The following interview is with Frank Meuse, former Chief of the L’sitkuk (Bear River) First Nation, Bear River Nova Scotia in January of 1992. The interview was conducted by Trudy Sable as part of a Canadian Parks Service, Atlantic Region Traditional Sources Study to document and develop themes relating to Mi’kmaw historical presence in federal parks throughout the Maritimes. This research was written up in a report entitled Traditional Sources Study and submitted to Canadian Parks Service, Atlantic Region, February 28, 1992.

The archiving of this and other interviews was sponsored by the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Center with funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Aboriginal Language Initiatives Program, awarded in 2018. 

TS:        But I should tell you what I’m doing today.

FM:      Yeah, I was gonna ask you your position on this.

TS:        Yeah, what they did is they hired me to do a three-month study of Parks systems, as much as I can, to see what programs exist now within the Parks system that represent Native history or anything, any Native cultural heritage or anything. And whether those programs can be expanded or added on to add more Native content, and they also asked me to look for potential sites that could be recognized, but it’s significant nationally, significant as you were saying, and to talk to leaders of the Mi’kmaw representatives.

FM:      I think, you know, just over the last few years there’s been recognition of Native involvement in different areas, and I guess I’m actually quite ignorant to what actually goes on in Parks for whatever reason, and I’m glad that I’m here now, getting the opportunity have input. What I look at and what seems to be some of the things I’ve been hearing is that  people that approach us, I don’t know if they’re being forced into approaching Native leaders and so on to have input, you know, and the first thing I say to them, I say well, if we can’t go all the way, we don’t want anything to do with it. And, so somebody who comes from Parks, like some of these questions, some I don’t know if I can be able to address them or answer them without having more input from the community, but there’s some things I thought that I could maybe address from my own personal perspective as being Chief of the reserve.

So basically, like the first question that was asked, “What broad theme about Native American culture and histories do you feel are most important to have represented by the Parks’ systems?”  And I automatically sort of indirectly answered  right off the bat, I just feel we would like to have more involvement to the area where, we as Native people because of certain parks I guess—it wouldn’t apply to all parks but  Kejimkujik Park is a very prime example of where there’s so much history, Mi’kmaw history, and the Park evolves around that that we feel that it’s almost to the point where it should be joint management. That we go hand in hand and share everything, not just projecting Native history, but having our Native people trained or whatever to the point where we are managing that park because of the history there and things that are being there and the things that are being…I guess they’re learning. Every year, they’re finding something new about it, finding new areas, finding new things. It seems like we always get the information after the fact, you know, and I just feel like we’d like to be there and involved in it.

TS:        Who do you think should do that training? I’m asking for a good reason, cause it’s an issue.

FM:      I think it should be both. I think it should be…same thing, it should be joint…people from the Native community teaching some of the things, and I also feel that maybe the non-Native expertise could be teaching in certain areas too. It should be just sharing it, you know, going hand in hand. Not one being above the other. And now we’ve just basically, over the last year, we’ve just made contact with them.

TS:        With Keji?

FM:      Yeah. I’ve known Peter for a fair amount of time. We talked about things and bought baskets.  Just last year I met with him for the first time and looking at the petroglyphs and talked with Jean–I was quite impressed with Jean. She did a very good presentation on the trail walk.

TS:        Does she, I was just thinking about her, I’m about to meet with her tomorrow. I mean I would see her as someone who would actually be able to train other Mi’kmaq in interpretation, for instance.

FM:      Oh yeah, most definitely.

TS:        Is she interested in doing that? Because what I hear from Parks is we’re ready, we’re willing to do this, but we’re, like at Port Royal, there’s all different potentials that we could possibly (inaudible) and they’re feeling is if you came with a program in mind and the people who knew the history and program and how it would be done, and if it worked well, do it. And I think they’re waiting for a (Inaudible)

FM:      I think this is where there’s a little bit of difference in feelings from mine own personal perspective. My feelings towards Fort Anne and Port Royal are yes, grant you, there were Native involvement at times, but it’s the non-Native histories basically that they’re trying to preserve there, where Kejimkujik park is more nature, and I feel that we have more history, a lot of our culture there that we are seeing for the first time too that’s being uncovered. So, for us to put together a package to put into Fort Anne or Port Royal, it would not be on my priority list.

TS:        So you wouldn’t really…if they, say, they genuinely tried to equal out history much more and say, this was idea and tried to show the total picture of the interaction between the French and the Mi’kmaq, would you…

FM:      Yeah, we would look at something like and be based on after European contact, or whatever it may be, the historic, the coming together of the two nations. I find, and like I was saying, I just feel like the park was there before the Europeans ever came there, and we feel more stronger towards the park.  I would rather look at the park first and Port Royal secondary, in sequence, I guess.

