The following interview is with Daniel Christmas of the Maulpetu (Membertou) First Nation In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  Mr. Christmas is the former director of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians, and now a Senator. The interview was conducted at his office in Maulpetu in January of 1992 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 in Halifax, Nova Scotia with funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Aboriginal Language Initiatives Program, awarded in 2018. 

Note: The sound quality of this recording is poor but mostly audible. Construction was going on in the background during the interview, thus making sections difficult to hear. 

DC:      …Parks Canada did this consultation about this policy?

TS:        Sorry. Alexander Christmas, I saw what he wrote.

DC:      Right. And so, when we had that call (unclear), and we had all these policy documents sent to us. We don’t usually respond to them, we don’t. It’s something that, for the effort that we would put into it, we don’t usually get very much return. But this time around, we had several issues in the back of our minds, which, and you’ve probably seen (inaudible) and I guess the biggest thing that we (inaudible) was the whole issue of hunting rights and fishing rights in the province. Over the past two years, there’s been a number of successful court decisions the Mi’kmaq have brought forward. They recognized Mi’kmaq rights to hunt and fish in the province, but those rights were never at all reflected in the parks, especially where specifically at the Highlands Park, where it’s a…you have habitats (inaudible).

So, we had a situation this past fall, where a Mi’kmaw hunter did shoot outside the park boundaries, but in pursuit, pursued it into the park. Apparently, the wardens there gave the hunter a hard time. I don’t know if his carcass was seized or whether information was taken, but we know definitely charges were laid. There was a period of time there where at least we knew that the park wardens weren’t very sensitive to the whole issue of Mi’kmaq rights to hunt.

So that was one of the issues that we wanted to respond to in that call. We wanted to find out what it is Parks policy would recognize of Mi’kmaq traditional Aboriginal use up there of that land. We haven’t had a reply from them, mind you, (inaudible) but the policy now, the way it stands in the parks as I understand it, is that only way to have the rights recognized within the park boundaries is as the result of an Aboriginal land claim. So, the obvious question that is to us, does it take an Aboriginal land claim to recognize Aboriginal rights, or will these successful court cases and these hunting agreements which were developed with the province, are those sufficient recognition to allow Aboriginal people to traditionally harvest within the parks? So, we know hunting is one issue. The other issue is fishing. Now, right now…

TS:        Here it says… This is the one you read, right? (TS is looking at the policy)

DC:      Right, and that’s the policy.

TS:        That one is traditional…

DC:      “It says hunting, fishing, trapping may be terminated upon mutual agreement. This top part is where it actually says, “CPS will negotiate the nature and extent of Aboriginal people’s involvement in planning and management of the National Park, which is proposed within an area where a comprehensive land claim has been accepted for negotiations by the Federal Government.” So, what happens in Nova Scotia, the Federal Government has never accepted an Aboriginal land claim, (indistinct), but still, apart from those negotiations, you still have court cases, and the practice over the last 2 or 3 years where Mi’kmaq have actually hunted. And it seems so odd to have the National Park being the only territory, only part of our original territory, which Aboriginal people aren’t allowed to hunt. I’m not sure if this issue is more one of respect in honoring treaties and rights, or whether the Aboriginal people feel that they need to hunt within park territory. I don’t think the need is there to hunt within park territories.

TS:        You don’t think it’s there? Or, not necessarily

DC:      There’s enough outside park boundaries in order for people to gather and to hunt, but within the park boundaries, it would be very respectful at least to the Mi’kmaq Nation and to, at least to some of the other traditional practices that the Mi’kmaq have had, for instance, not only hunting and fishing but also gathering, for them to have access to the park, and to be able to go into the park at certain times or have the freedom to be able to go into the park to carry on traditional activities. But right now, any traditional activities within the park boundaries are not respected at all. For instance, a Mi’kmaw trying to fish within the park boundaries, you’d have to go through all the, you’d have to get a fishing permit and all that. For instance, Mi’kmaq in the province don’t need any kind of fishing permits at this point in time, but the park does require (indistinct). The National Park has fallen behind the times, and its policy hasn’t reflected into hunting and fishing. So, that’s one area we’d want to look at. And right now, the way that policy states, you sort of need to negotiate an Aboriginal land claim before you have these rights recognized. What we’re saying here is that we have court cases already that determined that. I mean, there isn’t a need to go through a full-blown Aboriginal land claim to be able to determine what those rights are.  So, that’s one concern we have. 

TS:        You mean in the court, where you established that you have the rights first of all? You mean, even if you claim the land itself, you already have those rights

DC:      Apart from an Aboriginal land claim, we have those rights. The Simon case, which was a Supreme Court of Canada decision in ‘85, was the main case involved in terms of hunting. And then, in March of 1990, there was a case called the Moose Harvest Trial here in Cape Breton, and all 14 hunters were acquitted. And (inaudible) hunting did take place in Hunter’s Mountain, which is adjacent to the park. So those are two prime cases that we’ve relied on. And in the last, over the last three years now, over the last two and a half years, we’ve had hunting agreements with the province which recognized those cases and tried to implement the right to hunt agreement. The province has recognized the right to hunt. In terms of fishing, this case we had back in March of 1990 called Denny, Paul, and Sylliboy, that case recognized the Mi’kmaq had an Aboriginal right to fish.  And those cases were in Cape Breton, a few cases in Cape Breton (inauidble) the Mi’kmaq. And right now, the Federal Government through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has recognized those cases. And so, in areas where they have jurisdiction, Aboriginal people have the freedom to go and harvest for food, and to some extent commercial as well. But I don’t know if DFO or the Natural Resources Department in the province, what the activities they have done over the past two years, it doesn’t appear to me that was reflected for instance in either Kejimkuji’jk or either in the Highlands.

TS:        And the national parks.

DC:      Yeah. Obviously, it should’ve been

TS:        Can I ask you a question there?

DC:      Sure.

TS:        As I go around, I’ve been talking to both Mi’kmaq people and Parks people, and I’m starting to hear the whole (Indistinct: story) you know, all the sides. I was just speaking with one man who said at a park, Kouchibouguac, who said he would have no problem with hunting. He said, that actually the matter of the poaching that goes on anyway period, is far worse than the number he sees of Native people hunting on that land. He said his problem is more their method of hunting and the safety involved in hunting, and then of course, each park set its… You know it depends on where you start in history, really. But now that the parks are in existence, and you know there’s certain habitats with rare species that we’re trying to protect and…  How would you see working with that kind of thing that the Parks is trying to do, from their point of view? Is there a meeting ground there? You know, people, the safety of people.  He said, if there were traditional ways of hunting, but, he said, not all Mi’kmaq use, you know, (might not be a big difference?) (inaudible). He said, I grew up on the Miramichi. He wasn’t putting anybody down, but he said, (now they’re using?) what do you call it? The sonar thing, the electronic, that kind of stuff. So, in a way, I don’t know if he’s referring to a romantic vision. I’m just trying to find what’s the reality too, to say, “We want to hunt and fish, we have that right”, which is true! And does that also mean no matter what style of hunting and fishing you use?

