It is only the beginning: an ethnohistory of mid-twentieth century land tenure in Fort Severn, Ontario

Abstract

This research presents the results of sixteen interviews with Mushkego (Swampy Cree) elders from the community of Fort Severn, Ontario. The interviews focused on commercial and subsistence trapping conducted in the mid-20th century, specifically the period around the imposition of a foreign land tenure system by provincial authorities. A variety of themes were identified in the interviews related to traditional knowledge, animal-human relationships, access to mechanisms of controlling land use, and relationships within and without the community. Special focus was paid to the history of relations between the community and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and its predecessors. The interviews were compared to historical developments in the fur trade and wildlife conservation. The analysis concludes that the community experienced repeated reductions in social-ecological resilience during the 19th and 20th centuries, due to increasing social and economic marginalization coupled with the reduction of access to their land and resources. A widespread outbreak of infectious disease among beaver populations contributed to reasons for abandoning the imposed land tenure system. After the 1950s, the trapline boundaries defined by the province were largely retained in name only. In the 1990s they were co-opted in a co-management process, and elders noted that continued use of the land (including the traplines) is a tool in maintaining their rights to the land.