TS:        So really work with Keji cause there’s much more open feel there.

FM:      Yeah. This is my own personal feelings. I don’t have, I don’t know if that’s the same feelings that I would get from the band members.

TS:        I’d be curious. Cause that’s, uh, cause Parks wants people, you know, ready and willing to expand the program, but they want to know that the Mi’kmaq are willing or whatever, right?

FM:      Same ol’ scenario I mean, it’s just a landmark for us here. We don’t visit Port Royal or Fort Anne on a regular basis, we hardly know what goes on there as far as events throughout the year. We’ve been approached by them a couple times for different things, but it’s not like it’s an ongoing thing that we [realize ?]the contact people there.  I’d probably say we’re more involved with Keji Park directly and indirectly than the other two historical sites, because of the fact that we still use Keji park for things that’s been passed down for centuries. We still have canoeing trips that we end up coming in from the back end, like we leave here and go back through here and we’ll end up coming into Keji Park. And you know, I didn’t know till just a couple years ago here that you had to go get registered with Keji Park and all this stuff. We’ve been travelling that country for years and we’ve never known to go and register. The last few years we’ve been going in from this end, going into the park then going back to some of the back country and gone in and actually said we’ll be at site A and site B at such and such a time just for the sake of our monitoring purposes. It’s cute. [laughs]

TS:        It’s sort of like a cartoon, isn’t it? [laughs]

FM:      It would make a great cartoon.  I think Peter was a little bit shocked too, when he found that we were traveling that country and not telling him. It was interesting.

TS:        Just finishing one last thing with Port Royal, the thing when you can go ahead and start a developing program to incorporate more Native perspective or whatever. Do some a camp or encampment or whatever. Would you be interested or not? Would you rather we didn’t do it or would you rather…

FM:      Not personally.  I probably wouldn’t but I’d try not to give off any negative vibes to the band members if the wanted to participate. Or other bands, not saying that if a band from Cape Breton, New Brunswick or any place wanted to participate that I’d have no problem with that. 

TS:        Basically because it’s sort of overshadowed by European, uh..

FM:      I feel. You know, I’m saying this is my own personal feelings and it may not feelings of the entire band might have.

TS:        Well, it’s interesting, because when I was at Louisburg, it was actually one of the staff at Louisburg voiced that concern that there were a number of Mi’kmaq in Eskasoni that really wanted to do something at Louisburg and  it was a Parks person who said well, fine, but I feel like they’re going be overshadowed no matter what just because you have these huge European buildings here and that’s gonna to… better to work something separately, that Louisburg could then be a springboard like [inaudible]

FM:      I guess we’d look at it like an investment point of view, if we were to be allowed to set up a retail outlet or something, a wholesale resale, there might be a concept there that could uh, you know plus with that there’d be the compromise that we would, if they wanted something to attract tourists, which seems to be the main thing that we would act out a charade, or do a craft or demonstrate crafts. Seems to always be a price to pay. We went  all through this with a theme park. We got the same results. Before they actually opened we approached the theme park saying we feel that this has potential. It would be a good outlet for us, for a vehicle for us to move our crafts, and other things we’d like to display or whatever. They had this concept that they would not be inviting entrepreneurs or anybody to…they would hire crafts people to produce the crafts, to show the crafts, but they would not actually let somebody go in there and have free reins. But we’re not here as a [inaudible]; we’re here as a community, and so it’s a little different approach because they were being approached by individuals that were looking…And so they went their first year and ended up showing a deficit, and the next year they came back to us and said do you want your retail now? We got it built and everything for you. And so we did. We did have somebody there, the stipulation was that we have somebody there during their open hours of the park displaying crafts and along with that we could sell our items, and it worked out quite well. I could see that continuing. I guess we’d probably use the same mentality, the same approach, if Port Royal or Fort Anne approached us to do something like that. It’s all based on that [inaudible] laughs). No, I think the days of us being just not being too harsh, but being exploited I guess, is gone.

TS:        You just don’t want to be a tourist attraction?

FM:      No, no.

TS:        That was Danny Paul said, “Don’t  show us making baskets”. That was the opening line of my interim report

FM:      I gotta go fill this… did I mark it down. We did a story on forest management, now they’re gonna  come down taking pictures of us making baskets because of the relationship there, we’re doing forest treatments and to some degree they’re quite unique. To some extent, they’re here doing an exploratory tests on planting hard wood trees, ash trees that we use for making baskets, so what they’re gonna do is take some pictures of the saplings that we planted and take some pictures of somebody making baskets to show the relationship, which is not too bad but it’s something similar to what you just said. You don’t want to be projected as the world’s arts and crafts people. It goes a little deeper than that. And it’s the same, it’s quite broad. We’re not just talking parks and historical sites. It’s becoming much broader than that as you must have seen and heard on the media. We’re talking with the Department of Natural Resources on joint management for conservation reasons, dealing with the fisheries, and the same thing. They have a tendency of just wanting to throw some crumbs at the indigenous to keep them happy for a while. It’s not working anymore. Same with the constitution debates, and so on so forth. We need more input, you know, If we are going to develop as communities and a nation again, we’ve got a long ways to go.

