Transcript:

I took this photo in Chisasibi Cree territory northern Quebec Canada in 1993.

The car sat in the driveway serving as a visual protest against the hydroelectric mega dams under construction or planned by a provincially owned Crown corporation, Hydro-Quebec. At the time Anne Petermann and I were both working with the Native Forest Network, and 32 years ago this August we went for a month-long documentary and fact-finding trip to the James and Hudson Bay regions of Quebec. 

The purpose of our trip was to find out first-hand from the people in the day-to-day struggle against Hydro-Quebec exactly what the current situation was, both with the people already impacted and those who were opposed to the next phase of HQ’s mega dam projects. Anne and I drove from Burlington, Vermont in the United States to Chisasibi in Cree territory, the furthest one could go by car at that time. Chisasibi is a town where people were relocated from their native island after being warned that water from  the LaGrande Project was likely to erode the island away to nothing. 

In interviews with various members of the Cree we were told that the relocation to this company-built town was plagued by a high rate of alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide. We were told some of the Cree history in the 1800s after the European invasion. The fur traders were the first and then came the missionaries who burned the Cree sacred drums. They said they were taboo and then they controlled the medicine men and taught a different way of looking at the world, devoid of holistic spirituality. This was all part of the colonization of the First Nations. 

William Bearskin told us because of the reservoirs and increased flow of the LaGrande River, Caribou migration was altered. The Caribou have to wait for ice to form so they can cross the river. This usually happened in late November. Now the water takes another month to freeze. In the 1980s 10,000 migrating Caribou drowned because the river they were attempting to cross was flooded due to a Hydro-Quebec water release. HQ called the tragedy an “act of God.” The environmental and social impacts on the land and those who live on it are huge. 

In Cree territory that HQ dams occupy, there used to be seven species of whitefish. Now there are none. Mercury poisoning is affecting people and other species. Sacred Cree burial grounds are flooded. Migratory bird routes have changed. The list goes on and on. We flew to our last stop on the trip, the village of Whapmagoostui on Hudson Bay. The name of the village and the river that runs past it means “Great Whale.” The Great Whale Projects consist of more dams and river diversions that were to be built. 

While there we met Chief Matthew Mukash who actually invited us to come on this trip and he told us that in Whapmagoostui the future plans of HQ were ominous. HQ planned to cut off James Bay from Hudson Bay to make James Bay a freshwater reservoir that would be channeled to the desert southwest. 

And now the back story: in the fall of 1993 the international Native Forest Network held its First North American Temperate Forest Conference in Burlington, Vermont. The NFN intended to bring activists from North America together to help solidify the forest protection movement. But also the NFN wanted to present Indigenous Peoples to tell their story, to tell their story to the forest activists so the forest activists could have a better idea of what the Indigenous sovereignty meant, Indigenous rights, the culture, the spirituality.  In my opinion, it was a very successful conference. 

Anne and I had a chance to share the photos we took in Cree territory – the previous summer. After the conference was over, there was a strategy session held in the Green Mountains of Vermont. At the strategy session activists decided that there would be an International Day of Action the following April on Hydro Quebec’s 50th anniversary. 

In the lead-up to the International Day of Action against Hydro-Quebec, I was invited to go to England and Scotland to show the photos from the previous trip to Cree territory in northern Quebec. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to various groups, various activists and various gatherings to talk about the situation and show my photos from the area. They were very well received, I believe. There were a lot of conversations that went on. 

My last stop was in London at the Quebec House and I spoke to all the people in the Quebec House about what I saw, what the Indigenous people have told us. And I know it was a very interesting time for me to to do that. On April the 14th, 1994 the International Day of Action occurred against Hydro-Quebec on its 50th anniversary. There were over 16 different actions in six different cities against HQ. Some of the cities were in London, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Glasgow, Brussels, Melbourne, Victoria, British Columbia, Chicago Washington DC, and Moscow. 

After, not too long after those actions, Hydro-Quebec announced that they were putting the Great Whale Project on ice. And to my knowledge there has been no dam that has such, been and built on the Great Whale. So as a concerned photographer I feel very good about that. It makes me feel like taking photographs is a quite a powerful weapon to have and to use and I’m very happy that this occurred. I was glad to be a small part of a very big victory for the Indigenous Peoples and people everywhere.