DC:      Yeah, that’s a common position today. I’ve heard that, we hear that quite often.

TS:        I haven’t heard this third part which is the answer. I hope you don’t mind!

DC:      Well, we usually call those things the “Noble Indian argument” where you have people who romanticize about the Indians, who go back to the 1750’s (indistinct). In fact, it is not so humorous, if it wasn’t for the fact the Attorney General of Nova Scotia used that very argument before the Supreme Court of Canada against our treaties. And basically, in our frame of mind, what it says to us is that if we signed the treaty in 1752 for the freedom to hunt and fish, then in 1991 we have to use the very same methods as if it were 1752. That’s basically what the argument is. It’s a ridiculous argument. For instance, if I got my driver’s license in 1974, does it mean that the only thing I’m allowed to drive are 1974 Fords and (Chevs) It’s the same logic. No, of course not. I mean, human society changes and evolves. It’s natural, it happens to all people.

TS:        But, you could also flip the argument around and say if we’re expected to live back then, then so are you! (laughing). So, get out your muskets! (laughter) Put away those pistols, those are your father’s! No, I just thought I would (indistinct)

DC:      Yeah, I hear that all the time. It’s basically a racist argument that says the Indian is still a savage, and if you’re gonna hunt, remain a savage and hunt as a savage. Basically, that’s what it is. And people basically make those statements, not out of malice but basically out of ignorance. They just don’t understand Aboriginal society. When they hear Aboriginal people hunting and fishing, right away it’s perceived as a threat upon the species or upon society. So, you have this other stereotype that any kind of activity involving some kind of dangerous weapon, involving an Aboriginal person, that right away that’s a threat to the environment and the people. And again, that’s a racist sort of stereotype. We’ve had a lot of difficulty with that. For instance, the first two years we had the hunting agreement, we had the wildlife associations all over us. Basically, the first agreement stated that the Aboriginal people had no bag limit for deer.

TS:        No what?

DC:      No bag limit for deer. And everyone else in the province has two, a bag limit of two per hunter. And so, we had this real vicious backlash that basically said, that we had people going up, for instance, carrying placards up in Hunter’s Mountain that said Mi’kmaq and “No unborn deer will be safe from the Mi’kmaq” and we had ridiculous things. And the media of course played on that and it was all across Nova Scotia soon that the Mi’kmaq were going out to slaughter the deer, that there will be no more deer left in the future because of this hunting agreement which has no bag limit for deer. And so, I was one of the people involved in negotiations back then. I have often raised the argument during negotiations, that if there was a bag limit for Mi’kmaq, then you would encourage mass killings of animals for useless purposes.  If you had this (inaudible) that you have a certain limit, then you want to go to the limit and beyond. And so, what we argued was that Aboriginal society never had a limit and we only took what we needed. Let that traditional control remain. Don’t interfere with traditional control. And so, the government took the risk and bought the idea. And when the final tallies came in at the end of the season, I think Mi’kmaq all across the province harvested something like 100, no more than 130 or 140 deer in the province. And the kill was something like 25,000 that year. The roadkill was 10 times higher than the Mi’kmaw kill. And, when those figures came out, it silenced the critics, but for a period of time until those figures came in, we had to endure a lot of racist backlash, because people had this image of the savage Indian that was going to go out and slaughter everything. And they didn’t recognize the viewpoint of us within the community who knew our hunters, who knew how our community operated, that that was not going to happen, it was just impossible for it to happen. People would go out and take what they needed and come home.

TS:        It’s interesting how, when you do set down a law, it immediately makes people feel as though they’re being bounded and imprisoned, you know? They resent it.

DC:      They resent it, yeah. 

TS:        Takes away their dignity, freedom. (inaudible) Like the kid in a candy store

DC:      To get back… Apart from racial stereotypes and the Noble Indian concept, I think the real issue of safety and conservation are really the key issues, those are the key issues. In terms of conservation, Mi’kmaq haven’t affected the deer or the moose populations in the province because of these two hunting agreements. We’ve had a decline in the deer population but that’s been attributed to other factors.  I think the Mi’kmaq…these three winters the Mi’kmaq have harvested roughly an average of 150 deer, that’s for the entire, from Yarmouth all the way to Cape North, 150 deer.

TS:        For Cape Breton?

DC:      No, from all of the province. 

TS:        Oh that’s nothing, that’s very little. I’m surprised actually.

DC:      It’s very little. In terms of moose, the moose harvest has increased because it seems the Aboriginal people in September and October go and get the moose and they seem to be content with the moose and do very little deer harvesting afterwards. Cause a huge moose can feed, you can imagine this thing – it can feed quite a bit. My brother-in-law had one or two moose in his freezer. There’s still some meat in there and that was (hunted) back in September, October. So, the deer harvest has been roughly around 50 to, I think this year it was about 100 harvested by Mi’kmaq, and the allowable limit is 250 for the entire province. So, we’ve taken between a quarter to a half of the allowable moose harvest in the province. We know from the court case in the Moose Hunting Trials, that about half the moose population resides within the Highlands Park.

TS:        Oh, is that right?

DC:      So we know half lives off, outside the boundary and the other half lives within the boundary of the park. And so, there is some pressure for Aboriginal people to be able during their hunting season to be able to have access to the park. 

TS:        When is the hunting season, actually? Is it in September?

DC:      It is usually, during the hunting agreements, there was a two-week season set aside for Mi’kmaq. I doubt that next year there’ll be a hunting agreement with the province because the Aboriginal people have sort of gone beyond it now. Sort of on their own, they managed their own harvest. And so, I would say that you’re probably looking at probably a four-week season roughly around September, October, and this is the most likely period of time when you have Aboriginal people may want to go up into the mountain area of the Highlands, and they wouldn’t be going down to the campgrounds or areas like that. They would be within isolated areas where there is probably no contact with other campers or hikers or whatnot.

TS:        You mean even if the park was still open and the campground was, they wouldn’t

DC:      I doubt if they would go way up, where the highland moose reside up in the mountain areas.

TS:        Was that a traditional hunting area? Just out of curiosity, do you know

DC:      I don’t have any concrete information that says that. We do know for instance that when the Wreck Cove Power Plant was being built up in that area…

TS:        The what? I’m sorry.

DC:      The Wreck Cove Power Plant, the hydro-electric dam up in the Highlands. When that was being built there were some archaeological studies done, and there were some traditional hunting sites determined. So, there was something along those lines. So, we suspect there probably was quite a bit of hunting done up in that area. There’s some historical accounts of moose hunting in the area, so pretty safe to say, I think there was quite a bit of hunting done there in the area by the Mi’kmaq

TS:        Do you think that’s even a relevant question to your issue at all?  