TS:        Yeah. It’s a rough one. You’ve gotta do a lot of work yourselves too.

FM:      Yeah, it’s a lot of growing pains and if we can, we as Native people have to come together and sit down and compromise and just speak with one voice, and if we can survive these little lumps and bumps and get together, it’s just gonna make us stronger. I can feel a lot of pressure coming in ‘92 for making some very big decisions. I still don’t know how we’re gonna iron them out.

TS:        You know, one of the things that was asked of me was to look at Parks management policies, land use policies, and then also to find out whether Native traditional…Well, I don’t know how you want to use traditional actually. I don’t know what that means anymore, I just don’t. The Native view of land use, or perspectives of land use practices,  and you just talking now about co-managing fisheries and forestry. Is there something specific that’s taking place?

FM:      And I get the feeling to some degree that Parks Canada is now, for one reason or another, wanting input from the Native community. I’m curious to know how much input they want from us. Do they want us to make a few suggestions to change a few signs, or change a few names, or to go and make baskets there, you know for one reason or another.  I’m curious how far do they want our involvement? My personal feelings are  if they want to involve us, then let’s get involved and sit down and talk about hiring and training Native people to work within the Parks system. Not just as interpreters, to show well, there is where Mi’kmaq did carvings in rocks and so on and so forth. I mean, let’s sit down and talk about the management of this park, the maintenance, the operations, the whole bit. If they’re sincere with what they’re doing, then they will  look at it with an open mind for future consideration

TS:        Now, are you talking about in terms of people just becoming part of the system period, or some particular perspective that you also would bring to that system, or does it matter?

FM:      I guess from an overview I’m looking at equal opportunity. Yes. Like I say, I have very strong feelings about the park at Keji, because of so much history there with our ancestors. Like I said, there is so much to be learned there because it’s a park, because it’s designated land that will not be abused or washed away by pulp companies, so on so forth. I feel that it’s something that whatever is put into it, whatever energy we as human beings put into it,  will not be washed away by somebody making decisions  saying maybe we’ll lease it out to  Mersey or somebody like that. Plus we still use it. I guess to some degree it’s so called tradition that we still for one reason or another, whatever attracts us to that area, we still use it, we still are doing the same things our great grandfather was doing. Maybe not for the same reasons, but it’s something that we do not even consciously. Cause I don’t know where, how, or what, how sincere Parks are, how far they wanna gonna go, that’s the bottom line. That’s where I thought maybe you might be able to help me.

TS:        Tell you how far they wanna go? Well they’re waiting to hear how far you want to go too, it’s a two way street. I’m just, my role is just to go and find that and say okay, this is what everyone’s saying. This is, for instance, what Keji could do. The sky’s the limit given…every Park talks about limited resources, that’s just a separate, basic issue Parks has to deal with. So, my report is just to  report what people have been saying. That’s supposedly what they want to hear, is this.

FM:      Cause I’ll always answer a question with a question. So basically what you’re saying is how far you wanna go, and I’m saying how far does Parks wanna go.

TS:        You know, I’m not part of the administration there. My feeling is they want to go pretty far, but I don’t know yet if they know yet what they’re asking, you know what I mean?

FM:      And I guess from our point of view, I am not sure how far we want to go. As far as me speaking on behalf of the people, I’m not sure how many people… I might say look, there’s all these opportunities right here at Keji Park for different positions, if anybody’s interested here’s yo[ur chance. But how many people we’re talking about is the same for fisheries and everything, it might only be two, three, four, five percent of the population who’s actually interested in that area. That’s something that would have to be defined.

TS:        By you, yeah.

FM:      I guess all I’m saying is …(Inaudible)

TS:        Yeah, I guess it’s everybody that has to define what they’re saying, because Parks is saying the same thing. Who’s willing, who’s ready, who will be trained, and who is trained.

FM:      There’s all other kinds of other things that will come into play when we go into a system like that, will they be creating a position for a Native person, or will somebody need to lose their position for a Native person to go in, there’s all this kind of politics and PR and stuff that will have to be taken into consideration. It’s a situation where I think all we really need at this present time is a line of communication that we are communicating more, especially where Parks seems, the people that are representing the Park now as far as the management so on and so forth, are very open as far as us approaching them.

