(calming music) (singing in foreign language) - We're on top of (speaking in foreign language) This is what they call the White Cap Mountain across the bay.

(speaking in foreign language) The marsh area is called (speaking in foreign language).

River there.

- [Man] Down that way is (speaking in foreign language) Where we, we come from, our community.

- So we just know where, how much land does the Innu Nation looks after?

(speaking in foreign language) - Our guardians are the ones that monitor activities like mining, fisheries, wildlife, anything that has to do with environment.

Lovely day here on top of the mountain.

- Sylvester Antoine with the Innu Nation and I've been the, I'm the land claims negotiator.

This is one of the parts of our, on our agreement, Mealy Mountains.

(speaking in foreign language) And we have our own staff, Innu Nation staff doing the monitoring in this area.

(speaking in foreign language) We calls it.

So it's been used for thousands and thousands of years for our ancestors.

So we inspect this area as a protected area.

First, I guess I was about 12 when I first traveled with my parents here on this area, on Ski-Do.

So back then I guess, our parents and our ancestors traveling by snowshoes.

So pretty much it's a very lovely scenery and it's most, I guess sacred place for us.

You know where our ancestors had traveled.

The other area here, where my, my great grandfather died here, he was a shaman.

So he died in that area somewhere out there.

So it's another, it's where I like to travel to be with the ancestors.

(calming music) - I was born in the country in a tent.

My father was a hunter.

My name's Kathleen Nuna.

An Innu name, my Kathleen Nuna.

It was so nice in that country when I was younger.

I seen a land so beautiful, quiet, peaceful.

We eat animals, fish, caribou, partridge, rabbit, beaver, porcupine.

In the summertime we eat berries.

All kind berries.

(speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (calming music) - I remember my uncle, when we were living in the country.

He would go off in the morning and not come back until the night.

When he came back, he came back with two or three porcupine which the women cleaned and get ready for eating.

It was spectacular.

- I remember my grandfather was talk about before.

He said, when there was not a country, there was no guns.

They using arrow.

They following caribou with arrow and they kill caribou.

When they kill caribou and they were so happy we go with it.

And then he tells a story about his great grandfather.

He said, my great grandfather, there was no store before.

People killed caribou because caribou, he got everything.

Everything, he got the caribou medicine, and clothing and food and canvass, like a canvass.

They make a tent, I mean a teepee.

They made everything you know, from the land, he said.

And he was talking about, this thing, the you know, was the pocket when there was no store.

The pocket wallet.

They made everything like birch, birch bark, he made pocket.

And now when I see this, I remember my grandfather's story.

What I seen in old people in the country what I remember, I never seen fight people.

Only I saw kindness, happiness, helpers.

I never seen a fight.

Because no poison in the country.

- What I know about the Innu, they using everything.

When somebody killed caribou, they didn't happen just for family.

They shared it with other families around them.

(speaking in foreign language) - They're cleaning caribou right now to divide amongst the community.

It is an Innu Nation sanctioned hunt.

Also this is to give the (speaking in foreign language) our elders caribou meat to share amongst their families.

They all have large families.

- Now a lot of that has to do with respect.

Everything has to do with respect.

Respecting the animals, respecting life, respecting different plants.

Anything that has to do with this, this I guess, you would call it the circle of life.

Everything's connected.

I guess that's the resilience of Innu.

You know, this hard going respect or wanting everything to be good.

You're way up there in your fellow people, your animals, because everything is connected.

And the Innu have always been for conservation.

So we started off like that about 18 years ago, I think with the forest guardian program.

And my position is forest guardian, and we oversee that they enforce the agreement.

This entails I guess different aspects of environmental protection for foresting.

It oversees the big buffer zones and protecting old forest trees.

Then we also had mining coordinators as they were called back then.

And we negotiated to have mining monitors.

These are guardians for mining activities.

Monitor fisheries or streams and water, they aren't contaminated or polluted in any ways.

And then we have additional guardians of the Innu Nation progressing our environmental protection.

We negotiated Muskrat Falls Project.

- The land.

It means a lot of things in many ways, because I can hear my mom talking about when they were young, how do you use to live.