DC:      Indirectly. And the relevant issue really is the existence of moose in the park, and the existence of the Aboriginal right to hunt. And you have to marry those two realities. And right now, the way Parks policy is, you cannot hunt in this park area. And of course, the Mi’kmaq concept is that was not a park area first, that is a park area second. What’s first is that it is an Aboriginal territory, first. As an Aboriginal person, I have the right to go and hunt in that territory. Up until now there has been no conflict, up until now, but this past fall, there was a potential for some conflict. So that’s an unaddressed issue. I agree to some extent, that there’s a need to find some middle ground, because there’s been no discussions between Parks Canada and Aboriginal hunters about the ability to use the park for hunting. I mean, there’s been no discussion. There’s been discussions with the province, and discussions with DFO. Parks Canada has never been, never been brought into the discussions. So, we have Aboriginal people coming to Park areas, and maybe trying to hunt or fish, and immediately you have this wall of hostility that comes up, which doesn’t exist in any other part of the province. And so, I guess what I would be asking first is, would Parks Canada be able to catch up with what’s happening everywhere else in this province, and to see what is the policy towards Aboriginal people? Because those walls of hostility existed with them too, just a few short years ago—and they’ve crumbled and we have all come to an agreement and understanding of how these things can be done safely with a mind of conservation as well. I think that kind of meeting of minds has to take place for that area as well. We don’t understand for instance, what are the safety requirements within the parks.

TS:        Oh, that’s interesting

DC:      We don’t understand for instance what species are precious, are delicate, would need to be conserved.

TS:        And would you respect that?

DC:      Oh, definitely! We have no idea what the park is trying to achieve in its policies, or what it’s trying to protect and preserve. What we see is the herd of 2000 moose up in the park area which we don’t have access to, and we’d love to have access to. Mind you, it’s not insurmountable when what the guys do (indistinct: all the guys have to do) is simply use moose calls and all the moose come back out of the park and as soon as they’re off the park and…it’s not insurmountable. (Trudy laughing)  But the fact remains that there is no respect within the park for the Aboriginal people who are the original inhabitants of that area.

TS:        Right. And there’s that mentality that you rip them off in some ways. Yeah, I see what you’re saying.  Well, that’s a good point.

DC:      Other people are allowed to fish in the park. I mean, you can angle and there’s been no (Indistinct: limiting) as far as I know up in the Cheticamp (Inaudible) but the fact remains that if you want to go angling in the park, you still need a license. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Mi’kmaq or not, you still need a license. And that practice isn’t being done anywhere else in this province, like it is being done within Keji, like it’s done (Inaudible) in the Highlands. So that’s… that’s inconsistent with practices, why I say Parks Canada has to catch up and see what else is happening elsewhere.

TS:        Yeah. Are there any specific (Indistinct) that I could present to Parks to look into. It’s important to me so I’d have something to point to and say…

DC:      Oh sure. I can provide you with some documents.

TS:        Oh that would be good. So that I could present it, (inaudible) that these have been worked out and we can do this reasonably as human beings (Trudy laughing)   

DC:      So that’s one outstanding issue, the hunting and fishing issue. 

TS:        I keep moving this closer because you have a very soft voice.

DC:     The other issue is of course, is our historical heritage and the two parks that have done something along those lines has been Fortress Louisburg which at one point had Mi’kmaq interpreters there, and they also have a Mi’kmaw interpreter I believe now in Keji.

TS:        A woman?

DC:      Jean Labrador, yeah. Now, I believe Jean is the only one in the province that works for Parks Canada on a full time basis

TS:        Carl Sock (inaudible) is a park warden, he’s a Mi’kmaw park warden up in Kouchibouguac in New Brunswick, and there’s a Metis in there, I don’t know if that counts for you or not, and also in (Inaudible) Parks Canada (inaudible) in town, in Halifax. Those are what I know of so far.

DS:       All right. Well that doesn’t surprise me, that would be about the going rate, usually. Louisburg had, I thought, what was a good Mi’kmaq presence there, back in the 80s. I thought the interpreters that worked there were serving a purpose. (Inaudible) They had a role there to play. But as you say, when cutbacks came, all of a sudden quite prominent cutbacks came, Indians are the first ones to go, that’s always been traditional. So, when the cutbacks came and had these interpreters terminated from the program, there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. But in our view, the cutbacks of these interpreters can’t be justified, because although the historical reality says there was a strong French presence in that area, it is also equally historically correct to say there was also a strong Mi’kmaw presence at the Fortress. And to now have a program which is exclusively French, and nothing Mi’kmaq, I mean, you are not even correctly reflecting historic reality (Indistinct: of that time period).

TS:        I know, I keep saying somebody lost the first 10 chapters of history! (Trudy laughing) And I keep thinking, what is this? (Laughter continues) …everywhere I go (inaudible)

DC:     It’s basically, in my view, an ethnocentric position. I mean, this is a French Fortress, and we as an English/French Canada are trying to reflect our heritage. And Aboriginal people do not play a role in that. We play a subsidiary role, a servant role, a messenger, something like that, situation. Even, I think the way the Mi’kmaw interpreters at Louisburg were reflected, was even along those lines

TS:        Sakej Henderson said (indistinct: sleeping and stealing birds) (Trudy laughing).

DC:      Yeah. You reflect the cultural bias. So, in some ways, it was better to have the Mi’kmaq removed from the park, because you were more or less portraying the old bias that has been determined for you by the historians at the park, and saying well, this is the way we believe these Mi’kmaq should be reflected in their history and conducting their daily activities, and you go out and do it. And we’re paying you, so what can a guy do? I mean, he’s gotta go out and do what he’s told. Some of, two of the interpreters who still live here on the reserve, they’ve often told me just the very fact they had contact with the public they had a chance to answer questions, and they dispelled a lot of stereotypes. They knew a lot of their history and their people, and on their own, they did a lot of their own interpreting just by answering questions about where Mi’kmaq are and Mi’kmaq live.

TS:        How would you take a place like Louisburg, and what would you, this is what Parks wants to know, how would you want to be perceived, how would you be incorporated if you could design your own program and say, this is how we would like to be represented?  If you want to be

DC:      I would be ambitious. I wouldn’t strictly say they should only hire two Mi’kmaq interpreters during the summer, a very temporary presence. What you need to establish within the parks program, I believe, in the Atlantic region, is some kind of, maybe a department or a division that deals specifically with Mi’kmaw history or Mi’kmaw studies because you do have Mi’kmaq going right from Quebec to Newfoundland; you cover a broad area. And, a Mi’kmaq studies division for instance would be able to assist a number of parks, because Mi’kmaq presence is throughout the area. In Louisburg, I’ve often thought to myself it would’ve been useful to have Mi’kmaq represent Mi’kmaw encampments, for instance, like what they do out in PEI, you have Mi’kmaq, a little Mi’kmaw village, a Mi’kmaw encampment, a replica in (inaudible) the national parks.  You need some physical presence like that, to show that Mi’kmaw life was part and parcel with what the park is doing.

TS:        Wouldn’t that be outside of the fort itself? That wouldn’t be inside, would it? I mean, just realistically

DC:      Realistically, it would have to be outside the fort, but it would be within the park boundaries.

