through a business relationship.

00:47:56.250 --> 00:47:59.210
So what we do is that we put out

00:47:59.210 --> 00:48:02.640
an assertion of jurisdiction
in our territory

00:48:02.640 --> 00:48:05.250
from here to Packasaw
saying that any proponent,

00:48:05.250 --> 00:48:07.560
any developer, if it's not in a treaty,

00:48:07.560 --> 00:48:09.540
that we compromise, that it's still ours,

00:48:09.540 --> 00:48:11.820
and if you want some of that action,

00:48:11.820 --> 00:48:13.260
you need our permission.

00:48:13.260 --> 00:48:16.010
(engine humming)

00:48:17.490 --> 00:48:18.690
- You know, that's our livelihood,

00:48:18.690 --> 00:48:22.380
hunting, trapping, fishing,
living off the land.

00:48:22.380 --> 00:48:25.470
And that's what they were
doing then, and you know,

00:48:25.470 --> 00:48:26.930
we're still doing it today.

00:48:36.810 --> 00:48:38.880
- We recently lost one of our grandmothers

00:48:38.880 --> 00:48:43.880
that has been trying to
let our people know as well

00:48:44.190 --> 00:48:46.480
about those responsibilities.

00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:49.140
You know, she traveled
around the Great Lakes

00:48:49.140 --> 00:48:51.630
and walked around the Great Lakes.

00:48:51.630 --> 00:48:55.230
I don't know how many times
she's done this for our people.

00:48:55.230 --> 00:48:57.810
And that's to ensure
that our people are aware

00:48:57.810 --> 00:49:00.030
that we have a
responsibility to that lake.

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:04.680
Many people have picked up on that

00:49:04.680 --> 00:49:06.420
and know what she was doing

00:49:06.420 --> 00:49:08.070
and know the work that
she was undertaking,

00:49:08.070 --> 00:49:10.620
because you'll see many of our people

00:49:10.620 --> 00:49:12.080
out in the different communities

00:49:12.080 --> 00:49:15.720
taking on that responsibility
and doing the water walks.

00:49:16.860 --> 00:49:20.070
And those waterwalks
are to let people know,

00:49:20.070 --> 00:49:23.280
the settler governments
know, that we're still here

00:49:23.280 --> 00:49:25.380
and we're still doing the jobs

00:49:25.380 --> 00:49:27.720
that the great Creator asked us to do

00:49:27.720 --> 00:49:29.490
by being respectful to the lakes.

00:49:33.330 --> 00:49:36.760
- It's something that
has been in our band,

00:49:36.760 --> 00:49:40.050
in our way of life, living on the water.

00:49:40.050 --> 00:49:43.590
We're water people, we're
boat people since time began.

00:49:43.590 --> 00:49:45.950
So it's very important.

00:49:45.950 --> 00:49:49.560
I touched on the
responsibility of the resource,

00:49:49.560 --> 00:49:53.970
and that's something that we
pound into the younger guys,

00:49:53.970 --> 00:49:57.180
you know, to be responsible,
to respect that.

00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:04.390
- And the Batchewana people, you know,

00:50:04.390 --> 00:50:07.800
know their heritage in regard to fishery,

00:50:07.800 --> 00:50:10.260
and we've never, ever,
we've always managed

00:50:10.260 --> 00:50:11.700
the fishery ourselves.

00:50:11.700 --> 00:50:14.790
It's been, it is documented
by the newcomer governments

00:50:14.790 --> 00:50:16.860
back from the 1600s.

00:50:16.860 --> 00:50:21.690
So our people have sufficient
right to manage the fishery.

00:50:23.640 --> 00:50:26.040
The economic boost to the communities,

00:50:26.040 --> 00:50:28.170
I think, is what's gotta be mentioned.

00:50:28.170 --> 00:50:30.600
I think it's beneficial
for our communities.

00:50:30.600 --> 00:50:32.760
It means employment for a
lot of the young people.

