4 1944 k’e nánį denesųłiné ɂená bets’į nųłtsa k’eyághe ts’én nílya

One of the most profound changes following the 1926 annex and the establishment of the Park permitting system was a membership transfer that took place in 1944, through which about half of the ancestors of ACFN were transferred to what is now MCFN. This chapter’s Denesųłiné title literally translates to “in 1944, some Denesųłiné were placed in the Cree reserve.” This event is in some ways unique in the history of national parks in Canada. Through this transfer, thirty-six Dënesųłıné families who had been living in the Park—a total of 123 individuals—were transferred from the Chipewyan Band’s treaty payroll list to the Cree Band’s treaty payroll list “through the stroke of a pen,” as ACFN Elder Leslie Wiltzen put it. Most of the families who were transferred had resided and harvested at the Birch River and Peace Point settlements, which had been home to the Dene for hundreds of years—as Elder Frank Marcel called it, “their traditional land where they’ve homesteaded for many years.”¹ Oral histories suggest that a number of the evictions of Dene people from their homes in the Park occurred immediately after the membership transfer.

There is little evidence to be gleaned from the government records to reconstruct why or how the transfer occurred. The few extant archival records suggest the transfer took place quickly and quietly, without the knowledge or consent of most Dene residents. Indian Agent Jack Stewart’s diary entries from June 1944 refer to a meeting in which an unspecified number of Dene leaders requested the transfer and Stewart approved their request: “Had a meeting of the Cree Band in office today. Talked over the election system and also the reserve they have asked for. Part of the Chipewyan band was also here, and they put in an application for a transfer to the Cree Band.”² Stewart updated the band lists, and the transfer was made official between June and December 1944. The 1946 treaty annuity paylists for the region listed the number of members who had transferred, and the 1949 Indian Census report showed a total population reduction for the Chipewyan Band from 259 to 161 between 1944 and 1949.³ At the time of the transfer, the full population of the Fort Chipewyan Cree Band (now MCFN) and about half of the Chipewyan Band’s population resided at Peace Point and Birch River/House Lake within the Park. In oral histories, Elders note several Dene family names that are now typically included on MCFN’s list of family names, and the 1946 annuity paylist indicates the family names and total number of family members of those who were transferred: Adams, Baptiste, Beaulieu, Bouchier, Cheezie, Dene, Evans, Fontain, Freizie, Gladue, Nadary, Piche, Poitras, Ratfat, Sepp, Shortman, Simpson, Trippe de Roche, Tourangeau, Vermillion, Waquan, Watsharay, and William.⁴

McCormack argues that the establishment of the Registered Fur Management Area (RFMA) system, often referred to as traplines, outside Park boundaries in 1942, may have driven Dënesųłıné leaders within the Park to request the transfer.⁵ The punitive nature of the prevailing wildlife management system—especially its power to expel people from harvesting areas within the Park if they were perceived to be breaking rules—put people living within the Park at risk of hardship and hunger. Tensions between harvesters within and outside the Park rose after 1926, as permitting rules limited access to the Park and resources outside the Park grew scarce due to an influx of fur trappers from the south of the province during the Great Depression. With the RFMA system established, places where people could trap outside the Park were effectively unavailable to Park residents, including those who lost their permits and were expelled for any reason after 1942. Furthermore, those Dene and Cree families living in the Park in the 1940s had little hope of establishing a reserve within the Park to protect their rights (MCFN did not obtain reserve land at Peace Point until 1986), partly because officials claimed that those living in the Park already had special privileges that others did not and that they were adequately provided for: “the Park is a wonderful game reserve for them and they have good hunting and trapping privileges,” wrote one official in 1945.⁶ Because of these unique challenges, McCormack and Sandlos argue that Dene people living in the Park were forced to “throw in their lot” with the Cree Band and that leaders requested the transfer as an act of desperation to protect members within Park boundaries. McCormack suggests that, given that Cree and Dene people within the Park shared common interests and had longstanding peace treaties and kinship connections already in place, an alliance through a band transfer made sense.⁷