TS:        I’m just going there tomorrow and that’s why I’m asking you all these questions because I want to know, while I’m there, what to look for

DC:      The walls of the fortress itself just occupies a tiny portion of the whole park, and other aspects of it, the beach areas for instance. I don’t know where Mi’kmaq were encamped, personally.  They must’ve been camped somewhere.

TS:        Well, even if they were coming to trade, right?

DC:     Right, somewhere. Obviously. We don’t have, I’d say you need some kind of Mi’kmaw encampment from that time period, for instance, and then you would of course, from that encampment you’d have to develop a whole program. To be able to, you’d need not just one, two employees, you’d need a number of employees to be able to reflect that life, to be able to develop programs, and I don’t know how many individuals you’d need to man the camp daily.You’d need a constant presence. These people would also need to represent, about half of them would have to be employed full-time in order to be able to (unclear) historical research and to be able to upgrade (inaudible) their interpretive programs.

TS:        This is another (indistinct), these are not my opinions?, I’m just asking. Now, I was told by someone I am working for, one of my directors, it was actually very sweet interchange. He looked at me and he said, I’m a traditional historian, and I have been brought up in the (indistinct), and he said, “Will you tell us in your final report, how to write history differently? I said, “I know I’d have to expand beyond the limits (meaning of the park boundaries)”, but when you’re talking now, I’m saying to myself, would Parks hire someone that Native community feels  is appropriate to represent their history, or would they be looking for someone with a degree in history, you know. I’m just wondering if that’s going to be an issue, or who would you ask to do something like that? Who would you go to, to do that kind of research? Are there people? Do you see what I’m saying? It came up at Saint Mary’s (indistinct), different ways of looking at history, obviously. You have an oral tradition, you think of time differently, and you think of events differently. You know, are there people that you…

DC:      The way we’ve been doing it so far, and there’s always room for improvement, when we did a lot of these court cases for instance, a lot of the research was done by lawyers and their firms, things like that. So, we have a lot of material that we’ve collected for litigation, basically. And we’re still in the process of doing it, because we’re still trying to prepare these Aboriginal land claims in the province. So, we’ve done a lot of archival research ourselves, through court cases in the community with an awful lot of documentation of both the Simon  cases and the Moose Harvest cases, and the Denny, Paul and Sylliboy’s. So, we’ve developed within the association, with the Union, with the Native Council of Nova Scotia for instance, we’ve developed a collection of archival documents which exist and are available. The Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq have a research program which basically has done the same thing.

TS:        Don Julian, I’ve talked to him.

DC:      Don Julian, and Dave Cluckton have collected a number of documents as well. You have, here at UCCB, a Mi’kmaw studies program which teaches Mi’kmaq history. Sakej is one of the done professors there, and they’ve also collected information and right now Sakej is working as a resource centre director, and one of his programs is trying to gather secondary information, collecting secondary information of students who do research and study. What we’re hoping to do in the future is that we have all these pockets of collections all over the place, Mi’kmaw collections, and basically, they’ve been done, basically by lawyers, and because they worked on specific cases. We’ve had some research done in the Union here in the ‘70s, which we still have, but most of the lawyers have that information. What we’ve tried to do in Nova Scotia, we’re trying to establish what we call the T.A.R.R. Center. Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research Center. It’s something that already exists up in Manitoba, for instance, where all the bands in Manitoba, established at one independent centre, which is basically an archive, basically. And they’ve collected materials from all different areas and sources and catalogued it and they use it almost like an archive. What we want to do in Nova Scotia is establish something like that. We’ve begun the development of that project this past fall and we have until March 31st of this year to be able to complete the development stage. It appears to us that the T.A.R.R. centre will be established in Shubenacadie and that probably all the material will be stored there, and we would have one central office to begin to catalogue and do all this information.

TS:       That’s wonderful. Shubenacadie’s already a very central location.

DC:      Central yes, but it was also designed to be close to Halifax where we still have a lot of research to be done in Halifax, in the Halifax area. So, in terms of our historical research, we hope to be able to have some of our own staff in the place which would manage this archival information.

TS:       That makes sense.

DC:      The other major player has been Nova Scotia Museum, of course, and they’ve done quite a bit of research. Although we appreciate it, there’s still a bit of an ethnocentric problem there as well.

TS:       You worked with Ruth? (Ruth Whitehead) 35:30

DC:      Ruth Whitehead for instance, yeah, has done an awful lot of work. Ron has been most effective, I thought, because he helped us quite a bit, working with the Moose Harvest trials.

TS:        Ron Nash?

DC:      Ron Nash from Saint FX. And Steve (Davis), of course, works for Saint Mary’s. They’ve been involved in the field as well. So, apart from the universities and the Indian associations, there isn’t anything central, but what we’re trying to build is something central, to begin to index and catalogue and store all this information. If Parks Canada wants to get involved with the process, the traditional ways of doing things, I suppose, would be to go to Nova Scotia Museum or to go to universities and use their expertise. I think to their minds, that’s the acceptable practice of collecting research. But you can’t ignore the value of having an Indian-controlled or Indian-centered research centre, where we have all this information and we have our own interpretation of those documents as well. I would think that what you would probably need is probably some kind of combination of those two. You can’t ignore one, and you can’t ignore the other either. If Parks were to develop some kind of division or centre of Mi’kmaw studies or whatnot, with its own department I suppose, I would expect you’d try to coordinate these various aspects of research. I don’t know if necessarily they’d want (?) their own collection for instance, but they would certainly have access to these other(collections), which would be useful no doubt. I don’t know exactly how to pursue that myself, personally. Ourselves, we’re more interested in using the information for our own purposes, which is basically for archives and litigation, basically.

TS:        If Parks were to, say, come to you, you know they’re asking me, well, who could we go to, to help us develop programs? You know, so that it’s your version (indistinct: not theirs)… You know, I developed a questionnaire, and I feel like there is a meeting ground. Say there are interpreters, and I developed this questionnaire where I ask Mi’kmaq or Maliseet, or whoever I’m speaking with, would you be willing to be trained as interpreters? Because, not that you would be told what your history is, but that there are all these ways to handle visitors, and you know, techniques, if someone breaks their arm, and you know, crowd control, and how long you’re supposed to hold people. There are all these techniques, that you can literally be trained in. So, it’s just like I ask all these questions because I just want to see what the meeting ground is. What they said to me, they wanted (Indistinct) want them to write this history, and then you know, if there’s flaws or anything, let them correct it.” So that’s his approach, it’s not do the traditional thing where the academics (inaudible). So, you know, they’re saying go out and find who it is that may want to work with Parks (inaudible)

DC:     I think, from my view, the people that would want to work with Parks would be the T.A.R.R. Centre, because they would basically have a lot of information. The T.A.R.R. Centre is not operational, is not expected to be operational until sometime in ’92 (inaudible) but until then it will be (Indistinct) and its primary task is research, so that would be, I suppose, the place to go for a one-stop shopping center. We have someone as a consultant to work at establishing (inaudible) but we (indistinct) have a director and we don’t have research staff here. But basically, here at the Union, all the files that we have, we’ve transferred over to the T.A.R.R. center already.