How do you use to live around the Muskrat area.

And there used to be non-natives on the other side, that's elders now and some of them are still living.

They talked about how do used to hear the drama at night, (drum beating) going, I guess when my grandfather was playing drum.

(singing in foreign language) They said that in the evening, when they hear that echo sound, she said the sound was unbelievable, beautiful.

(speaking in foreign language) - Do you know we never consulted when destruction like the hydro dam in Churchill Falls and Smallwood Reservoir when it was flooded.

We were never consulted.

The Innu were never consulted.

My father was never consulted, but still the Innu was working with some people.

The Innu they new there was something going on, because some of the lakes or some of the rivers that they went to hunt were kind of dry up.

So they knew that there was something going on.

That meant that construction like the hydro dam in Churchill Falls and Smallwood Reservoir.

We have all areas being flooded there.

Compared to this, Muskrat Falls is totally different.

We were consulted and we were told what will happen and what to expect, stuff like jobs for the young people.

Training for the young people.

It's sad to think about, Muskrat Falls being flooded.

Where the Innu used to hunt?

Innu used to spend ceremonial tradition dances or drum, stuff like that.

And that's all gonna be flooded.

We know that, and all the Innu knew, they knew that.

The plants and the trees and the medicine that's out there, that's going to be flooded.

And we know that, we knew that.

And it was important to the Innu, but they had to take about their children, their grandchildren.

The Innu approved the water hyrdo to go ahead, the construction to go ahead.

There were concerns during the construction of the hydro dam.

One of the main concerns was will we be able to eat the fish again?

That is a main source of food, of wildlife food for Innu.

So we have the Innu Nation monitors on the site and they report back to the community to see if there's any contamination or see if there's any contaminants or materials waste or oil and gas or anything like that.

The Innu needed that and asked for that to be done.

They were mostly thinking about their grandchildren and their great grandchildren.

Their grandchildren needed jobs, employment.

(speaking in foreign language) (calming music) - We always say that it's our land.

We say, we call it (speaking in foreign language) and it's our land.

We've been here before and it is important I think for the land, for our children and for our grandchildren to work, use it also.

we would have been still in the country if we were weren't forced to stay back, to stay back here in the community of (indistinct).

The missionaries or the priests or the Jesuits that were spending time hearing in the communities like (speaking in foreign language) were traveling around here, and have said to the Innu and the government agencies also said to the Innu, if your children don't go to school, they won't receive any family allowances or any assistance from us.

Ever since we stayed here, we've been facing a lot of problems here in the community.

- I've seen a lot of changes growing up in Sheshatshiu.

When I became one of the community, people were mainly nomadic.

They were always going off into the country, into the mountains.

They didn't come back until spring usually.

Then the priests came.

They changed the way of life, the Innu.

Like they want to introduce schooling.

How they put it, the children have to learn to interact with the white society.

People started receiving social assistance, which they never did before.

And family allowance.

The Innu wanted the children with them in the country.

But the priests said no, you can't do that.

The children have to go to school.

People's lives were disrupted.

- I used to pray a lot.

But I don't know if I like it, but my grandmother did.

I used to pray with her in the night, in the night time.

And I remember going into the country all the time too, with my parents.

That's the best part.

I don't like school.

I'd rather be in the country then in school.

And the teachers were really mean.

They were mean.

Whenever I told, I couldn't tell my dad what's happening in the school.

That's why I want to stay in the country.

But not in the community, because of the way I was treated in the school.

- Problems like for instance, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and mental abuse and verbal abuse by these missionaries.

Ever since we stayed here.

- There are some things that I never talk about That's what's happening in the school because it was really, I feel ashamed of talking about it.

And um, I thought it was, I thought it was normal to treat a child like that, especially coming from the priest and because he was teaching us how to respect each other, but he also showed us how to disrespect.

But I never understood that as a child.

To me it's very confusing.

- People looked on the priest as a holy person, somebody that's to be obeyed, respected.

And people sort of looked at him as a god.

Somebody who has the power to help us and we have to do what he tells us.

And the people's life ended there.

(church bells ringing) People were, were being forced to stay in community.