00:50:32.760 --> 00:50:35.310
It means employment as well for,

00:50:35.310 --> 00:50:37.650
I don't know how many people
around the crew that they have,

00:50:37.650 --> 00:50:40.200
with the tugs that they
have, but, you know,

00:50:40.200 --> 00:50:43.740
it means an awful lot to
our community members.

00:50:47.070 --> 00:50:50.660
- I have a lot of people
that come up and tell me

00:50:50.660 --> 00:50:55.390
how nice it is to see a native fishery

00:50:57.320 --> 00:51:00.960
be equal to some of the
non-native fisheries.

00:51:00.960 --> 00:51:03.420
So I think I have 15 employees now

00:51:03.420 --> 00:51:05.730
that work and collect
the paycheck from us.

00:51:05.730 --> 00:51:10.200
90% of these guys, these
employees are band members.

00:51:10.200 --> 00:51:13.560
I don't discriminate,
but these are the guys

00:51:13.560 --> 00:51:14.510
that want to do it.

00:51:15.370 --> 00:51:17.190
They're getting harder to find,

00:51:17.190 --> 00:51:21.930
but the ones I have are probably
the best on Lake Superior.

00:51:21.930 --> 00:51:23.520
I bet the farm on it.

00:51:24.570 --> 00:51:26.430
We do really good work.

00:51:29.610 --> 00:51:32.730
We're now selling whole
fish into Michigan.

00:51:32.730 --> 00:51:35.070
Everything else is sold locally.

00:51:35.070 --> 00:51:37.320
We do all of the Sault area.

00:51:38.610 --> 00:51:41.580
Little bit towards Sudbury,
little bit towards Wawa.

00:51:41.580 --> 00:51:42.630
I don't wanna tell you everything,

00:51:42.630 --> 00:51:45.420
because some of these markets
took us a long time to get!

00:51:45.420 --> 00:51:47.220
- I was telling you
that might be the case!

00:51:47.220 --> 00:51:49.390
(both laugh)

00:51:49.390 --> 00:51:51.360
- Our fishermen do have market.

00:51:51.360 --> 00:51:54.150
As a matter of fact, our own community

00:51:54.150 --> 00:51:55.590
is also in the market.

00:51:55.590 --> 00:51:58.590
Like we have a fish fry up
here at the arena on Fridays,

00:51:58.590 --> 00:52:02.190
and it's almost sold out
every time we have one,

00:52:02.190 --> 00:52:04.350
It's all supplied by our own fishermen.

00:52:07.380 --> 00:52:08.970
- You put the filet over
there, it'll come through,

00:52:08.970 --> 00:52:11.640
there's little blades that spins,

00:52:11.640 --> 00:52:13.830
catches the pin bone and plucks them.

00:52:15.060 --> 00:52:17.370
And of course we go through
everything by hand, again,

00:52:17.370 --> 00:52:18.780
to make sure,

00:52:18.780 --> 00:52:20.850
one of our slogans is no bones about it.

00:52:20.850 --> 00:52:22.680
There's no bones in our fish.

00:52:22.680 --> 00:52:24.580
We take a lot of pride in saying that.

00:52:26.730 --> 00:52:29.670
the community has respect
for fishermen here.

00:52:29.670 --> 00:52:32.070
They have a lot of
respect for us fishermen

00:52:32.070 --> 00:52:34.650
who do this for a living
because it's hard work.

00:52:39.630 --> 00:52:40.460
- Beauty!

00:52:45.420 --> 00:52:48.870
- My name's Dylan Agweo Agawa.

00:52:48.870 --> 00:52:50.840
My Indian name is (speaking in Ojibwe).

00:52:57.430 --> 00:53:00.350
And here's my boat, the Lil' Snick.

00:53:04.860 --> 00:53:08.070
- I am a commercial
fisherman of Lake Superior.

