Oral History

Helene Piche’s story

ACFN Elder Alec Bruno’s mother, Helene Piche, left the Park after marrying a man who did not have a permit for the Park. Alec Bruno was Chief Allan Adam’s father. Chief Adam shared in detail his granny’s oral history of the transfer and eviction and Alec Bruno’s telling of the history follows.

Chief Allan Adam (2 February 2021)

The only things that I had known about Wood Buffalo National Park when I was a kid growing up, was that we were not allowed to go and hunt in Wood Buffalo. My dad was known back then [as] being [an] ACFN member—which was Chip Band 201 was the legal name—and the people that belonged on Chip Band 201 were the people that were outside of Wood Buffalo National Park. And that carried on for a while until I got older. And then I asked my dad, I said, “how come we’re not allowed to be in the park?” And this was back in the ’80s, and my dad told me a story about what had happened.

And my granny was still alive. My granny passed away in 1989 at the age of 89 years old. And the funny thing, the tragic thing about everything, was that my granny survived the pandemic [the influenza and smallpox epidemics in the 1920s], and I think her husband perished just at the later stages of the pandemic, and that would be around year 1922. She brought her husband into town [when he became sick] according to what my dad said. That would be my granny’s first husband. She took him to town. [Before that], she was staying out at House [Lake], I think it is. She had a two-storey house. She had everything, they had a garden there. Everything.

When members of the Piche family grew up, they were wealthy people. They provided for their kids and everything. There was families there, certain groups of families, and my granny was one of them. Her last name was Piche at the time, Helene Piche. I forget who her husband was, but he did give me it [his name], it could have been Pierre Piche, I don’t know. But in a way, when he got sick, [she] brought him to Fort Chip from House River or Birch River area that side over there, his ailment, his illness got worse, and he perished here in the community. And my dad said that after he perished, my granny did what she had to do, bury him and everything and stuff like that, then she wanted to go back home. She wanted to literally go back home to Birch, to House River, and when she notified [Parks] people that we’re going back to the park, the warden came there and told her that she’s not allowed to go back to the park unless she changes her identity. Meaning that if she goes back, she’ll have to become a Cree band member, to give up her identity. My granny said no. But she was insisted to go home because it’s the only home she had, was a two-storey beautiful house and everything that was there. They refused her to go back. And you know she was still determined to get home. And so, they just burned her place down and told her that there’s nothing there, we burned your house down and everything.

That’s when she realized—this was probably about the year [19]20, [19]23 around there, maybe [19]22—and she realized she had her husband, her husband’s deceased now, she had a house before her husband was deceased, she had her family there and cared for and living there and everything. They had a roof over their head. They had a garden. They had all the wildlife and everything, and it was abundance.

It’s one of the richest countries in the world in this area right there. And she lost all that. Not only her, but other family members as well that were told to leave the Park and never come back, and she never went back. We were told after from finding out from history and everything that if my granny had went back, they were going to kill her because they were ordered to kill anybody if they resisted to leave, and that mainly meant ACFN members, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, known as Chip Band 201 back then. . . .

Then I hear stories about other family members. After we were relocated from the Park, my granny moved to Big Point. And then she was relocated again to Fiddler’s Point. And then she was relocated to Jackfish Lake. And then she relocated to Old Fort, only to be put back in Fort Chip, in 1954, ’56. My dad said they moved into town in 1958, ’59. So from 1922 to 1959 my granny, with her family, relocated five times before she went back to Fort Chip.⁸ That’s the legacy and the story that I have to bear. That’s the story I’ll have to tell because that’s the story that was told to me from my grandma and my dad and oral history at its best. That’s why I guess I have a keen memory about things that were told to me, and I hardly ever forget stuff. So that’s where we’re at right now, and that’s as much as you know. I [have] given you all the information that I know about it and everything, but my granny said that she was forcefully moved, and [her] house was burned to the ground.

 . . . People weren’t consulted about it whatsoever because my granny said it just happened, just like that. She wasn’t told of it. Nobody was told this [was] to happen. All they were told, that if you want to stay in a park, you become Cree band. If not, leave. That was her consultation. And that’s when she fought to go home. And that’s when they said no and they deemed her as radical. They were probably going to shoot my granny if she went back home. That’s when they decided to burn her house down. That’s the exact words of what my dad told me.