TS:        Like Peter you mean?

FM:      Yeah, yeah. He’s become a very important person as far as I’m concerned, as far as a contact person and knowing, want you to know any information. He seems like he’s very dedicated to his work, and I’ve asked him questions and he’s promptly got to it and if he can’t get the answer right away he calls me and tells me why, and I find I really appreciate that. [inaudible] The Nova Scotia Museum has, for the past five years, has had in their possession, remains of three North Americans and they were found at the mouth of Bear River here.

TS:        You mean physical human remains? I didn’t know that.

FM:      I don’t know the exact dates, but a fellow by the name of Erskine, an amateur archeologist, one time came down here and found these little sites and brang ‘em back out or something, and he found a woman, an infant, and an adolescent. We’re talking full scale skeletons.  So, I don’t know what he did with them but he boxed em up and took them somewheres and the Nova Scotia Museums had them for the last five years, and now they want to give them back to the Native people. The bones are dated back before pre-Christian time and so that kind of puts us in a dilemma, and, like you say, we’re not sure how to classify traditional or whatever. Where we are sort of a strange situation is that we went back and looked at the original site where they were taken from, and we have made the judgement that it would be a bad decision to put them back because we’d have to disturb the ground. If we disturb the ground, it would be opening that area up where people could to be inquisitive about, “Well, what else is here?”  And so we decided, and plus erosion and stuff, things that, that  we felt that it would not be wise to put them back there. We thought that maybe we could bring them back to the reserve here and designate a certain area for traditional funerals, and we didn’t know if we would have the ways and means to protect that site or the time might come where it might become forgotten,  and then, all of a sudden, bang, we’d  be digging it up again thirty years down the road.

The other option that come to my mind was there is a burial ground out in Kejimkujik Park so I called Peter and asked him what he felt about it and what he said he would do was he would try to find through the records if that land was ever classified as sacred ground or designated ground for Christian burials or whatever. And if it hasn’t been, then, I guess, because these bones were before pre-Christian times, we could maybe bury them with a traditional ceremony and get them back in the ground as quickly as possible.

FM:      So basically what we’re saying if the land itself has not been consecrated, then there’s a possibility that after talking to some Mi’kmaw traditionalists and finding out…because I’m saying, I’m going under the assumption that these people had some sort of ceremony or ritual that was performed when they died, and so it’s…I don’t see any need to do another ceremony. I would say talk to the Mi’kmaw traditionalists and just find out about maybe purification and showing all due respect to Mother Nature and so on by maybe digging the grave site by hand or with shells, and doing a sweetgrass ceremony to purify the body and ward off any evil spirits, and to go barefoot. That’s basically what I think they’re going to tell me, I’m not sure, something along that line, and without doing any kind of big flamboyant ceremony or having the media there, and hundreds of people. I think you should just show a lot of discretion and just get them back to their rightful place, with all due respect. That’s my opinion. I’m not sure what the traditionalists are gonna tell me. That’s gonna take place this year, sometime.

Right now the Park is in full cooperation with us, and they are willing to accommodate us, and I think that’s very important, because I think it’s the way to go because of the fact that if it is, it’s an area where it is being patrolled on a regular basis, the petroglyphs are right there alongside of it,  and I think it would be the safest spot, especially now with surveys going around and having more input and all this stuff can be worked out. I guess with or without you coming here I was still going to proceed to make contact to get more information to work with Peter and try to develop some kind of relationship there that we can work towards with him, so…the time’s just about right on.

TS:        What does Peter have to say? I mean, have you talked about anything specific with him or is he just generally…

FM:      We’re walking very softly. We don’t, we have a very good line of communication, we probably don’t communicate as much as we should. There’s other people that works under his supervision, I guess, that would like to make contact with us, so we can put faces with names, and so on so forth. As far as trying to project an image of Native people within the Parks and stuff like that, I can see little things we can do to sort of enhance things. What I’d like to see is little monuments and signs made up with phrases and short speeches done by some of the Native people within the communities that have a great impact in relating to Mother Nature, and just human relations. I guess little things can build up and give us a better projection, I guess. I’m just trying to think of some other things.

TS:        One thing that fascinates me is all the place names in the stories that come out of those. That seems like it would be useful (inaudible)

FM:      Yeah, you can name the roads and the bridges.                               

TS:        No no, the stories involved in the place names, has a  story. Why it was named that way.

FM:      Yeah, once you get the interpretation of what the Mi’kmaw name is for a certain area, then you get a story. Because it’s usually a whole story even though it’s usually just one word. And how the place got named and so on so forth. That’s always a curiosity about most people. I’ll tell you,  our name has become very, quite a conversation piece.

TS:        What is it?

