November 10, 2002 http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Innu-Resettlement.html

 

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) -- For the past five years, the 600 Innu of Davis Inlet have looked forward to the day when they could pack their bags, abandon their squalid village and move to Natuashish, a new town carved from Labrador's northern wilderness.
 If the weather co-operates and the Labrador Sea freezes over, that's exactly what will happen on Dec. 14. A squadron of snowmobiles and bush planes will leave the island community for the mainland, a 15-kilometre trek west.

 In the process, a new community will be born and the Innu will attempt to leave behind 35 years of poverty, despair and social decay.
 "Everybody's excited and looking forward to moving," says Simeon Tshakapesh, chief of the Mushuau Innu band council.
 But Tshakapesh is quick to add the sweet sense of anticipation is mixed with anger and resentment for about 100 residents.
 The problem is that one quarter of the 135 new homes in Natuashish will not be finished by next month, even though the project is already two years behind schedule.
 "There's some really disappointed people," Tshakapesh said in an interview from Happy Valley-Goose Bay. "That means some people will be staying behind. . . I'm not too impressed with the way the project has been managed."
 The federal Indian Affairs Department, which is paying for the project, will maintain services for the two communities until next March.
 Meanwhile, some residents say the 10-week delay could lead to chaos in Davis Inlet.
 "If they leave some families there, they're not going to be too happy," said one resident who asked not to be named. "There's going to be a lot of destruction."
 Still, federal officials insist there's nothing to worry about. The move on Dec. 14 will include every family with children and all of the community's elders, they say.
 "There's a lot of excitement building," says James Wheelhouse, the department's regional director general. "People are seeing that this is coming together. They've got new homes and there's a new school there. They will have all of the services available for them that other Canadians enjoy."
 Indeed, the contrast between the two communities is staggering.
 At first glance, Natuashish looks no different than suburban housing developments found farther south.
 Aside from the scores of modest, split-level homes with tasteful wooden siding, there's a modern police station, water-treatment plant, school, airport, wharf, grocery store, street lights, fire hydrants and power plant. Building supplies are littered along the winding, four-kilometre long main road, which leads to a state-of-the-art wharf on Sango Bay.
 But the land surrounding Natuashish is pure Labrador: a massive carpet of scrawny spruce and fir trees that stretches to the western horizon.
 Back in Davis Inlet, most of the dilapidated, plywood houses have no running water. Some homes are just two-room sheds with a bucket for a bathroom. On a hill overlooking the graffiti-scarred village, a crooked white cross stands where six children were killed in a 1992 house fire.
 But the village is perhaps best known for a small shed where several children were found on a freezing night in 1993, inhaling fumes from plastic bags filled with gasoline, and screaming that they all wanted to die.
 A videotape of what happened that night was later beamed around the world, cementing Davis Inlet's reputation as an embarrassing symbol of aboriginal suffering in Canada.
 The Innu had pushed for resettlement for years, but it was the fatal fire and the disturbing videotape that persuaded the federal and provincial governments to take action.
 After a tortured set of negotiations, the federal government agreed in 1996 to move the Innu to Sango Bay. Construction of the new town, which started in 1997, was supposed to be finished in 2000 at a cost of $85 million.
 Today, the construction budget stands at $152 million.
 "We constructed this community out of the virgin wilderness," Wheelhouse says. "It's one of the most beautiful spots in Canada. . . They've got a new community, a fresh start and a safe environment for their families and children."
 Natuashish is the Innu word for 'break in the river.' But the Innu are hoping the name will eventually become synonymous with 'break with the past.'
 Federal authorities and church leaders encouraged the nomadic Innu to settle in Davis Inlet in the late 1960s. They were promised a modern community with running water, but those promises were never kept.
 Since then, the Innu of northern Labrador have struggled with widespread alcoholism, substance abuse and family violence. The community also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
 In January 2001, Tshakapesh attracted international attention when he declared an emergency and rounded up about three dozen gas-sniffing youths. They were later sent to a makeshift detox facility in St. John's.
 The community's chronic social problems disappeared from the headlines until late last year when residents reported that scores of young gas sniffers had returned to their destructive habit.
 At the time, federal health officials said relapses were common among solvent abusers.
 To be sure, no one is suggesting the Innu will leave all of their problems behind when they move to Natuashish.
 The new homes there will help, but it's no cure. The healing process could take several generations, experts say.
 "These things take time," says Wheelhouse. "It's a long-term healing strategy. It's going to take a number of years before we see these issues. . . dealt with."