Alec Bruno (Dene Laws Interviews, 2015)

Remember, I told you a story about my mom, when she got kicked out of her house. To me, that is unrealistic for Parks Canada to do: who gave them the rights to tell people? My mom was born and raised across from Lake Claire close to Birch River at a little place called House Lake. We went there about 4 years [ago] with Parks Canada to the site where we had lived. It was Dene people that lived there. My mom was born there, raised there, got married there, and two of her oldest boys are buried there at the graveyard. After WBNP was created in 1922, shortly after that, things started to change, and then by 1928, her husband got sick. Back then when people got married, the men [were] way older than the girls and same with my mom. Like my mom was born in 1900, by 1922 when WBNP [was established], she was already 22 years old, and she got married, she had kids, she said she got married very young. Maybe 15 or 16. You know, what [are] they called, pre-arranged or something like that? The guy comes and tells your mother and father, “I like your daughter and I want to marry her.” She didn’t like that but that’s the way it was, but she said he was a good provider. A good hunter, a good trapper. But he got sick, and he died in 1929, I think, here in town.

Now she wanted to go back home, back to her place, and that’s when Parks Canada intervened and said you can’t go back there, that’s Wood Buffalo Park now. The only way you could go back now is if you promise—you have to join the Cree Band if you want to go back there.

But who gives Parks Canada the rights to tell people? Who gave them the rights to say, “well, you join the Cree Band?” I asked that question many times. Nobody ever gave me an answer yet, especially when it comes from Canada or the government. Pat [Marcel] and I always talk about that. Pat’s granny [Ester Piche, whose story follows] was my aunty, she was my mom’s sister. She was from there too. I mean, mom used to cry sometimes, wanting to go back there. Nothing but the things she lost. She wanted to go back and see the gravesites too, her two boys, and she wasn’t allowed to do that. . . .

Well, at the signing of the Treaty, it says, we will never take your land away from you, right? Okay, that’s what Canada said, we will never take your land away, but we will share I; but with my mother it was different. She was told not to go back to her house. She had a house there, all her things, and she couldn’t even go back to collect them.

Ester Piche’s story

Alice Rigney (née Marcel) and several other Marcel family members shared a similar story about Ester Piche (Alice’s grandmother, and Helene’s sister), who also had grown up at the Dene settlement at Birch River. After refusing to transfer Bands in 1944, Ester Piche was required to leave the Park.

Alice Rigney (16 & 17 March 2021)

I’ll think about my granny living at House [Lake], probably the most beautiful forests, and then being told to move and her moving to Old Fort and making a home there. I have a beautiful picture of my granny, you know, and . . . I get my strength from her and my mother. Their life was anything but easy.

At present, we [Alice’s family] don’t have anything to do with the Park because our traditional land is in the Delta on the Athabasca River, at a place called Jackfish Lake, by the Jackfish Lake, too. But in the past? Yeah, my grandmother lived at House Lake. My grandmother Ester Piche. I couldn’t say for sure exactly the years, but it had to be probably in the 1920s, when the Park invaded us with their rules. You know, it’s just a maddening situation when you think of all the wrongs that were done to our people.

Yes, my grandmother was living there. I don’t think my mother was there because my mother was also in the residential school, in the mission. I know [she was in residential school] from 1926 to [19]32 and was like six consecutive years without going home. So I believe it was during that time that my grandmother had remarried. And when she left House [Lake], she moved to the south shore of Lake Athabasca at Old Fort Bay at a point which we call Poplar Point, which is across from Moose Point. So that’s where she raised her daughters, and my mum took us there, showed us that little cabin that they lived in. . . . And that’s where she lived and then when my mother married, and my auntie, they moved to Jackfish Lake, and my granny moved there too with them, because she lived with my Auntie Liza. . . .