They have to learn and go to school.

And they did.

- That's why we find it to change a lot.

And we've lost so many things.

We lost our food.

We lost our culture.

Our kids, they lost language.

They don't speak anymore, Innu.

And they lost, they don't eat like what we eat when I grow up.

They don't eat anymore like that.

- No houses were starting to be built, but the people in the community would not be able to move.

Alcoholism became rampant.

People that didn't want to do with two themselves.

They drank and drank and drank and stay in the communities.

The children were neglected to the point where they were not starving, but certainly very hungry.

- My dad started drinking when I was probably eight.

They started drinking more after the move to the facility and the teachings started to stop.

My dad passed away when he was drunk.

He got heart attack on the road in (indistinct).

That's how he died, he never stopped drinking.

- My father wasn't really happy that we went to school here.

I went to school in St John's in Corner Brook.

My father wasn't very happy with it.

I was 13 years old when I went to school there.

I stayed in Mount Cashel orphanage home.

In the place I stayed, people were charged.

The Christian porters went to jail of the abuse, the physical abuse, sexual, mental that was going on there.

My brother stayed in and out of dormitory.

I stayed on one site.

We weren't allowed to see each other.

We weren't allowed to speak our language.

The Christian brothers were calling us names.

They were calling us chief, brown skin, Indian.

Making noises, that what the indians make, stuff like that.

We faced that when we went there and we, it's really strange feeling for me to be there.

To really feel that, oh yes, is it really really okay what's going on here.

Is it a really okay?

Or not okay?

Seeing myself be in the country with my dad, my father, my parents, I was totally different.

I don't see the kids that I was seeing in St John's when I was in the country.

- We changed.

- We lost everything, especially spirituality we've lost.

I miss that thing, the spirituality.

I saw everything make shaking tent, I've seen.

And I've seen plain dorms.

I see something small, like, you know, people you see now you got bones.

Oh yes, I miss a lot of time in a way.

(wolf howling) Yeah, I used to love my grandmother's teachings.

She used to take a puff of that udder and then she would take it on my face and sing a song.

And she would say, she would teach me a song and then every time my dad got the udder, she would let me sing it.

She said that way, the udder will give itself to us for food because you're singing to it, she said.

(speaking in foreign language) She would also do offerings in the fire, talking.

- My father always went in the country.

And as I grew older, I went with him all the time.

We stayed like probably three months, three months, and as I grew older and I, and I started to, to go off into the land and went, go hunting, because there's a lot of teachings from my, I learned from my father.

One of the things that he told me, "Gregory, time to get up.

"Time to go hunting because sun is coming up."

And I always wondered why, why does he say that?

That the sun is coming up, the morning sun?

I asked him one time, why do you always say that to me?

That the sun is coming up.

He told me the reason why I say the sun coming up is the sun will see, the sun will see you when it rises.

I have to be outside with my snow shoes, with my gun.

Then I go off.

And he told me when exactly when the sun rises and the sun seizes you.

He's going to be very happy for you because you already looking for food and sun will provide you.

He will provide you with what you, what you're looking for.

Example would be animals, rabbits.

And that's what I like, I teach my young boy.

Every year I teach a new things.

So I've been, we've been going here in (indistinct) I teach him about respect and how the land is sacred to the Innu people.

When we talk about land claims, we always think about land.

Between our land.

There's a lot at stake here.

Now that there's a treaty comes in.

And I think that's why this is very long because Innu in both communities wants to have a best deal and at the same to have an understanding what we're signing for, because the treaties are, are lifelong treaties and not both communities, both communities and the Innu people within the community want to have this deal.

That's why it's very long.

The Innu that we have as guardians have more knowledge and more expertise.

And at the same time, most importantly, they gain knowledge to our elders in both communities.

(speaking in foreign language) - And there's were the caribou cross in the summer.

At that point over there.

That point over there.

If you can't respect the animal spirit, then you will not get any food.

But, the word respect is very powerful in Innu.

If you don't respect anything, how the hell do you think you're gonna get respect from the animals?

There's still lots of wildlife around here.

There used to be caribou too, but there's no caribou around here.