00:53:08.070 --> 00:53:12.720
I am 21 years old, own a
commercial fishing vessel

00:53:12.720 --> 00:53:14.640
called the Lil' Snick.

00:53:14.640 --> 00:53:17.780
I'm proud to where I am today.

00:53:17.780 --> 00:53:20.450
(waves lapping)

00:53:21.970 --> 00:53:24.470
(engine revs)

00:53:30.740 --> 00:53:31.890
- I was asking the Creator for

00:53:31.890 --> 00:53:35.670
just enough to have a good feed.

00:53:40.020 --> 00:53:43.920
This is the pin bone, it's
got a little pin bone there

00:53:43.920 --> 00:53:48.920
inside the fish and it
grows in there like a C,

00:53:49.740 --> 00:53:52.650
So you gotta take it, and I
usually tell my customers,

00:53:52.650 --> 00:53:54.300
that if you find a bone, bring it back,

00:53:54.300 --> 00:53:56.300
and I'll give you another piece of fish.

00:53:57.600 --> 00:54:00.360
And I have never had
anybody come back with bone.

00:54:03.480 --> 00:54:07.460
- I'm watching for any
boaters, where aim is

00:54:07.460 --> 00:54:12.030
and where we're going,
what's our next destination?

00:54:12.030 --> 00:54:14.910
Well, I have my
grandfather that's with me.

00:54:14.910 --> 00:54:17.280
And you know, I'm thankful
every day that he's there,

00:54:17.280 --> 00:54:18.110
because you know what?

00:54:18.110 --> 00:54:21.840
He's show me what he
showed his son up the lake

00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:25.770
and, you know, it's not
his first boat that he ran,

00:54:25.770 --> 00:54:30.030
and you know, you kinda, you
know, sometimes you butt heads,

00:54:30.030 --> 00:54:32.220
but you know, sometimes you
have to realize, you know,

00:54:32.220 --> 00:54:37.220
time to stay quiet and just
listen, because he is right.

00:54:38.520 --> 00:54:41.610
He is right in his age, and
that's why he is here today.

00:54:45.870 --> 00:54:48.630
And I have my uncle, my uncle Tony.

00:54:49.790 --> 00:54:53.700
And that's Seagull's oldest brother.

00:54:53.700 --> 00:54:58.230
That's the first born son is Tony,

00:54:58.230 --> 00:55:00.600
but his real name's Percy Junior,

00:55:00.600 --> 00:55:02.310
but everybody calls him Tony.

00:55:03.960 --> 00:55:08.460
But now, since I worked
with him when I was small

00:55:08.460 --> 00:55:11.900
and now since I have my
own bigger operation,

00:55:11.900 --> 00:55:14.430
works with me now, and you know,

00:55:14.430 --> 00:55:16.410
I'm just as happy to have him on my boat

00:55:16.410 --> 00:55:18.990
because, you know, it
reminds me of the good times

00:55:18.990 --> 00:55:20.700
that we used to have together

00:55:20.700 --> 00:55:23.220
going out there fishing and, you know,

00:55:23.220 --> 00:55:25.710
coming in with a boat load of fish

00:55:25.710 --> 00:55:27.390
with a big smile on our faces,

00:55:27.390 --> 00:55:29.960
because we did good on
that day of fishing.

00:55:29.960 --> 00:55:31.920
That's what I like about fishing.

00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:35.010
It's just, you never know
what you're gonna run into

00:55:35.010 --> 00:55:36.810
when you're on the lake

00:55:36.810 --> 00:55:39.020
or you never know what
you're gonna catch either.

00:55:40.440 --> 00:55:43.230
- Sometimes I'll have two guys helping me

00:55:43.230 --> 00:55:45.810
and their families like, you
know, everybody's depending

00:55:45.810 --> 00:55:50.430
on me to make sure we keep going

00:55:50.430 --> 00:55:55.430
and being a go-getter and
getting, harvesting the fish

00:55:55.770 --> 00:55:58.920
and then also processing
the fish is another thing

00:55:58.920 --> 00:56:02.470
that I got pretty good at.