Well, once you’re evicted from your home, I mean, for what reasons? I mean, these guys, with the papers in their hand to say that the government is creating a park and you have a choice—you either can stay and join the Mikisew Cree First Nation, or you have to leave. She left. I mean, she’s Dene. And there’s many, many [Dene] families that stayed in the Cree band, you know, the Simpsons, the Tourangeaus, and the Ratfats. You know, there’s many families that, they’re Dene, but chose to stay [in the Park]. So, I mean, it was the Parks demanding people, “you either become this or you become that.” And our people . . . they believed in these people [government officials]. And I mean, if in this day and age you tried that, there’d be riots and whatnot, you know. But in those days, you were told, and okay, well.

My late brother, Pat, went out to House Lake with a few family members, and Parks Canada—it was a Parks project, I believe—and they went there, and they saw what was left of the remains in the cemetery there, and they had a little community there when they had to leave. And so there was antiques, artifacts there, that they were not allowed to touch or bring home.

You know, my brother Pat [Marcel] had said they saw sewing machines there [at House Lake] and copper pots, and it’s all gone. They could not take it with them, and they more or less had to leave just with what they could. I mean, how would anybody feel, being told, “okay, you have to move because we are the government, because we are the Parks”? You know, and they’re obedient, but they lost the trust of the white people again. And I mean, this has been going on, now we’re standing up you know, we’re standing up through the colonization. I mean, you’re hearing more and more of our people speaking up and it’s issues like this. You know, if I was to put myself in my granny’s shoes, and probably she only owned just a few items for herself ‘cause she made all her own dresses, you know, meaning she had to get material from the store. She had to make clothes for her children. She used rabbit skin to make jackets and caribou hides to make clothing, moose hides for moccasins, because you couldn’t go buy these things. So she utilized the land wherever she was. And if I pictured myself in my granny’s shoes, I don’t know how I would feel . . . I mean she had to pack her child and cross Lake Claire and Lake Mamawi, and then find a place to start over again.

The Ratfat family

The Ratfat family resided at Birch River and Peace Point and were transferred to the Cree Band in 1944. Elder Ernie “Joe” Ratfat shared his history about the impacts of the transfer here. To this day, he maintains that he is Dene at heart, even if he is MCFN on paper.

Ernie “Joe” Ratfat (19 March 2021)

Well, I’m with the Mikisew Cree. But I am Dene. Yeah, that’s one of the things that happened to us. Kind of messed me up all my life.  Those people changed my life without even asking. My dad always told me I was Dene . . . but on paper it says Mikisew Cree. Yeah, there’s a lot of families that, at Fort Chip, belong to Mikisew Cree that are Dene. My dad is Peter Ratfat. And, like he always told me I was a Dene, and we always spoke Dene in our home. . . . 

I’ve been trying to get back to the Dene Nation. And, my chief, they wouldn’t let me go. They have the last word if we’re going to be transferred. So I just kind of gave up. I just gave up and accepted the fact that on paper I am Cree. But my soul is Dene, and it will always be that way.

The Simpson & Flett Families’ Stories

Some Flett and Simpson family members, whose relatives are historically connected by marriage, shared their families’ experiences with the transfer as well. Most Simpson family members, with the known exception of Elizabeth Flett (née Simpson), whose story is shared by ACFN member Garry Flett below), transferred to Mikisew Cree Nation in 1944.

Mary “Cookie” Simpson (11 March 2021)

When they made the Wood Buffalo National Park, the Indian Affairs decided it was so good for their books to move everybody, all the trappers living in the Park area, to the Cree band, [so] they just moved them without their consent. So we got moved again to the Cree band . . . like we were moved first to the Chip Band then we’re moved to the Cree band. They just did that on their own without consent, consenting of the people. And I know that the Trippe de Roche, too, were moved and . . . there was a lot of families that were just moved from different bands into the Cree Band because of the Park. Everybody trapping in the Park would be moved to the Cree Band according to the Indian Affairs—which is not even right, I don’t think. They shouldn’t be screwing around with people’s livelihood.

If they refused to transfer, then their park license and hunting and trappers license would be taken away. And so they had no choice. People had no choice. They were just moved, which is not right. I don’t agree with that . . . But after I learned about the history, I thought, holy, that’s really wicked. So it’s either of the Park or Indian Affairs in cahoots with each [other] that just moved people. . . .