Decline in caribou is, they blame on Innu people.

It is very hard to work with the scientists if they don't take your word.

And one like wildlife biologist, English, he was, won't take any from Innu, what they're saying.

Because I had traditional knowledge and Western knowledge.

If they, if they fit together, I think should work.

- Our workers have this, you know, because they're all hunters themselves, yeah, they have this knowledge and grew up with their grandparents or parents and, and gathered all this kind of knowledge from stories and so, going on to land with their parents and grandparents.

And these are, these are the traditional norms that I'm talking about.

The Western science is always, it's always looking at, looking at, you know, gaining and also trying to understand what Innu knowledge is or what traditional knowledge is in comparison to Western knowledge.

And then they had this, I guess, group of scientists from different fields trying to ask questions of, to our (speaking in foreign language) about the Innu way, the Innu knowledge.

And I guess they, I guess they tried the, what do you call it?

Trick question to one of our elders.

They ask them a certain water fowl.

They said, do you know where this water fowl nests?

And they said, yes, we know where this certain species of duck nests.

And the scientists asked them where, and that Innu talking amongst themselves and one of them answered, they said, we won't tell you.

The scientists asked, you know, why?

Because you know everything that we tell you, you exploit and you try and sell it for financial gain.

- Now the message is out there, if there's any, anything happening in our land, the Innu Nation now informed.

Because that didn't happen in the past.

Like for example, Churchill Falls, like upper Churchill.

Nobody, nobody informed, nobody informed the Innu people.

They even said, Innu doesn't exist in Labrador.

They even said that.

Now internationally, we are being seen.

And heard because Innu took a step to be recognized as a, Innu in our land.

And I think that what turned around there is when Innu people were fighting the way they were flying in the 80's.

And Innu took a stand.

(jet engine roaring) - The low-level flying back then, I used to be in school back then, like high school.

We'd be coming home, we hear it on the news.

What's been going on around you.

And there were true warriors back then.

And they didn't give up until they got what they wanted.

And when we fight for something, we fight as a group, we don't fight as individual.

When we took over the Sheshatshiu Innu School about nine years ago, it was rough going because this was something new to us.

But we pulled, we stand our grounds and stood up high and we made it happen.

And we're still running our Innu school ourselves with Innu, without white school board.

We run it as Sheshatshiu whole.

So if we put our minds to it, we can do it.

(school bell ringing) (people chattering) It took a while for our community to realize that in order to go further with life, you need to go and finish school.

The culture is still strong in many ways.

The language is still strong, but you see a lot of kids talk in English now.

Before it was never like that.

Like a lot of kids, live five or six.

When, before I left the school system, you hear a lot of kids talk in English.

That was not common back then.

Now it seems like it's common.

- I saw him.

- I don't know how to draw a apple.

- Teacher I need to sharpen this.

(speaking in foreign language) - I think people's wants to be more educated, but they still want to teach their families their traditional skills.

Just let them know this is how our grandparents, our parents lived before our time.

We still want to keep that alive.

- Today I'm still going into the country with my family.

Yeah, and they're worried about school when I take them here 'cause they, it's more important to learn the language, the culture through culture and the way we live.

(kids laughing) Innu food is good, it's healthy here.

It's in the water.

Everything is healthy here and you work hard outside.

It's like when you're in the country the days are really short because you do many things in the daytime like going fishing and doing exercise.

So that's why I'm not worried about school, my kids.

(kids laughing) I know they have a lot of time learning English.

But our language, if it's gone, it's gone.

(peaceful music) (puppy barking) - I started coming in 2000, probably nine.

We've been coming here every year.

Yeah, I like it here, it's beautiful.

Better than living in town.

Nice place.

I'd come all the time.

Probably make my own place here.

I wouldn't mind, it's so beautiful.

I'd like to grow old here.

I don't mind helping people if they ask me.

It's not too hard.

I only help people because when I need help, like nobody wouldn't help me.

I know how they would feel too, if nobody helped them.

Feels good to have some help, right?

- I just start going in the country with my father when I was 14, 13, around there.

Suddenly led of the hunt.

