I Met One of the Last People Born Nomadic in Canada.

[00:00:01]You have to adjust with time.

[00:00:04]And if you >> [music] >> if you don't think negative, if you think positive all the time, you're going to be happy as you change.

[00:00:15]You're going to be uh interested in things that are going to change, you know.

[00:00:20]There's always a learning process along the along the path.

[00:00:25]I sometimes wish I could have lived the way I used to live when nobody bothered me.

[00:00:32]But I cannot I know I know I cannot do that.

[00:00:36]I know I have to live the way the things are are going today. [music] I was born in there on the bay. I wasn't born in a hospital.

[00:00:46]>> [music] >> I lived the years when they didn't have no housing except TVs and so on. That's all we had. Here from people from inland, people from the north, people from [music] the south.

[00:00:59]We mingled for 2 months of the year in the summertime.

[00:01:04]July to August.

[00:01:07]>> [music] >> I went to residential school for a while and I only had the chance to go to for 6 years. And then at that time the law stated that a word a child reaches 16, >> [music] >> the government was no more responsible for them. So, I I was in that category.

[00:01:28]So, I only had 6 years of training.

[00:01:31]And the rest is all all narrow on the road to ambitions and so on.

[00:01:41]I don't have no regrets of residential school.

[00:01:46]>> [music] >> Okay.

[00:01:47]>> I have only fond memories residential school.

[00:01:51]>> Great.

[00:01:51]>> And I praise a little even though I lost my a lot of my cultural life that I would have had if I hadn't gone to school.

[00:02:02]I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to use it now if I didn't.

[00:02:07]Now that I had been going to school, learning the process of of other nations, I I'm sort of thankful I got Right now, I had a lot of buddies that didn't that never went to school. They had to have an interpreter.

[00:02:26]And I don't I don't really have one.

[00:02:32]>> One of my primary interests in this trip to the East Coast is to learn as much as I can about the different cultures, history, and traditions all the way across this great big country. [music] And this trip up to Chisasibi provided exactly that.

[00:02:47]This conversation with Robert is, [music] in my opinion, one of the most inspirational to date because if you think about the two of us chatting in his modern home in a modern town [music] full of amenities, he spent the early years of his life experiencing the final generation of truly nomadic people in Canada. [music] Then to go on and get through the residential school experience, and in his adult life serve as [music] chief during the relocation of the village from Fort George Island to where it is [music] today is a story that I find really inspiring. To get to sit down and hear it first [music] hand and share it here on the channel, it's really an honor.

[00:03:35]Once again, this late winter has thrown a total curveball into my game plan. We while we're up here, we really want to get out and see Fort George, the original town site. With all of the ice still on the bay, they're not able to get the barge in the water yet. I met the gentleman in charge of tourism here, and he's putting in a smaller barge and has offered to take me over for a brief tour. We're camped just about 7 km from where they're putting the boat in.

[00:04:01]I've just hopped on the e-bike heading over to meet up with them.

[00:04:13]I'm guessing this must be the full-size barge here.

[00:04:20]I'm just ahead of them, maybe.

[00:04:38]Just like that, welcome to Fort George Island. Going to head over to the main camp, drop off the bike, and then go for the tour.

[00:04:58]All right.

[00:04:59]>> [music] >> We [music] were the first inhabitants of this country, and we lived our as a nomadic people, and [music] then we roamed the land at free will.

[00:05:17]>> [music] >> The project that the government did to our land, they [music] destroyed a lot of our hunting territories, which we cannot go back anymore.

[00:05:28]So, in other words, in order to be able to survive, you got to change your [music] way of life.

[00:05:35]Life changes. It's never the same.

[00:05:39]Even tomorrow will will [music] be different.

[00:05:43]Sunshine, rain, cloudy, cold, frost.

[00:05:49]Everything is [music] changing.

[00:05:51]And we have to uh find find ways to be able to survive.

[00:06:02]We had no really no choice but to move off the island.

[00:06:06]And there was a lot of people that didn't want to uh They didn't want to There was certain families left on the island when we moved.