TS:        Oh, is there a place actually, now?

DC:      Right now all of it is up in Ottawa, where the consultant is from, but they are going to after they get the (inaudible) information (inaudible), they are doing catalogue-indexed information there already, and bring it down when Shubenacadie is established, sometime in ‘92. That would to me be the ideal place that would be non-political, so it would be basically established to do historical research. And that would to me be the ideal place where Parks Canada or any organization who’s interested in Mi’kmaw history, could go for information. But up until when that’s established, you still have to go through traditional areas like the universities, and the museums.

TS:        If Parks came to you this year and said, can you help us, you would say, go to the universities?

DC:      I would say go to the universities for now, until we’re prepared and ready. I would hate to commit (inaudible), because the people who’ve done our historical research are lawyers, which we’ve paid quite a bit an hour, and I would hate to commit my lawyer for Parks Canada, and for him to sit down and spend, you know, a week or two of his time helping the Parks, and running into tens of thousands of dollars for (indistinct: association), I just wouldn’t be prepared to do that right now. I would prefer to do something else, something that we would need.

TS:        But someone like Sakej…?

DC:      Yeah, Sakej as a professor probably would help, yes, I would imagine. The two lawyers we’ve had is Bruce Wildsmith from Dalhousie Law School. He’s litigated all of the cases I’ve described to you, and Bruce Clark who’s at (Indistinct: Cadman, Burchell and Hayman) (indistinct: Burchells) (inaudible) and are the legal counsel for Native Council of Nova Scotia. Those two gentlemen have been involved in all the cases so far. So, to us, in our view, these two gentlemen have access to quite a bit of information and probably the most knowledgeable of all about all of the documentation available so far to date on Mi’kmaw history. Their expertise, obviously, is not historians in the true sense, their expertise is law, but they’ve acquired quite a bit of information about where all this information is. There’s another gentleman who worked out at Osgood Hall, at the law school in Toronto. I think this gentleman’s title is a legal historian and he helped us quite a bit with interpreting history, and interpreting law and the treaties for instance. His assistance was invaluable. The province has a historian which

TS:      What is his name, at Osgood Hall?

DC:     At Osgood Hall? I should remember his name (inaudible: it’s slipped my mind?). It’ll come to me before the day is out.  The province has used a historian from UNB, Steve Patterson, and Steve…

END OF TAPE ONE

DC:     …the way the Mi’kmaq have interpreted the treaties. So, he’s another historian from within the university circles that has done work with the Mi’kmaq. Harold McGee, I’m sure you know his work. I guess, as far as I know, are somewhat more traditional sources of information, but from our association I suppose, we have to rely on our lawyers. And hopefully what we try to do now is, basically take all the lawyers’ knowledge and information and basically try to establish an independent Mi’kmaq controlled centre that will basically catalogue and index the whole thing. So that’s what we’re trying to (indistinct). Bruce I believe has been on sabbatical, Bruce Wildsmith, he’s on sabbatical next year. One of the things that he wants to do, is to be able to take all this information that’s been accumulated in the last 15 to 20 years, and basically try to help the T.A.R.R. center have all this information indexed and catalogued, and available. Which is a gift for us, (inaudible) …on sabbatical. Given all that he’s done for us in the past 15 – 20 years, in this moment of time to have a centre which is going to be funded and established, to have that all condensed and organized over the next twelve months is the ideal time for it

TS:        Bruce Wildsmith?

DC:      Wildsmith, yeah. The other source that comes to mind, Dalhousie Law School also has a special program for Mi’kmaq and Black students.

TS:       Yeah, the Transition Year Program.

DC:     It’s another one, they call it the IBM program, Indigenous, Black… but they have a group of lawyers as well, these are lawyers in training, so to speak.

TS:        Mi’kmaq?

DC:      Mi’kmaq. There have several Mi’kmaw people there. I imagine they’re also doing research, probably, in their work. They’re also a source, I suppose, that could offer some assistance. I know, Bruce Wildsmith, I believe he taught Aboriginal law. I think now there’s another young Indian lawyer in Dal law school, Mary Ellen Turpel. She’s quite active in the prosecution discussions.

TS:        Mary Ellen Turpel, is she Mi’kmaw?

DC:      No, she’s Cree, I believe. She’s on the faculty of the law school, and I believe she now teaches the Aboriginal treaty rights course nowadays, so she’s got a lot of information too, that she could give. So other than what the Dal Law School teaches, and what UCCB teaches, I think those are the only two areas in the province where you actually have university level courses in Mi’kmaq history. So, they have a body of information as well. Of course, UNB has their traditional Mi’kmaq-Maliseet program, they’ve got quite a bit of information as well.

TS:        Then there’s the Mi’kmaq Cultural Center, up in Restigouche, the interpretation center.

DC:      We haven’t had much work with them, really. I don’t know what’s available in PEI, just when we visit PEI, just what I see as a tourist, and I see their Mi’kmaq, (indistinct) like that. In Newfoundland, the Qalipu  Mi’kmaq have been quite active in doing historical research as well because they’ve also launched a land claim in that area. So again, that band probably has a collection of information, probably its lawyers have a collection of information.

TS:        Do you know who at Conne River would be particularly useful?

DC:      Sakej has been helping them a bit, quite a bit actually. I don’t know who their main person is over there, but I know Sakej is been assisting.

TS:        I’ve talked to Sakej (inaudible). I had left at 11 and he still didn’t finish.

DC:      Oh yeah, yeah. You need a whole day with Sakej. So, those are the sources of information. The other concern I have basically is, what’s at Kejimkujik? This past summer I went down there myself, spent a week down there, wandered around, went to the interpretative program with Jean, went up to see the petroglyphs and got her to tell me where the other petroglyphs were, the ones that (indistinct) shown to the public… My wife is an artist, and she does a lot of artwork involved with the petroglyphs, Keji petroglyps. So, we spent quite a bit of time out (indistinct) at the petroglyphs and grieving over their condition. After we got done with the park, we went down to Halifax, because we did go back to the interpreters’ service and asked them well, what information do you have about these petroglyphs? And they gave us a few studies which were done, and they told us to go to Halifax to find them, so we packed up our tent and went down to Halifax and then tried to find them, which was an ordeal. Very, very, very reluctant. It took…I finally had to sort of more or less push my way into the thing and say, listen, I’m doing this (inaudible) on behalf of an Indian organization.  I want this information, and I want it now, for this situation.

TS:        Was this Parks, or was this the museum?