FM:      L’sitkuk.

TS:        Oh, I don’t..

FM:      L’sitkuk or L’sitkuk. We found it on an old map. It didn’t have Bear River, it said L’sitkuk. So we adopted it, but we still use L’sitkuk, Bear River. We haven’t found yet a translation of what L’sitkuk means, other than some of the Elders just say it was a place name. It’s just something that was said, you know, and has no actual meaning, I guess. Couldn’t understand the concept of it, why would the place be named.

[Woman enters, talks with Trudy about embroidery on her sweater]

TS:        Well I just was fascinated because when I was visiting Gilbert Sewell up in Papineau, he started launching into you know (inaudible) all these names and telling me stories, it’s a wonderful way to talk about history and the land.

FM:      There’s quite a few stories on the Bear River itself.

[Interruption, tape paused, resumes later-]

FM:      Because of you know the fishing industry becoming an issue now with Natives and with DFO and things like this, there’s talks of joint management in areas of restocking so on and so forth and this could be all part of a package that maybe we should be sitting down and including the parks, such as Keji Park, because they do have a fishing enhancement program there and they probably have all kind of data that we could be using for areas other than parks that could be implemented, resource people, where and how they buy their stocks. My theory is that when it comes to recreation you know, I say the same restrictions I guess that is applied to national parks should be provincial wide. They only allow you to keep five fish per person per day, and the situation with the fishing industry is now, the freshwater fishing industry, it’s almost to the point of extinction. Most of the fish now in Nova Scotia are hatchery fish that have come from some hatchery of some sort of some kind. So, it’s not like you have a whole lot of wild species out there to play with. So, I think that’s an element that could be looked at, as far as a base to be talking from. Same with hunting. I know you go into the park, and as you enter the park you see a lot of sign of wildlife, and so on and so forth,  but it’s the same as driving in the country you see a lot of deer and things around, farmhouses and stuff like that but once you get into the back country it’s almost non-existent, for many reasons, you know, the vegetation, probably the contamination of the waters in Nova Scotia has a big effect on wildlife.

TS:        Deforestation.

FM:      Yeah, plus that. That’s another area that has really just fascinated me very much, is the forest management. I’ve been working I guess fairly close with the Canadian Forest Association and different representatives and looking at and understanding I guess along with myself being educated, why do they do certain things. I realize that in some areas and some aspects of it is all based on economics, but then there’s this other whole aspect that now that we’re starting to spread out into private sector and to reserve lands and looking at doing forest management plans and trying to revitalize and do restoration to the forests and trying to enhance it. I get a whole new feeling for it. Not that I didn’t have a lot of respect for things out in nature, and my own personal belief is that everything has a purpose being here. If we as human beings can humble ourselves to say, that rock has as much right to be here, or that tree has as much right to be here as we do, can give you a whole new perspective on life in general. It can be applied to just about everything you do.

I find sometimes I get into a situation where the talks have become very complicated, very hard to understand and I’ll leave that situation and take that same scenario and apply it and simplify it and end up coming up with an answer or a solution that I can feel comfortable with and then go back to the talks and have a much better feel for it.

I’ve been trying to base all of our growth, our economic growth and things like that on being very selective of what we implement into our strategies as far as economic development and stuff like that. It’s nice to have both if you can get it, have your short-term projects, and show a return on what you’re actually doing today, but it’s also nice to be able to have something there for our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren.

TS::        That’s the kind of thing that Mi’kmaw would consider to be traditional practice, isn’t it?

FM:      Yeah. It’s something that you know, as we progress as a band, as a community, we’re progressing out, we’re doing more PR work, we’re enhancing our management, we’re getting higher management group, we’re…

[Break at end of first tape]

FM:      I guess we’ve talked about that on several occasions, on where and who do you classify as Elders of a community. I don’t sometimes categorize an Elder as the oldest person of the reserve. We do, yes, we do talk with them because they have so much to offer and it’s been our way of keeping history data anyway, because it’s verbal, it’s all been passed down. It’s something that this person had heard from their grandparent, and their grandparent, heard from their grandparent.

[Unidentified Speaker: So you should ask about Richard (inaudible]

FM:      Yeah, he was one of our Elders. He was my main source of information, and uh, he was well respected and he used to do a lot of things for us as far as presentations and things. From his own personal perspective, and like you say, a lot of people look at him in that way. And I dunno, from this reserve’s point of view, I feel like there was an era of time where there wasn’t much growth going on; we kind of stagnated. I think we’re back on the right track again, and before, like you (unclear) say, we have gone through a lot of growing pains, we make a lot of mistakes, and we learn from them, too. The sky’s the limit now, it seems. It seems like there’s nothing that we look at and say we can’t accomplish we work together.

