Extreme close-up of documents on a desk. A resolution of the Cree Council of Waswanipi regarding protected territories. Hands turn the pages, revealing a map.
Allan Saganash
So, when you talk about, uh, did you get it? When you talk about, uh, protecting, the protection, the importance of the territory and its usage, we have to, uh, to do a mapping process where we identify areas that we use, how the importance of it in order to let the companies know, the forestry development people know that these important areas, they come up…
Still in an extreme close-up, Alan Saganash unfolds another map and hides elements of legends that are confidential.
They come up with family names, OK? It’s OK? This is confidential, that’s why I’m hiding this. This is, this is one trap line for example. I use my family’s trap line because I’m not allowed to use the other ones. I got the OK from my brother to use it for the informations. What you see here, everything is numbered, where the access trails are, where the moose areas, bear dens, the fishing areas and they’re all numbered and they, the data basis here, what they are. For instance, number one, it’s a permanent campsite, OK?
Close-up of the legend. A grid details the numbered elements.
And it describes each area, how it is.
Fade to black. Following scene. Extreme close-up of Allan Saganash’s hands, showing elements on the map. Icons of tents, moose, bears, and snowmobile trails are visible.
These are Cree camps; do you see the Cree camps here? The burial sites, OK? And all the names here. It’s, it’s very, it’s very, uh, it’s a lot of information, condensed, but the companies never see this, never see what this is, because of confidentiality. A lot of people say, I’ll do, I’ll show you where my good spawning areas are, or moose or bear dens, but you don’t want everybody to know, you know? So we had to come up with another map, it’s called a forest planning support map. OK?
Allan Saganash unfolds another map. The camera continues to show a close-up of the desk where the maps are piled up. The new map also shows snowmobile trails, but no icons are shown.
This forest planning support map gives you an idea of what these are, but these are very distinct points, these are not, they’re like, uh, global. They’re global, you see. For instance, these areas here, they don’t tell you what it is, you don’t see the bear dens, you don’t see the moose areas, they are global, like this, you don’t what this, if you… Look, you don’t know what it is, but if you look at this map, you will know what it is, by this. OK? They’re like global. This is what, uh, what, uh, the companies use but only on the condition that they don’t give this information to anybody else, so we have to sign an agreement, you use it only for your forestry planning, you can’t pass it to a third party, and they keep it. So each company has this map.
The camera moves to the right to show a close-up of the signed confidentiality clauses to the right of the map, under the legend.
Interviewer
Do they respect?
Allan Saganash
What?
Interviewer
Do they respect?
Allan Saganash
No, and I was coming to that, they don’t use it because they don’t understand it.
The camera remains in extreme close-up mode, showing the logos in the lower right corner of the map, and returns to the hands of Allan Saganash at the centre of the map, where there is a grid.
What’s so difficult about telling you that this is a very important area, and you come back and do your forestry planning, and your planning there says well, it’s important, so I’m going to have a different method of planning here, it’s a sensitive area, so you say I’ll do some, uh, mosaic cutting where I can leave some, uh, residual forest, things like that, they don’t do it. A lot of them don’t, some of them do. It’s, it’s, uh, it did cost a lot of money to do this because you’re talking about 62 trap lines, and I had to hire some people to pinpoint the importance of the trap lines, the important use of the territory and it’s all documented here.
Extreme close-up of Allan Saganash’s face.
And even this, they have this, they know where the all the areas are. We use this map to our argument, to extend buffers on water bodies. We tell them, “The water bodies are the most important part of the trap lines for the Cree people, because that is where they live, that’s where they hunt, they fish and trap, OK?”
Zoom out and back to a close-up of the map.
And yet they don’t seem to understand that. Their activities are fishing, in the water, yes, but for a Cree, it goes much further than that.
The camera exits its close-up of Allan Saganash. He is wearing a red shirt. Behind him is a bookshelf filled with numbered binders.
Like I said, in the past, in my father’s generation, and his grandfather, there is very little development on the territory, and yet they were still talking about protecting the area. My grandfather was a chief at that time, 75 years ago, he talks about the importance of the territory and what should be done.