They took the people away [from ACFN], like us [the Simpson family]! We were, when they created the Park there, we were in the Chip Band. And then they just moved us without our knowledge or without letting us know. That’s what my dad said anyways. He said, they just moved us, they just moved us to a different band just like that, he said.

Elizabeth Flett’s Story

ACFN member Garry Flett’s mother, Elizabeth Flett (née Simpson), shared her oral history of the membership transfer with her son. She was born the same year that the Park was established, 1922. Her grandfather, Edouard Shortman and his son Isidore Simpson (Elizabeth Flett’s father) were Dene. They had been granted permission to live in the Park in 1925 and built a cabin at Peace Point the following year. Elizabeth grew up at Peace Point, and all her brothers hunted and trapped in that area. She married a non-Status man, lost her Status, and left the Park to live elsewhere. Following the transfer, Elizabeth Flett’s situation was particularly challenging. After Bill C-31 was passed in 1985, changing the Indian Act provision that had stripped Indigenous women of their Status for marrying non-Status men, Elizabeth applied to regain her Status. The Department of Indian Affairs reinstated her to ACFN, where she had been a member at the time of her marriage, rather than to MCFN, to which all of her family had transferred after she lost her Status. Because of this, Elizabeth was refused access to her family home in the Park, and Garry and his siblings been barred from entering the Park to harvest as an ACFN member. Thus, he and his siblings, children, nieces and nephews are excluded from the Park, even though his grandfather’s cabin, still standing, is a physical symbol of his family’s claim to the live there.

Garry Flett (6 December 2020)

So we’ll go back in history a bit too when my mother married my father. All of my mother’s family were with the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, or known as the Chip Band at that time. So when my mother married my father, she had to leave the reserve, and she had to relinquish her Status rights because she married a non-Status person, which would be my father. At that time, when she was basically booted out of the reserve, it was ACFN. So, as time went by, and then back in 1986, when there was a challenge to the federal government by a lady [Sandra Lovelace] in Manitoba, who went after the government to get her rights back . . . her challenge was successful. And she got her rights back and she was reinstated into her band.⁹ So I challenged the government on behalf of my mother to do the same thing.

But when my mother was out of the Band, she was with ACFN. During that time, and after that, Parks Canada came in and said [to ACFN members in the Park], “in order for you to continue hunting and trapping in the Park, you had to become MCFN, Mikisew, or the Cree band.” So it was of no significance to my mother because she was then non-Status. She already had been pulled out of the band sort of thing. In 1986, when we challenged, she was allowed back in, but she was put right back to where she started from [to ACFN, from which the rest of her family had been transferred]. She was kicked out of the Chip band, so she was reinstated back into the Chip band and meanwhile, all of her family were transferred over to the Cree band during that time. So that is why my mother is the only one out of all of her siblings that remained Chip band. All my uncles and aunts are all Mikisew Cree. . . .

It sounds like something you’d read in a novel, but you never experienced it until you had experienced it. And what was the thinking back then? It certainly wasn’t on the side of women. Women were, their rights were told to them . . . not just the women, but pretty well everybody. Your rights were told to you and delivered to you by the federal government.

Garry Flett (16 December 2020)

So I spent my years, if you were going to hunt in the Park, I couldn’t go with you. Even if they were my first cousins. They can all go but I couldn’t. And members of my family could. So yeah, that’s the piece that when I said that it affected me personally, that’s what it is. So I had to stay away from there, from the Park side. To have that as your sole lifestyle, to hunt and trap and fish in the Park, it wasn’t for us. I couldn’t even dream about it. I wasn’t allowed to because of what transpired there. But . . . my first cousins were—it was easy for them. They just got a park license and described who they were and who they belong to as members of the Cree Band or the Mikisew Cree Band. And they were granted those licenses. I would go back and say “well, that’s my mom’s brother’s children” and “that’s my first cousins” and they just [replied]: “no, not you. You’re ACFN. Your mom was ACFN . . . you are not entitled.”