00:56:02.470 --> 00:56:04.620
I know how to filet a fish pretty good.

00:56:04.620 --> 00:56:07.020
I learned that off, my Aust
Mariam actually taught me

00:56:07.020 --> 00:56:09.330
the very first time how to filet a fish.

00:56:09.330 --> 00:56:12.330
And I carry that knowledge with me today.

00:56:12.330 --> 00:56:17.330
And that's what I pride
my work on is making sure

00:56:17.640 --> 00:56:21.630
that that fish is best
quality that it can be.

00:56:22.620 --> 00:56:27.620
- My hope for my people is
we take all our land back,

00:56:27.840 --> 00:56:30.540
start looking after it like
Mother Earth wanted us to,

00:56:32.400 --> 00:56:37.400
because money isn't gonna do
you any good when you're dead.

00:56:38.370 --> 00:56:43.370
If Mother Earth kills you,
it's not gonna do any good.

00:56:45.780 --> 00:56:47.100
You're can have all
the money in the world,

00:56:47.100 --> 00:56:50.100
but you're gonna die like everybody else

00:56:50.100 --> 00:56:52.590
when she wants you to.

00:56:54.360 --> 00:56:57.090
But like our treaty agreements,

00:56:57.090 --> 00:57:00.930
if we could even get that
back, the real treaty, I mean,

00:57:00.930 --> 00:57:02.880
not the treaty that the government got.

00:57:03.750 --> 00:57:05.100
If we could get that in place

00:57:05.100 --> 00:57:08.060
and get things worked out that way,

00:57:08.060 --> 00:57:09.420
our people would be good,

00:57:09.420 --> 00:57:12.680
because we'd be in control
of our land and territory.

00:57:21.890 --> 00:57:23.400
- Very simple.

00:57:23.400 --> 00:57:25.060
Go on that side.

00:57:25.060 --> 00:57:25.890
Okay.

00:57:32.350 --> 00:57:33.540
3.5 pounds, so.

00:57:40.440 --> 00:57:42.900
Might as well have like a
whole of truck load of fish,

00:57:42.900 --> 00:57:46.890
and then you will
different parts in the zoo.

00:57:46.890 --> 00:57:47.720
No salmon.

00:57:47.720 --> 00:57:50.460
No, just lake trout and whitefish.

00:57:50.460 --> 00:57:51.290
- [Customer] Okay, thank you.

00:57:51.290 --> 00:57:52.380
- Is that good there?

00:57:54.180 --> 00:57:55.020
Oh, you got cookies.

00:57:55.020 --> 00:57:55.950
Oh, awesome.

00:57:55.950 --> 00:57:56.790
Even a better deal.

00:57:56.790 --> 00:57:57.620
Thank you!

00:57:57.620 --> 00:57:59.790
- Cool.
- Thank you, bye.

00:57:59.790 --> 00:58:01.190
- And that's how easy it is.

00:58:06.630 --> 00:58:09.300
- When we, as the original
peoples of these lands,

00:58:09.300 --> 00:58:11.640
have a strong position in
regards to the fisheries

00:58:11.640 --> 00:58:15.570
on Lake Superior, that
is non compromising.

00:58:15.570 --> 00:58:17.480
And we can't allow that to be compromised

00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:20.850
by only having one vote
out of 12 at a table.

00:58:20.850 --> 00:58:22.050
We will drive.

00:58:22.050 --> 00:58:23.430
It's our jurisdiction.

00:58:23.430 --> 00:58:25.410
We'll be in control.

00:58:25.410 --> 00:58:27.960
And we'll find a space
for people to advise us.

00:58:27.960 --> 00:58:30.300
And that's what it was
for us for a long time.

00:58:31.200 --> 00:58:34.110
The shoes on the other foot
now where we were always.

