Every October, Cree people have moose on their minds, with many heading out to bush camps for a week or more of hunting and enjoying time with family. For the second year, Angela Ottereyes organized a moose harvest workshop at Montreal’s Dawson College for students far from Eeyou Istchee.
“This community project not only brought our Indigenous Dawson community together but also allowed us to share this experience with our families,” Ottereyes shared. “I’m especially grateful to have shared this day with my daughter Misha. What an exhausting but fulfilling day!”
Ottereyes thanked Bobby Patton from the Cree-Mohawk teepee project in Kahnawake for connecting her with Listiguj hunter Peter Martin, who delivered it from Mi’gmaq territory for students to skin and butcher. Following an opening prayer and tobacco offering, experienced teachers guided the cleaning and cutting before moose stew was cooked right outside the college.
As the declining moose population has been a central issue in longstanding disputes between the Cree Nation and Quebec, it was the focus of a JBNQA treaty simulation held by the Cree Nation Youth Council in Ottawa on November 8 to 10. With a 2021 aerial survey finding a 35 percent drop in areas near Waswanipi, Ouje-Bougoumou and Waskaganish, the sports hunt was suspended in Zone 17 and new conservation measures have been introduced.
A mandatory tag and permit system requires tallymen to complete permission forms for local hunters with the Cree Trappers’ Association issuing permits with specific conditions that must be kept at all times. A limit of two moose per trapline and one per family must be respected, with big bull moose, females and calves avoided.
“The tallyman has authority that should be respected,” asserted Allan Saganash, who made recommendations for the policies. “People are going out and killing moose at random. Let’s do our part to bring back the moose population.”
Night hunting and the use of snowmobiles or drones for hunting are prohibited in Zone 17 – Saganash advised “get on your snowshoes and walk.” All parts of the moose should be used and shared, including donations to the CTA community freezers. Reporting harvests to the CTA ensure accurate oversight of the regional situation.
While he’s adamant that forestry is the main cause of dwindling moose numbers, there have also been pressures from the increasing number of Cree hunters with ever improving methods and equipment. In this overdeveloped region, abundant forestry roads and fragmented habitats make moose easy targets.
“A long time ago we hunted by water but now you can drive 2 km and you see a moose,” Saganash explained. “In Waswanipi, 80 to 90 percent of moose killed are in open cut areas caused by forestry development.”
Saganash said about 400 Cree and 900 non-Native camps with authorized permits are scattered throughout Waswanipi, along with 136 illegal non-Native structures at last count. He had recently encountered a non-Native camp being built in his hunting area.
“They said we’re on the list for a permit,” Saganash recalled. “I told him there’s a moratorium, you can’t build camps – he didn’t want to talk to me after. Where’s Quebec in all this? You also have poaching activities because of the roads, by Cree and non-Natives alike.”
Saganash believes every community should have a moose management committee to address their unique needs. Tallyman Paul Dixon said that fifty years ago his trapline was all female moose winter yards but today it’s mostly logged out.
“In 1993, I came out of the bush on the advice of my dad because the forest could not hold everybody so my other brothers could hunt peacefully,” Dixon said. “I’d tell the youth that they can’t be harassed about their rights but in the same breath I tell them there’s too much forestry, there’s a big decline in moose, could you please move somewhere else.”