TS:        These corporations with the fisheries and the forestry, is that something you initiated or they initiated, or is that political, or is that some recognition that you all had something to offer, or…

FM:      I guess basically what happened was that were talks about…We have treaty rights, and we’ve taken them to court for what seems like years, and there’s always being taken to court for one reason or another, or somebody in the province every year is taken to court for a fishing violation, or a hunting violation, and the courts would never make decisions or rulings on things like this. They always found some way of staying out of court. And so basically what happened is it got to the point where they were talking and, no problem, food fishery for your own personal consumption was never a problem or an issue. The problems came where it became a commercial venture, I guess, in the Native populations. So that’s when all the red flags come out. So basically, all that we done was just went up to that point, we hadn’t yet talked commercialization, but we had sat down as a band and we discussed what we would like to obtain in as far as food fishery. So we approached the local DFO office and with all due respect with both sides involved, and without jeopardizing any of the talks that were going on at higher levels, we presented them a letter of intent from the band stating such things that we would be going out into the Bay of Fundy, that we would for the sake of conversation, for the sake of monitoring purposes, we would abide by the times set forward by DFO for the regular lobster fisherman; we would set a certain amount of traps in a certain area.

And what they’ve done is went behind us or basically tagged our traps with a certain tag number so when their officers was out patrolling and they saw these buoys, they’d haul them up and see our tag and say oh, that belongs to their band, and (unclear) set it back down. So, we actually went and made contact with the local fishing, found out where they set their traps and we did not intrude on their various, as kind of unwritten rules and stuff like that, and I think they respect us for that. And they actually went as far as to say well, nobody’s setting traps in that area and it’s a pretty good spot, so they actually went and told us where to set these lobster traps which we appreciate very much, and as far as our own personal consumption, we had ample enough lobster for the year (interruption)

 And so, we went from there. Same thing applied to scallop fishing, but on the same hand, they had mentioned most of the talks up the line will be revolving around salmon industry. At the time I just said, “Look, it’s too much of a controversy in this area because the only real salmon industry we have here is being provided by the hatcheries in the area. They’re restocking most of the rivers and then you get your return on whatever number of smelts they put in.” And, we didn’t wanna intrude on that, but we would like to be added to discussions where we, as a band a little later on, basically same thing joint management that we could sit down and talk about our needs, as the band, as far as what amount of salmon we would need to sustain ourselves and that we would be satisfied with. So that would mean we would have to look at growing more fish to put into the rivers, maybe doubling the actual spot that was going in the river so that would allow us taking a number out of there, maybe allowing the Native food fishery 100 salmon, the anglers 100 salmon, and work it that way. That seems to be all coming to, you know, it’s going to become a reality very soon (later?) this year if we’re looking at restocking some of the rivers with double the stock for the band and for the anglers, and works onto something, and that’s basically the same attitude that I would like to apply to the parks. How far do we wanna go? Sit down, look at it from a realistic point of view, saying, “Well, year one maybe we would like to get involved with the parks to the point where we would like to see maybe 3 or 4 people employed with the park doing certain specific jobs relating to our needs.” If it means just creating employment then so be it, you know; that’s what we decide on. I think there’s lots of information from both sides, that we can exchange information; we’d probably learn from each other. And where it goes from there is something, but I guess just opening up that line of communication and start talking see where it goes from there, you know.

TS:        So if Parks came to you and said, well you know, we’d like to create more jobs for the community, but you need to figure out who and how people are going to be trained first…

FM:      Like I say, I’m looking at this from a very broad view. Grant you, I would love to see if there were individuals within this band that wants to get involved, then that would be the case, might even take priority over whatever else. If we approached, let’s say Kejimkujik Park and there were other bands that wanted to get involved—Acadia band, Cambridge, whatever other bands—and we all come down and sit together and say this is what we’re gonna do, and that might be…

TS:        But I know there are, you know, wonderful people. They’re saying at Port Royal there was a woman who did porcupine quillwork and they said she was really wonderful. She’s a wonderful communicator, which is really what they’re looking for when it comes to applications, that can really communicate. So, it’d be really finding those people.

FM:      I am just saying that if there’s a mechanism in place that does that, we’d get a better understanding of the job description or something, then we can pick our best to send there for that  position and if there was things that was needed to make that person better for the position then we’d look at ways and means of doing it.

TS:        What’d you think of last year at Port Royal with the interpretation program? Was there somebody from this reserve? How did that go?

FM:      As far as I can tell it went quite well.

TS:        There’s a guy named Bill Whitkin who just did his whole PHD thesis on land settlement, pre-European land settlement.