00:58:34.110 --> 00:58:36.110
okay, you were consulted,
get out of the way now,

00:58:36.110 --> 00:58:37.980
we're doing what we want.

00:58:37.980 --> 00:58:40.080
So it's not gonna be like that anymore.

00:58:40.080 --> 00:58:41.820
We're asserting jurisdiction

00:58:41.820 --> 00:58:44.910
and we have asserted jurisdiction
as the Anishinaabe people.

00:58:44.910 --> 00:58:48.510
- It's my hope before
I'm gone that, you know,

00:58:48.510 --> 00:58:51.310
all three governments, the First Nation,

00:58:51.310 --> 00:58:53.950
the federal, provincial government

00:58:53.950 --> 00:58:56.460
work together for the resource.

00:58:56.460 --> 00:58:59.760
I got grandsons coming up, granddaughters,

00:58:59.760 --> 00:59:02.210
so it'll be there so they can, you know,

00:59:02.210 --> 00:59:06.750
ride around this boat, other
boats, do their own thing.

00:59:06.750 --> 00:59:08.850
Why can't we make a living on, you know,

00:59:08.850 --> 00:59:11.910
the biggest lake there is in
the world and look after it?

00:59:12.930 --> 00:59:15.980
- I guess for the younger people,

00:59:15.980 --> 00:59:19.200
I often thought about
it because I see today

00:59:19.200 --> 00:59:21.810
where a lot of young people, people are,

00:59:23.430 --> 00:59:24.930
how do you wanna say it?

00:59:24.930 --> 00:59:28.740
You don't wanna say they're grasping,

00:59:28.740 --> 00:59:30.490
they're grasping out, reaching out.

00:59:31.650 --> 00:59:36.320
You know, I'm surprised,
because I sit back at times

00:59:36.320 --> 00:59:39.600
and I think about what I
just discussed with you

00:59:39.600 --> 00:59:41.760
and shared with you that story,

00:59:41.760 --> 00:59:44.010
that creation story part of it,

00:59:44.010 --> 00:59:48.570
and those types of
constitutional discussions

00:59:48.570 --> 00:59:50.910
that I've had with my
father sitting in the lodge.

00:59:50.910 --> 00:59:53.060
That's where those come
from for me, you know?

00:59:53.060 --> 00:59:56.730
And not only my father, but
other knowledge keepers as well.

00:59:56.730 --> 01:00:01.200
Aunties and uncles and people
from different communities,

01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:05.450
whether it's down in
Manitowoc island or Zegomacor.

01:00:05.450 --> 01:00:07.170
You know, people that I've
come to know in my life

01:00:07.170 --> 01:00:09.780
that are knowledge keepers that
speak Anishinaabe language.

01:00:09.780 --> 01:00:12.990
Those are the people that our young people

01:00:12.990 --> 01:00:17.130
need to continue to turn
to and learn those things.

01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:21.060
- When I was young,
everybody in the village

01:00:21.060 --> 01:00:24.390
learned how to fish,
everybody where I came from,

01:00:24.390 --> 01:00:27.060
and you'll notice a lot of the
elders will talk about that.

01:00:27.060 --> 01:00:28.680
I learned it from my dad.

01:00:28.680 --> 01:00:30.210
One of the things he told me

01:00:30.210 --> 01:00:34.230
was that if you know how to
fish, you'll never starve.

01:00:34.230 --> 01:00:38.480
He was born in 1921, so he
grew up in the depression.

01:00:41.250 --> 01:00:44.940
And he said that no
matter how tough it was,

01:00:44.940 --> 01:00:46.740
they could always trade fish.

01:00:46.740 --> 01:00:48.360
They could trade fish
for whatever they needed.

01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:50.340
They didn't need cash,
they didn't need money.

01:00:50.340 --> 01:00:52.980
And they lived a pretty good life,

01:00:52.980 --> 01:00:54.120
because they knew how to fish.
%