And when I hunt, I'm feeding other people and elders.

And then after that, we feed the young ones after that.

First we feed the elders.

(indistinct) - Hi mommy.- Hey.

He's all dirty.

When he goes to school, he's always gonna go to country.

I'm never gonna leave him at school.

He will always come to the country with us.

- And those kids, those kids.

(speaking in foreign language) They always bring them homework when they go country.

Like they don't miss anything.

- What we're doing now is coming up here with the kids here in, in the (indistinct) Lake.

But there's a lot of demand, like kids want the internet.

It's very, it's the thing that kids really want.

We don't have it here so they want to go back sooner than later.

Like we want to stay here as long as we, we're staying here for four weeks.

Now they're anxious to go back after a week.

- [Woman] Hey!

(kids laughing) - I've got three children.

But a lot of things I see that goes on in the community that are not good, I just hope my kids don't do it.

Do what I see.

I don't like being around at home because drunk people are annoying.

(Antonia laughs) They don't come around here drunk.

(people chattering) (glass shattering) - They, we feel sad.

I feel sad.

What do we change a lot, our kids?

Especially boys, with the drugs a lot of drugs, alcohol.

What gets me when the, my grandchildren, when they're doing drugs, I can't get any sleep.

I'm scared.

Same thing, alcohol.

Because we have seen before the drugs.

- Right now I'm a coordinator at the healing lodge.

I used to be addictions counselor, but now I'm looking after the healing lodge.

But I'm also doing counseling and, there are a lot of youths who come there who we support about the sniffing gas.

For me working as addictions counselor, I didn't really use what that was taught as a counselor.

I use my own experience because I used to drink too and do a lot of stuff, even sniffing.

Those things were never taught to me before.

How it would hurt you.

How it affects the body.

And when I stopped drinking, I went in for help.

So I end up learning how to help other people.

- Yes I, I had a problem with alcoholism for many years.

In my young years.

But I'd be sober 30 years now.

I would have been dead by now I think if I didn't quit.

But now today, what happened to me?

Does living okay.

I tell that to my grandchildren, my granddaughter.

I tell that to them, that we do.

They will take away all everything, my land, they will take away animals, they will take away everything.

But one thing they will not to take away is my spirituality, what I have in me.

- Ever since I was six months old, he's helped me with a lot of things like my education.

Helping out with whatever I needed help with.

A lot of things, actually.

I love it here.

I love my friends, I love my family.

Sheshatshiu is a good community.

There's some, some bad things that happens but, we'll always be like together, no matter what.

After I graduate I want to be a Native Constable, working with other police officers, helping communities.

(speaking in foreign language) - When you're fighting for your people, you love it.

When you finish the end of the day, you know you did something.

Like for example, we took over income support two years ago.

And it's going phenomenal.

And I'm proud of that.

I'm proud to say that it is all run by Innu.

(upbeat music) (indistinct singing) And then we took over, now on April 1st, we'll be running our own provincial level four group home.

And that says a lot.

And that's what we fight for for the last few years.

Three years, we fight for that to have that.

To bring home kids to Labrador.

And it's actually going to happen.

That reality is actually happening, it just takes a while.

Like land claims, I think that's very important.

We need to know what land we own and we need to have it in writing on maps or community discussions like what land are we gonna own?

Are we ready for self-government?

There's a lot of questions still there, even though they're adamant every day to the government, but we need to be prepared.

If we're not prepared, we're going to fail.

(geese honking) - The land here, it's, I guess either way, it's a spiritual thing for me.

Like I get connected to the land.

I can feel the presence of whatever it is.

I feel that there's a presence everywhere I go.

The land is alive.

There's animals there, there's all kinds of spiritual stuff.

Like you feel connected to the land by being here.

Like when you awake, we hear the partridges, geese flying over, stuff like that.

And it's a life.

That's why I think, and I feel like peaceful here as well.

I feel I belong here.

I feel I get rested, I get well-balanced.

My mind is clear when I'm in here, in the country.

That's how I want to get away from the community to come here, it's like to rejuvenate, I guess.

To get energy, you get energy back by coming here.

(calming music) (singing in foreign language)