FM:      Uh-huh. When I talk to groups of people and stuff, I say we have two classifications of land in Nova Scotia. Those two areas are disputed and undisputed land. (laughs)

TS:        It’s sort of funny to be doing this work when I really contemplate it. I mean, we sort of look at it from present day perspective.

FM:      Yeah, yeah. And that’s the way I was when I come into this position. I was elected to this position, I was almost like hey, I just wanna be left alone, I just wanna be part of the community, I just want to do my own thing, and don’t bother me. All of a sudden, they just come and grabbed me. I don’t know if it was because of my business background or what, but when I come into this position I looked out the rez, from a business point of view I was looking at it living in the 1990s and saying, well, this is what I need to survive, I’ll just apply that to operating the band and all of a sudden I felt myself being drawn in to this whole cultural and traditional way of life and how is it applicable to this day and age, and how much compromise can be made from all points of view and it’s hard, you know. You get one person saying I want to go back, and the next person is I want to go forward and where do you draw the line? Where do you get your source of energy and your direction when you get such a vast, you know, points of view and to try to get that compromise. This is where I was saying that we try to move forward and progressing as a band and trying to get recognition that we are in a position where we have financial management, or a sound financial management, but also, on the other hand we are trying to bring up and trying to revive our culture at the same time, but it contradicts itself every time we turn around.

TS:        You know some of these questions, there’s one of them they ask about traditional land views and everything, and one women the other day said to me you know, I don’t know if we have any traditional land views or perspective, where as another Mi’kmaw said we live in harmony, protect what we need and went on and on about Mi’kmaw keeping the land, so I’m trying to figure out..

FM:      It’s the old song and dance. I mean the governments, they wait till something’s been exploited to the point it’s not even worth bothering with then they say okay Native people, you can have it now, you can have it back. And that’s what they’ve done with hunting. The deer population, they do their stats from road kills and they say well, the populations up there, but it 90,000 hunters goes out in the woods and out of that, like last year, I think it was 20,000 or 30,000 deer shot. So I don’t know the ratio, or what they classify as a high animal population. I would say, from what I see, if there’s 1 or 2 deer in every square mile of land in land Nova Scotia, it’s probably the maximum. Granted that fluctuates in certain areas but overall, I wouldn’t say it’s any more than that. So it’s like, I don’t know. It makes me some mad when I hear these guys talking, same with the moose. It’s to the point where I can see them becoming extinct very quickly if something happens to, like it’s such a sensitive balance right now of monitoring and stuff like that. They got it right down so fine, well I shouldn’t say that, cause they haven’t got it down fine, but they’re just estimating and stuff I guess. They’re to the point now where they’re saying they might have to put out a (bow law?), What they do is they come out and say they’re gonna put a (bow law) on, but most, well yeah I guess I could use the term most of the hunters that go there, especially the provincial hunt, are looking for big racks, you know, the meat is secondary.

TS:        Are you talking about all hunters?

FM:      I’m saying the majority of the hunters that go there are looking for big pans and so on for wall mounts and stuff like that. The meat is secondary. From the Natives point of view, we are looking at the meat. We are trying to, I guess, and this is looking at an area where I’m saying we’re trying to bring back our culture, we’re trying to bring back the feeling of sharing that we are a community, the first year that we went we sent a hunting party specifically to hunt moose to bring back to the reserve so that we could divide up amongst every household on the reserve, and that’s what we tried to do. But as time progressed, and I felt this last year, it kind of I guess, not retracting what I’m saying cause that’s my own personal feelings but we could’ve, as Native people, had better control over the monitoring of how many moose was taken and where they went and who received the moose and so on so forth for our own personal use and also for the Department of Natural Resources to use for the monitoring service. Getting back to where I was the last time I was talking to the Department of Natural Resources they were saying that the bulls are going down for the fact that there were more bulls shot than cows and they were hoping that the hunters would take cows but they’re not gonna get that because of the idea, the mentality of the hunters that they’re letting in there that are after the trophy bulls not after…like I say, the meat’s secondary. This is where I’m saying, with this joint management gig, I would have no problem sitting down with the province and coming back and selling something to the band, saying we’re gonna go up there this year and shoot nothing but cows. And this is where I’m saying we need this kind of communication going on, we need to sit there together at one table and discuss this and how we’re gonna deal with it for whatever reason, conservation or preservation or whatever it may be. But to get that through, it’s hard. You can always be knocked down as one voice.

TS:        So, from the point of view of Parks, are you willing to come part way if they…?