The oral histories shared below suggest more complicated dynamics were at play. Some Elders believe that the transfer was forced by the Parks administration and Indian Affairs and may have been a deliberate effort to further limit who could access the Park. Several also contend that only a small number Indigenous leaders knew about the transfer, but there was little to no consultation with those residents who were most affected by the transfer. Some Elders and members believe that the transfer was intended to remove Dene people altogether from their rights and territories in the Park by cutting off kinship connections between those Dene families who had access to the Park and those who did not . Many Dënesųłıné people within or outside the Park did not know the change had occurred, and to this day do not know how it happened. “There’s no documentation that shows that our Chiefs negotiated and allowed for that to happen, because they would never have done that,” Leslie Wiltzen stated. Chief Adam also notes: “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 of this. All they were told [was] that if you want to stay in a park, you become Cree band. If not, leave. That was her consultation.” Thus, as Elder Horace Adam explained, people were left with no choice but to transfer bands in order to maintain access to their harvesting areas within the Park: “They told them they could move or they become the Cree band. So most of them did become Cree band just to keep their land, their traplines. That’s what happened.”

Some members, like Leslie Wiltzen, believe the decision was in part intended to reduce Indian Affairs’ administrative labour by consolidating multiple communities with claims to the lands in the region. Ray Ladouceur’s oral history suggests the transfer was the result of administrative oversight and ignorance about the differences between the communities, because families within the Park were fluent in both languages and were often also closely connected by marriage: “They [the administrators] didn’t know that and because they [the Dene people in the Park] spoke Cree, I guess, ‘oh, they’re all Cree in Birch River,” [so] that part of the country, that area they took for Crees. And Dene was out of there.” According to these oral histories, those who did not change their membership in 1944 were told they had to leave the Park and relocate to Big Point, Old Fort, Jackfish Lake, Point Brulé, or Poplar Point. Some families who were evicted had to move several times to maintain an adequate livelihood. Thus, Park policies of division and exclusion displacing Dene peoples from their lands and severing their family connections became further entrenched. What may have seemed to be a minor decision, made with just “the stroke of a pen,” had profound and long-lasting effects on the community.

ACFN members’ family histories suggest that women often bore the brunt of the impacts of this transfer. Several oral histories shared for this book explain that Dene women who married outside of the Nation or married non-Status men—thereby losing their Status under the Indian Act—before the transfer took place were not permitted to return to their family homes and family members within the Park later in life. This was the case for Helene Piche, Chief Allan Adam’s grandmother, and Elizabeth Flett, Garry Flett’s mother, whose stories are related below. The combination of the 1944 membership transfer and the gender-based discrimination of the Indian Act’s Indian Status rules meant that several Dene women and their families lost access to their homelands within the Park and were severed from their kin. Their descendants still experience and feel the impacts of these exclusions. For those who had to transfer because they refused to move out of the Park, the forcible identity change had long-lasting, harmful effects. Alice Rigney explained that some MCFN members maintain their connections to their Dënesųłıné heritage: “the families here in Fort Chip are aware, you know, the Simpsons know they’re Denes, the Tourangeaus, the Grandjambs, the Piches, the Ratfats, you know, they know, but it was the government that made them that.” Chief Adam stated that this knowledge is painful: “how much of Mikisew members suffered the burden that I suffer when our people got ripped apart? . . . You know, the struggle of being Mikisew Cree First Nation when their heart belongs to Dene.”

The oral testimonies shared in this chapter contains members’ general reflections on and histories of the membership transfer and relates specific family histories. These stories suggest that the membership transfer, regardless of the intentions behind it, divided families and the community, disconnected many members from their heritage and language, entrenched existing government-imposed separations between the people and their territories, and led to long-term emotional trauma and harmful impacts on health and well-being. Furthermore, some Elders suggest that the population loss had long-term political impacts for the First Nation. With a reduced population, they suggest ACFN’s bargaining power at government tables has decreased and that the Nation receives reduced per-capita government transfer payments. Nevertheless, ACFN members and some of their Dënesųłıné kin living in the Park boundaries are adamant that, despite this traumatic event, their identities as Dene will never disappear. As Donalyn Mercredi summarized, “If you’re born a Dene, you’ll always be a Dene.”