DC:     This is Parks Canada. We were at the regional office in Halifax. Finally, after a month’s grief, I finally got my hands on some studies. I have them at home, I’m just reading through them on a personal basis. But the reason that the petroglyph was so important to me at that point in time, was that we worked with the town of Bedford with the petroglyph there, and I wanted to find out, you know, are these two sort of related? Bedford is making a big deal of the petroglyph. The town of Bedford, they really see this as a major find within their own community, and they have arranged to have the area basically bought out, so that no one is near the area. They haven’t yet started discussing what kind of interpretative programs they may want to run, because right now there’s only two petroglyphs, and they suspect there are traditional petroglyphs up in the area. And right now, their own enthusiasm and energy about respecting these petroglyphs and this area is so refreshing. When we sort of compared it to the Keji experience, we’re sort of saying, Well, you know the Keji experience is sort of… the (inaudible) petroglyph is out there, and it’s not really being protected, really.

TS:        They’re trying to get funding for that,  and  I know they’re trying to protect them, they’re just trying to figure out how to do that, because of natural erosion (inaudible)

DC:      The problem with those petroglyphs is that they’re so recent, that’s why people have sort of, I know the arguments for it, they’re saying that the petroglyphs were probably done after contact, and that they were tainted, and you can look at a lot of the images  for instance, Roman Catholic images, so people see that and they say no, they’re not traditional, so hence no value. But despite that, I know from my wife having the artistic aspect, and she sees some of these images, and I see some of these images, (inaudible) even though they were made after contact, they still were based on traditional values, and traditional styles, traditional norms. It’s written all over the rocks. You can see just by looking at them.  This a very precious treasure of heritage.

TS:       How old are the Bedford ones?

DC:      They’re pre-contact.

TS:        Are they? Okay, I haven’t seen them.

DC:      Yeah, they’re pre-contact.

TS:        Is that being considered as a national site, or do Native people want that as (inaudible)

DC:      That’s under discussion, quite controversial discussion. The site was on private land. In fact, it was owned by I think a charitable organization. The title of the land was just recently transferred to the province, so this charitable organization ceded title to the land and gave it to the province in exchange for some 300 acres somewhere else. 300 acres of Crown land they exchanged it for, and this is only about 15 or 20 acres. The cause for the concern in the Mi’kmaw community because now the province has the title to this land, and a lot of people were saying well, now the province has the title for a Mi’kmaw traditional site. It’s gotta be Mi’kmaw people has title of that land, or it has to be Parks Canada entrusting to the Aboriginal people the title to that land. So, you have at least some people in the community starting to think that these traditional sites will have to be protected by the government of Canada, but right now the only people you can go to for protection is Parks Canada, if that site was declared a park area

TS:        Has that been done?

DC:      No, we haven’t made those requests in these discussions at this point. Right now, we’re still trying to figure out how the town of Bedford managed to swing this deal with the province without informing the Mi’kmaq.

TS:       See, I’m asking you because the Parks person was asking me what particular site, you know are there potential sites that are really, what they call, of national significance? You know, that the Mi’kmaq or Maliseet want to see commemorated? I mean, is that a site that you would want to see Parks? Is that something, in my report I should say, petroglyphs (inaudible) of Bedford should be, in cooperation with Native community, preserved as a national site?

DC:      (Sighs) That’s a hard question. As much as we want to protect sites that are of significance to us, and we have sites out there that are not being protected, for instance Kelly’s mountain and the Fairy Caves. It’s very precious sites and right now we have this proposed quarry to go up on Kelly’s mountain and so you have that controversy there. The province has stepped in, and declared that cave at least are in protected areas, whatever it says in legislation. Our experience with both the federal and the provincial governments has been that even though they’ve expended, they have a blanket of protection over these areas, they’ve done a very poor job in protecting them. I guess the petroglyphs in Keji are an example. The broader, the government’s broader need for providing services often overlooks the Mi’kmaw significance of the site, so we have this sort of ethno-historic or -centric perception again. So, Parks Canada has this huge park out in Kejimkujik, you have on the shores of some lakes, these petroglyphs, but the problem is that, how do you provide security for those petroglyphs? And they’re concerned more or less with the overall security of the campgrounds, and the beaches, and the highways, and they’re worried about poaching and trap-building, whatnot, and these petroglyphs have become a very minor thing in that whole scenario.

TS:        That’s not what I heard, though. I think they are trying to provide security, at least from one of the Park interpreter (Indistinct). But anyway you might be right. But that wasn’t the impression I had.

DC:      Okay. It’s complex. I mean, how do you protect these things? You’d need to put a 24-hour guard on them

TS:        Well that’s what they’re trying to figure out, if they put up a big metal gate so that no one can get close. You know, like a barrier almost…

DC:      And if you put a gate, then obviously you’re indicating where the site is, and then

TS:        Yeah, then it’s not safe anyway, so why, you know what I mean?

DC:      And if you move it, then you’re destroying the site. It’s a complex issue. But the point is that the Park, as much as well-intentioned in protecting a Mi’kmaw site, because it’s not their sites, it doesn’t receive the kind of priority that a Mi’kmaw organization or a Mi’kmaw group may give to the site. So, even though we have other historical sites across the province, (?), Mi’kmaw sites, who should have jurisdiction over protecting them? Should we go to Parks Canada about protecting the Bedford petroglyphs, but people will immediately say to us, but why would we want Parks Canada there? Look at what they did to us in Louisburg, and look at what they did to us in Keji, why do you want to bring them there too? Should we invite the Province to protect the Fairy Hole Caves the way they did recently, and the Province has now a title of that Bedford Barrens. We don’t know what their intentions are, we don’t know what they’re going to do with those petroglyphs. We don’t know if they’re going to protect them, or preserve them, or just let them sit there.

TS:        Well, Parks also does these cost sharing programs where you do it together, cooperative programs, you know, so where they don’t go in and own it, but they go in and add support to different aspects, and you know, it’s cost sharing done in consultation with the Mi’kmaw people, partnership that they sponsor and the interpretive program, some aspect of the research, you know, or it’s okay if they, I know what you talked about (Indistinct: of their interest in that kind of thing) but it’s not. Parks is actually trying to move away from going in and saying you know, we want this piece of land, and we get it, we own it. They’re trying to get much more into cooperative ventures. I just went through this with the Red Bank site. Because they want to do that whole educational center, and they’ve got those incredible, you know, finds from 3,000 years ago, and they want to develop a whole cultural centre there that would have all sorts of economic spinoff. And I walked in there, and the first thing (inaudible). And then as we talked, they said you know, they showed me some of (Indistinct: the policy and I went back? Mi’kmaq? ) and they had asked me, please send us a cooperative agreement, so we understand how it works. Because I was saying Parks isn’t trying to necessarily own the land, because Parks used to do that, they used to say we want the land, it’s ours, and now they’re saying no, we can support certain aspects, and do it very much as an equal partnership there. So that’s just an (Indistinct: avenue)

DC:      So that would be an exclusive (inaudible) toward partnership arrangements

TS:        Yes, absolutely. They did that with the Fisheries Museum down in Lunenberg, and I think St. Peters Canal is another cooperative agreement, so it’s not, and there are things I’ve received from Ottawa about what they’re doing in the North, definitely where their recommendations on National Historic Sites and Monuments Board with saying you have to go to the local communities and consult, and go through that whole process to really understand what’s going to benefit the community, because too many times…

DC:      That’s excellent. I mean, I’m glad to hear that.