FM:      Oh, most definitely. With or without your visit, I will still continue on and I’m hoping that, I don’t know what the finer results will be as far as our land claims going on. I would hope that by that time that if that ever comes around that we’re probably involved with the park way before that. You know, maybe that’s gonna be the answer. There’s other things that take priority and takes most of my time. I wear about 12 different hats in the run of a day, it’s hard for me to take something and just study it to the point where I really understand it. I seem like I can only get a general feel for a situation. But I’m wide open for suggestions for any kind of line of communication that we can make with Parks officials or whoever, the government, whoever it may be as far as working towards whatever.

TS:        Do you think it should come from Parks first?

FM:      It’s gonna happen one way or the other, you know. If it goes to the point where land claims come into play, then It’ll probably be us approaching them, or our lawyers approaching each other, whatever it may be. I don’t want to see it become bitter, or I don’t want to see it come to the point where people’s jobs are gonna be on the line or any of this other stuff. I don’t think it will. I think it’ll be worked out very softly, very rationally. I think we are a very approachable people, but we have made contacts already, and I think we’ve got a lot of communication going on. I don’t think there’s any bad feelings, we have a very good understanding of each other’s position. And like I say, who knows, we might sit down to talk and might find out the band members don’t give two hoots in hell what goes on up in that park, they don’t want any involvement, they got enough to deal with here. That could be the bottom line. Who knows. I mean. From my point of view, I can’t seem to gain enough understanding and education on whatever’s available. I try to understand everything that’s going on, and all the different opportunities that might be beneficial to the band. So, if Parks approached me, or if we for instance, with this burial, I feel very secure, or I can live with the idea that these remains be put in Keji park. I have no problem with that, and I think that’s a prime example of how I feel towards the park. And like I say, we have communicated for different reasons. They contacted us here to ask at the time, they were doing some kind of program during the summer, a few days or a week of just bringing all the local crafts people so a lot of them demonstrate different crafts and stuff like that and they asked for our participation, if we had anybody who’d be interested in going there and things like that. It’s not like they’ve locked us out, they do send us…

TS:        Keji?

FM:      Yeah. Not just Keji but other parks and other people. Fort Anne, we talk with them a fair amount. Adam. Adam Melanson, is it? He’s called us on several occasions, he’s actually come to the reserve, things like that. I feel there’s all kinds of…I think things are going quite well. I don’t know if we, if something like this might give it a kick in the ass to be the sort of the start of the game, or whatever. It’s hard to say. I just don’t want to project that we want full control over the Parks or anything like that because that’s something that we don’t know much about, you know? If you were to put us in that situation what would happen? My point of view is that we need to walk very softly no matter which way we go, for the main reason is that uh, we are in a very sensitive time, I think, in our era we need a lot of Native support if we are gonna go forward. Especially when it comes to such issues as being part of the constitutional talks and so on so forth. So, I feel we’ve got to walk very softly and making sure that we’re not stepping on peoples toes and jeopardizing people’s positions. We need support; we need to exchange ideas and thoughts and information and knowledge so everybody has a better understanding of where we’re all coming from. It’s time for a smoke.

TS:        Are there people on the reserve who are actually pursuing degrees or areas on historic, or history.

FM:      Not on the reserve, but off at universities. (laughs). Yeah. Yeah, we have, actually we put a lot of emphasis on education the last few years and trying to promote some of our kids that are coming out of high school to try and help them in deciding which areas they’d like to go into. We’ve had some very good responses and we’ve had some people that have accomplished a lot. But, then you’ve got the old scenario that once they get a degree or something there’s not much for them to come back to the band for. What I’ve been really impressed with is the last 3 or 4 that graduated from university and come out of there with degrees, that they’ve stayed with the people at a higher level. Some of them have worked with CMM, the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, as advisors, some has gone to Indian Affairs and worked in that system. That’s all we can do for now until sometime that these different programs and things are implemented into, at the band level till are they going to be able to come back. And that’s something we’re working towards.  We’re looking for a little bit more control over the funding that is coming down from Ottawa to the band levels. There’s areas that it will be years before we will ever see the actual implementation of that to the band level. We’re looking at all different aspects of maybe what we’ve done to this point is, like with Tribal Council being an advisory service, that we have five or six bands evolving their own Tribal Councils that we have the expertise working within that system and they are available on request to the bands such as chartered accountants and civil engineers, and so forth—we have all those people here accessible to us. And so in the long run, it’s saving the day because it just wouldn’t be feasible for us to hire chartered accountants, and so forth, so it’s something that I would say when you start talking self-government and self-determination and doctors and lawyers and on reserve court system and things like that, from a small band’s perspective, we haven’t got that within our resources to implement such a system. We have to look at it as a joint venture with other bands, other smaller bands, and have a central location where these people will be accessible to the smaller bands.

TS:        Well, I think that’s…

FM:      I don’t know, I don’t think I answered many of your questions, I think I talked about everything else but.

TS:        We’ll see what happens. This is great.

-End of tape-