Jack fish lake
Fort Chipewyan
Alberta
The Chief of the Indian Department
Ottawa
20th February – 1927
Dear sir :-
I hope you with not mind me over this letter to you but I have been waiting long to hear from you that I think you have forgotten all about me and my people from Fort Chipewyan. Four years ago I went to Edmonton on purpose to see you about my people and my country. Times were hard then but now they are worse, My people are very miserable because they cannot make loving anymore from the fur. I told you in Edmonton that the white trappers where going to spoil my country and what I said then has come true. My country is just about ruined.
The white men they kill fur with poison they trap in the sand before the snow comes they breake the rat house and they break the beaver house and now there is hardly anything left and if you don’t do something for us – we doing to starve. I guess you thought the Buffalo Reserve would help us but it makes it harder for us because all the trappers that come down the river can’t get into the Park to trap – and it is hard for them to get past Fort Smith so they stop in my country and try to crowd my people my people out. It is no good me and my people going into the Buffalo Park- there are enough Indians in there now – lots of them are starving too. For a long time now I have been begging for a Reserve for me and my people at Jack fish Lake and we still want this very badly. I hope you won’t mind me writing this to you but it is no good sending this letter to Mr. Card he does not seem to try to help us. Why doesn’t he come down here and try and stop these trappers doing wrong to us. No one seems to care what happens to us.
There are lots of men here looking after Buffalo. No one looking after us. We only see Mr. Card once a year and then only for a few hours.
Why can’t we have someone in Fort Chipewyan that would look after us.
No one seems to care if we starve or not. Sometimes the Police give us a little rations if we go for – but we cannot live on that all the time. Since the fur has left the country you don’t know how poor we are, not only in food but clothing and blankets too. The traders cannot keep us any longer, we owe them big debts now and can’t pay them.
If this country had been left to us there would still be fur today and we would not be so poor and miserable today.
The white trappers come here and kills all he can then moves to another country. We cannot move and we don’t want to leave our fathers father’s to live here and we want our children to live here when we die. Jackfish Lake used to be rat country but they can’t get a chance to breed up because there are more trappers than rats. If you will give us this country for a Reserve and someone to help us look after it will save me and my people from starvation. Thirty years ago it was a fine country because just the Indians lived in it.
The white men and half breeds start to come and then everything is spoiled. Can’t you please let me and my people have this little bit of country – and then with someone to help us look after it the fur will come back like it was 30 years ago and our children will not starve. From Jackfish Lake it is not far to the Buffalo Park and we like our Reserve to join to that line. And from Jackfish Lake we would like to go to the big lake because there we can catch the fish. We are afraid to ask for too much hunting land for our Reserve because you may not give us what we want, but we want to have some land to call our own where we can hunt and fish and grow a little potatoes. If we get this Reserve the white trappers and the half breeds cannot bother us as to as we have someone here to look out for us. The Hudson Bay the traders and the mission know how poor and miserable my people are getting and they all sign a letter asking you to help me and my people. This makes five letters I have had my interpreter write for me and I do hope and pray that this one is going to the right place and that you will give us our Reserve.
Yours truly
Jonas Laviolette
Chief of Fort Chipewyan Indians