TS:        I mean, I can even give you some names of people you could talk to if you’re interested.

DC:      Okay. But I guess that’s a dilemma that we still have to answer within our own mind, how do we deal with this. Besides, but it’s good to know that there are possibilities in which Parks Canada can be used in a cooperative kind of situation. In Cape Breton, we have at least, we probably have a number of sites in Cape Breton, but of course you have Kelly’s Mountain.

TS:        Where is that?

DC:      Do you travel through here, on the Trans Canada?

TS:        Yeah.

DC:      Ok. You probably came across a big bridge with a large span on it. The mountain you came down with a great big huge curve, and you almost go to a 90 degree turn, almost, that’s Kelly’s Mountain.

TS:        Where is it, outside Sydney?

DC:      It’s about a half hour drive outside

TS:        Okay. And Fairy Cave, too?

DC:      Fairy Cave, it’s on the north end of the mountain.

TS:        Oh, it’s all the same mountain.

DC:      It’s all the same mountain. There’s been no archeological work done in the mountain, that’s one of the beefs we have with the quarry, is that they were building this quarry without doing archeological surveys of the whole area. They have done surveys of the boundary of their quarry, but they have never done a general survey of the whole area. They did take a brief look at Fairy Hole, Fairy Hole at least is (Indistinct) but the survey wasn’t very extensive, and Nova Scotia Museum did go in there, Steve Davis and Ruth Whitehead. But that’s going to be a controversial site within the next year or two when the public hearings take place about whether or not to build the quarry on the mountain or not

TS:        What is the significance to the Mi’kmaq about that site?

DC:      What’s so significant about it is that there are oral legends about the mountain being the abode of Kluskap, the deity.  At one point there was some discussion that Kluskap went (Indistinct: away) before the Europeans settled, and left the Mi’kmaq at that point, and always promised to return. To traditionalists that’s pretty sacred, but not very many Mi’kmaq are traditionalists. 90% are not traditionalists. We have a small group of Mi’kmaq within the island of Cape Breton Island, who take that tradition in a very sacred sense, and so it has some significance. There are two other sites which are now Indian reserves, which are on sacred sites. We have Malagawatch (Melikewe’jk). That’s near Whycocomagh (We’koqma’q). It’s an Indian reserve, it’s a 1500-acre Indian reserve now. Probably one of the earliest Mi’kmaw missions, I suppose, if that’s what you call French missions that happened on that site. The other site is Chapel Island, and that’s a historic site.

TS:        Is that called Three Islands?

DC:      Yeah, there are three islands in the lakes, but one is now a traditional annual gathering site, and that has a lot of historical value, and that’s no telling how far back the island itself goes.

TS:        But that’s on reserve land?

DC:      That’s Federal land now. So to some degree, Malagawatch doesn’t have any permanent, I think it has one permanent home on Malagawatch. But it has a number of seasonal dwellings that people use anyway. It’s all wooded. People go up there just to… Unfortunately, they recently put power up there. There’s some controversy over that. Up until that point it was still the wilderness, and now they ran power lines up through there. Now people have their TVs, and radios. Now there’s some discussion whether we should open the reserve for housing development, where you put water and sewer lines in. It’s causing some concern. But right now, no one has talked about a housing development.  They still have cottages, mind you, which is fine. Hopefully the day will never come when it becomes a housing development. You have those three sites on the island, which as far as I know, are very sacred. Of course, you have the Debert find

TS:        Tell me how you feel about that, do you mind?

DC:      I don’t know a whole lot about the Debert find. But my only opinion is that, it is evidence of some kind of pre-settlement, obviously it’s no link so far to whether it’s Mi’kmaq or not. If it’s pre-Mi’kmaq, then it’s significant, something that obviously should be preserved to some degree, whatever is discovered on the site. If it is Mi’kmaq then that’s even more significance to it, at least some evidence that Mi’kmaw people settled here. But right now, I think no one really has enough of the site to be able to determine if it’s pre-Mi’kmaq or if it is Mi’kmaq. The question arises out of that whole find about how do you preserve the artifacts that come out of the site? Again, Nova Scotia Museum probably would want to take custody of everything that is found there

TS:       Some of it in in Ottawa (Indistinct)

DC:      The tragic need of a Mi’kmaw museum sort of looms as these sites are uncovered and developed. We sort of have that project more in Mi’kmaw people’s minds recently than ever before. There’s a need to create a museum specifically for Mi’kmaq.

TS:        Is there a movement to do that? Wasn’t there a cultural center supposed to happen in Truro or somewhere?

DC:      Yeah, Peter Christmas with the Mi’kmaq Association of Cultural Studies was trying to develop a cultural centre back in the early days, but I think we want to go beyond just a mere cultural center. The Blacks have a cultural center. We want to go beyond the (inaudible) of a cultural center. I think what we need really is a museum, that not only provides the public access to this information but we also will have our own curators, our own researchers, our own staff to be able to take all this information and be able to, the same high standards that other museums have, to be able to preserve (Indistinct: its artifacts) and be able to take custody of these sites.

TS:        Well what would you think if they created this center at Red Bank? Do you feel that would serve as a center? Do you feel as though that Nova Scotia needs its own centre?

DC:      If Red Bank has a culture centre, that’s great.

TS:        So it doesn’t matter really if it’s Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, it’s just that it’s Mi’kmaq and it represents history. Because they have so many, 3000 years of unbroken history.

DC:      That’s invaluable. That in itself deserves its own interpretation, its own preservation.

TS:        I know.

DC:      But if there was, given the real lack of historical preservation and presentation of Mi’kmaw history here in the province. And it’s very (indistinct: solid), the Mi’kmaw history. Nova Scotia Museum has some, that’s about it. You can’t avoid the question, when you deal with the whole question of self-government, because on the political front, if we are dealing with self-government on one hand, and yet on the same hand we’re having all of these archeological discoveries and finds, and these archival discoveries, and then when these things are being taken over by other museums or other governments, then it contradicts itself. The time has to come where in respect of Mi’kmaw self-government that all our own historical heritage has to be returned back to Mi’kmaq and housed, somewhere that it could be preserved and recognized and respected

TS:        I feel as though more and more Mi’kmaq trying to go to school and become lawyers and work, that seems important too, to learn how to be conservators of archives and things like that too.

DC:      That’s right, people are trying to learn the physical sciences, and get that field of expertise.

TS:        That comes up in Parks too, with interpretation, that you could bring Mi’kmaq in to the interpretation and (indistinct: history) view of the land or spirituality, but the ideal thing would be someone who is also trained in natural history, and has the Parks (inaudible), you know that meeting ground again, where (inaudible) and I hear more and more of Mi’kmaq saying that to me, when they graduate, I want to do research on our culture. I think it’s great.

