That being said, relations undeniably broke down from time to time, with cooperation and neighbourly relations giving way to distrust, prejudice and sometimes even open hostility.
Gabriel Commanda Was A Model For Mutual Cooperation
No doubt most of us have never heard of Gabriel Commanda, an Algonquin, but in Val-d’Or he is famous. Over the past few years, many elementary and secondary school students have taken part in the annual Gabriel Commanda Walk. Commanda was a model for neighbourly relations and mutual cooperation. Jean Ferguson, who wrote a biographical novel based on Commanda (Fergu-son 2003) says: “Commanda had his own personal way of looking for and discovering minerals … Commanda would set off by canoe alone and … once he arrived at the exploration site, began with an incantation. Then, using a stick in the shape of a curved fork that he had carved out of a moose antler, he would walk around and wherever he planted his stick in the ground, you would be sure to find a mineral vein.”
A collection of the life stories of Algonquin elders from Pikogan published in 2011 by researchers from the Université du Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (Loiselle et al. 2011) confirms that relations between the Aboriginal population and “white agricultural settlers” were truly based on mutual assistance in the early days of settlement in the Abitibi region. Some elders lament the fact that not enough people know about this. Many of the first settlers were destitute, living in poverty and did not have suitable clothing for the region’s harsh climate. The Algonquins and white people helped each other out. However, as stated in the research report:
The hurt, disappointment and even frustration over the fragmentation and dispossession of their land by the government is palpable in the elders’ stories… The respondents were more unhappy and disappointed at the government policy than at the settlers themselves, who said that they too suffered under the policy of colonization, although not in the same way as Abitibiwinnik.
Tom Moar of Pointe-Bleue: Brave and Generous
The story made it into the November 1929 issue of National
Tom Moar of Pointe-Bleue (today Mashteuiatsh), who was in charge of the small Hudson’s Bay trading post, immediately went to their rescue and brought them back to the modest log cabin he and his family called home.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he volunteered to go for help in the nearest village, some hundred miles away on the shores of Lake Saint-Jean. He left 20 minutes later, with no more than his axe, some matches and a piece of frozen moose meat. He made the journey on foot, in a record time of five days, stopping just two nights to sleep in a simple shelter he made by digging a hole in the snow and lining it with fir branches.
A few weeks later, the plane was pulled from the water and fixed. Captain Saunders and his crew could not stop singing the praises of Tom Moar and his family, grateful for their hospitality and generosity. (Wilson 1929)
In the early 1980s, Richard Kistabish, then president of the Algonquin Council of Western Quebec, made public a very important letter written by a senior official with the hunting and fishing branch of the Ministère des Mines et des Pêcheries. The letter, dating from 1941, concerned the unwanted presence of Aboriginal families along the road between Senneterre and Mont-Laurier.
On March 6 last, Mr. Harold W. McGill, Director of the IndianIndianAffairs Branch in Ottawa, accepted our Department’s recommendations to prohibit Indian families from setting up camp within a mile of the road. I am certain that Indians currently roam areas where they can easily hunt muskrat; however, I think you should let them know that, once the hunting season is over, they must move further inland in accordance with the agreement so that no families are present near the road when tourists and the travelling public start to come in higher numbers.The term Indian is still used legally to refer to people with Indian status under the Indian Act, which is still in force in Canada. However, it is considered outdated and should be replaced with First Nation or member of a First Nation.