From time immemorial, we have lived on these lands in intimate and mutually constitutive relationships with our environment. All elements of life come through these relationships. For the people of Kelly Lake, cultural identities and values are inextricably linked with trapping, hunting, fishing, gathering, medicinal plant picking and our way of living on and travelling across our territories. Historically, these relationships and the rules that governed them have formed the basis for our cultural identity, spiritual and social relations, economic activities and political organization.
For many years, we lived a nomadic lifestyle, using our extensive knowledge of our vast territory to travel far and wide to hunt, trap, fish and gather the healthy and abundant resources on our land, and to trade with our neighbours. These lands are our ancestors who welcomed and connected with the Cree/Iroquois in the late seventeenth century. Our land has plentiful clean water, diverse plants and abundant animals. Life at that time aligned closely with the seasons, and our people held intimate knowledge about all aspects of the environment, such as the best times and places to take different types of animals, and how to assess and maintain ecosystem health and balance. We knew that by continuing to move often and take a few resources from different locations would ensure the sustainability of ourselves and our environment. Today, traditional activities continue to be central to life for the Kelly Lake people; however economic changes over the past 40 years have meant that some of our ways of living and working on the land have also changed. This does not mean that we have lost or abandoned our culture. Our culture is a living process. While is it grounded in the knowledge, practices, memories and oral histories of our Elders and our ancestors, it is also continually strengthened and reproduced through our contemporary practices and knowledge. In other words, when we are hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering plants or preparing medicines, we are maintaining connections to our past and creating links to our future; we are living our culture. Autonomy has always been an important part of our cultural experience, and in these changing times, we want to be able to continue our chosen ways of life on our own terms. Our ancestors have come to have a more confined area in the region around Kelly Lake in part because it was a haven from the constraints placed on First Peoples by colonial missionaries and governments at that time. For over two centuries, we have participated fully in Canadian economy, education, and social life, while at the same time, nurturing our own cultural practices, beliefs and governance systems. As a result, the Kelly Lake people have developed a strong sense of where we have been and where we are going. Our ancestral narrative details the coming together of three tribes, the Beaver, the Cree and the Iroquois to form the present-day Kelly Lake Cree Nation. Today we continue to speak and pass on our Cree customary laws and traditions. Throughout our long history, our members have traded and intermarried with neighbouring communities. Throughout our vast territory you will find that many of the place names today are named after the eight ancestral families of the As’in’a’wa’chi Ni’yaw Tribe. We have worked with neighbours and newcomers as trappers and guides, and today, Kelly Lake people work in the forestry, oil and gas, environmental security and paramedical fields, among others. All the while, traditional activities have remained important to maintaining our vibrant cultural identity as Beaver/Cree people. As such, we do not see an inherent conflict in participating fully in our cultural practices and in contemporary development activities. Both are important to our cultural and economic sustainability. Rather, we emphasize the need for informed decision-making to ensure the balance and continuation of both of these important ways of life. Achieving this balance requires decision-making processes where the knowledge, experiences and visions of all stakeholders are respected and weighted equally. For a long time, relationships between the people of this land and outside interests have been characterized by unequal empowerment, with decisions about land and resource use in our territory made far away from the community by resource companies and the government. Through these processes, western scientific and economic knowledge and values about the land are recognized as legitimate, while our traditional knowledge has been discounted. Today, decisions about land and resource use and management are more urgent than ever for the Kelly Lake people. Over the last several decades, outside development interests have put increasing pressure on our territory. Oil and gas pipelines criss-cross the lands and the community of Kelly Lake itself has become a crossroads for industrial transport trucks. These activities have cut off our traplines, scared away animals, degraded plant and animal habitats, and polluted our water, soil and bodies. All this has made it more difficult for us to access the places and resources that are important to our economic, spiritual, social and cultural livelihoods and our food security. The people of Kelly Lake are not opposed to development in our territory. Indeed, development activities provide employment for many of our members. We must have an active, meaningful role in determining the course of long and short-term development in our territory. We want to be in a strong position to determine the important values, places and activities that should be preserved, and the terms on which development activities should proceed. We have always been collaborators, working closely with our neighbours for the greater health, happiness and security of all, and this is how we approach our relationships with development proponents interested in working with us and within our territory. As the traditional stewards of these lands, we, the Kelly Lake Cree Nation, expect to engage with our neighbours, and with industry and governments in respectful, collaborative and symmetrical relationships to develop progressive, mutually beneficial plans for economic development and environmental management in our territory.