DC:      Yeah, in time that’s going to bear fruit. (inaudible)The other people, they’re trying to scoop them up there right away, for universities and museums. (inaudible) Preferably, but that’s the same thing that happened with our lawyers, we’re losing them to all these big firms. We need them. But we have nowhere to… So, we have all these historians and archeologists graduating, and we got nowhere to use them. They’re working out west, and Ontario

TS:        You know it’s funny, that’s the dilemma of all Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canada keeps losing all the best.

DC:     That’s why, if we had our own museum, something of our own, that belongs to the Mi’kmaq, whose sole purpose is to preserve Mi’kmaw history, we’d be able to compete with the other museums and be able to say this particular person finishes their course and intern them here. And eventually they might be able to become curators of different organizations. But to me, as a Mi’kmaw, what makes more logical sense in the future development of the preservation of our history, is that we have to do it ourselves – we have to do it on our own. I mean, it’s good that Parks Canada is interested, it’s good the Province is interested, and Nova Scotia Museum, it’s good the universities are interested, and without them we wouldn’t have preserved all that we have preserved so far. If Parks Canada didn’t preserve the petroglyphs, then what would have been left of them? I mean, but the time has come that I think they have to recognize that their custodial role is almost over. They have to recognize that these different museums, these other agencies, all this stuff really does belong to the Mi’kmaq, in the end. It shouldn’t be a whole lot of difficulty, having some of that information given back to the Mi’kmaq. But first of all, we need to develop some kind of centre to be able to manage these things, with very high standards that other museums do as well. We’ll probably want to exceed those standards because it’s ours, it’s our heritage. It’s something we want to preserve. And so that is what I would see as a long-term goal. People like Parks Canada of course, would be huge beneficiaries if they had a Mi’kmaw museum in Atlantic Canada or in the Province of Nova Scotia. But they should make sure they could draw on the resource people that come out of the museum to work with the parks.

TS:        Well they’re very interested (Inaudible, 31:55 talking about Red Bank) but they’re but not ready.

DC:     I think even the angle that we’ve been using in the province at least as a tourist angle, they’ve been trying heavily to market Atlantic Canada in Europe. The experience that we’ve had always is that the European continent is so hungry for Aboriginal material, and it was only available to. I think from that angle even just having more Mi’kmaw history available and representative (presentable?) but even that itself would help.

TS:       Everywhere I go, I was at Fort Beausejour, I was talking to one interpreter there, there are so many simple and big ways, there are a lot of simple steps that can be taken. I mean, I recommended to Keji, they could translate their (indistinct: brochures, signage) into Mi’kmaw too, and so they got Bernie. Just even those simple things, brochures, (inaudible) I suggested at Fort Beausejour that they ask a man (inaudible) from Fort Folly, Joe Knockwood,  to come in and speak with their interpreters, they’re always upgrading training programs. But, I think there’s a much bigger thing that has to happen than that (inaudible) having a special event, days, event days. Just as a beginning.

DC:      So one (inaudible) as an event, we’ve been having a lot of trouble, well not a lot of trouble, but…it hasn’t been easy trying to host an annual Treaty Day. When the treaty was recognized back in ‘85, we’ve had ‘86, ‘87, ‘88, ’89, ‘90, ‘91—we’ve had six treaty days since, and the way the treaty reads, it was supposed to be an event between the government and the Mi’kmaq, a joint event. The problem is that the province of course never recognized the (indistinct: levity) of the treaty,  so they don’t recognize the provision in the treaty that says we’re supposed to have an annual exchanging of presents and presentations and all that. So, at one point we envisioned when we started out planning Treaty Day, we envisioned—our dreams were grandiose, about reenactments of the actual signing of the treaty, we thought about using the Citadel for instance, as a focal point where we’d have these reenactments, with the Citadel being so reflective of the British culture at the time. I mean you could have an interpretive program on the other side of the Mi’kmaw side, you could almost focus on Halifax having an annual treaty day as an historic reenactment kind of situation. The problem, of course, we got into is that being political organizations we went to the politicians first, and said, you know listen, let’s see if we can organize something and so we went to the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor and went to Justice and they all said, “No, no, we can’t recognize this treaty, it has to been (indistinct: processed, approved) by the courts. So, we went through about the first 4 or 5 treaty days, we basically celebrating by ourselves, which was sort of ridiculous. It was something that was supposed to be a joint event, in order to do it properly, but that’s what we had to do. Each time the government, of course, declined. The only person of course who was most support to us was Ron Wallace because I think he saw the value of it for the city (indistinct: at the time) and he agreed for the first four or five years to try and host it as much as he could himself. So, he made available the Grand Parade, and I think one year he even hosted one of the receptions at the City Hall. In 1990 we had our biggest celebration. This was the last few days our Grand Chief (indistinct: came). The Lieutenant Governor did receive the Grand Chief and the Grand Captain at the residence for informal tea (inaudible) and then the province itself finally agreed to host a reception down at the Fisheries Museum at the waterfront, but they didn’t call it Treaty Day; they called it Friendship Day, because they were afraid of recognizing the treaty. Then we had a huge celebration up at the Rebecca Cohn. That was the first run at it, and our intention was to grow and expand. But the Grand Chief passed away last year. No more (indistinct: mourn) Grand Chief, and more of  a time of  mourning rather than celebrating, so last year we just had a simple, traditional meal, and then went home. But we’ve often thought with the Citadel being there, and the potential of having an annual event recognizing Treaty Day, is something really significant

TS:       When I jumped up and down, I was thinking at Fort Anne where the Treaty was actually signed was another place, and I had the very same idea of (inaudible) at the fort. But you have a Treaty Day each year, and you have the whole thing, you have the ceremony and dances with the costumes, and you have the two cultures coming together, and you really learn about the territorial issues, what it meant to them, what the land meant, for both sides. I think it’s a major thing for them, with different views. But just that whole reenactment again, and really, and recognizing each other. But I was thinking of Fort Anne because that is where, but now you’re saying the Citadel, which is more

DC:      No, the treaty does say it has to be in Halifax. Well, that is where the treaty was signed, but the actual terms of the Province (inaudible) in the treaty, it does say in Section 6 does say it has to come to Halifax, that’s where everything should take place

TS:        I read the ones at Fort Anne. (inaudible) Any extra information like this that you can share… because it helps me. I’ve looked at treaties in the archives before.

DC:      See, this is (indistinct: where) the treaty basically describes what’s supposed to happen. It was meant to be in Halifax.

TS:        Did this happen, though? Did it happen in Halifax?

DC:      I don’t know if it ever did or not. I suspect it did. Trudy, I have to leave shortly.

TS:        Oh, I’m sorry, I keep going on and on because I feel like there’s so much to talk about. I apologize.

DC:      That information, I don’t have time to dig it out, I’m sorry.

TS:        I’m coming through again tomorrow morning. Would you rather I pick it up then?

DC:      Oh sure. I can have whatever information available to you by then.

END OF TAPE TWO