[00:06:15]And they gradually came in uh slowly and then of course uh quite [music] some time now there's nobody on the island anymore.

[00:06:27]>> [music] >> If I was just thinking of myself, I wouldn't move.

[00:06:31]My fond memories are here on the island.

[00:06:34]I grew up here like all the rest of the kids.

[00:06:37]And then >> [music] >> uh you know, my memories are really here.

[00:06:42]What I what I like was is here.

[00:06:47]And then [music] uh But you have to think about the future.

[00:06:52]I said uh we have to move.

[00:06:54]Whether we like it or not.

[00:06:56]We had to move.

[00:07:01]In the middle of the move, we were asked to I was asked [music] to step down.

[00:07:06]And uh I said, "Okay."

[00:07:09]I said, [music] "If you think that you're going to you're going to stop the move." I said, "You forget it." I said, "We're moving either with me or without me."

[00:07:25]You know, it was sad.

[00:07:27]You know, a lot of I lost a lot of friends then. [music] But I had no choice.

[00:07:37]The way we used to love, especially the old people like my [music] my generation and before that. So we used to draw our water from the river.

[00:07:48]Which we cannot do anymore. [music] That's our our main source.

[00:07:56]We used to fish along there.

[00:07:58]We can't do that anymore.

[00:08:04]We have to pay electricity. We have to pay uh insurance. We have to pay >> [laughter] >> all sorts of >> [music] >> In those days we never paid that.

[00:08:15]Because uh you were happily hap- happy [music] living, you know.

[00:08:22]No no hassle. No Nobody who pushed pushed you around.

[00:08:32]>> [music] >> The government the past tried to assimilate the native people, [music] the aboriginal people. It did impossible.

[00:08:41]You cannot change people. [music] The way they were how they were born.

[00:08:48]If the Chinese were born, they'll stay Chinese.

[00:08:55]If the Japanese were were born Japanese, they'll stay Japanese.

[00:09:01]Inuit, the same.

[00:09:02]>> Yeah.

[00:09:03]>> Like all of us are the same. [music] You know, we'll die as we were born as a native native. [music] I will not die as a white person.

[00:09:15]I will die as a Cree.

[00:09:19]>> [music] >> I'll be 92 in December.

[00:09:24]>> Good [music] for you.

[00:09:25]You're sharp. I'm surprised. Your mind is sharp.

[00:09:30]What's the What's the secret to a long healthy life?

[00:09:34]>> [clears throat] [music] >> I don't know what secret, but they don't I don't worry about things that I cannot fix.

[00:09:45]I don't you know the ones [music] that that that you sort of had a problem with.

[00:09:52]If I cannot fix it, forget it.

[00:09:55]Don't worry about don't keep it in your head.

[00:09:58]Just keep your mind open for for good good things, [music] not bad things.

[00:10:08]People worry about they [music] have so many times that they have conference about about the residential school system.

[00:10:21]I don't worry [music] about that one. I cannot do nothing now.

[00:10:25]It has happened.

[00:10:27]And there's no way I could go back [music] in time and fix it.

[00:10:33]So, forget it.

[00:10:35]I don't look back. I >> [music] >> I I cannot stop to think about the past, but I don't [music] dwell on it.

[00:10:45]I just remember.

[00:10:46]>> Yeah.

[00:10:47]>> And the things that I sort of felt that they they were not or good enough, I'll try to avoid them.

[00:10:54]I try to do something else better.

[00:10:58]>> Yeah. [music] So, Thomas was just telling me this is actually the landing for the Hudson Bay Company when they would bring in supplies. And then that building you can see up top is still original. That just shows you how much erosion has happened here.

[00:11:19]Granted it's been over a hundred years.

[00:11:23]Not much left of it though.

[00:11:35]>> I used to play here as a kid.

[00:11:37]>> Really?

[00:11:37]>> Yeah.

[00:11:38]>> So, it's been here a long time.

[00:11:39]>> Even before like before I went to school, it was there.

[00:11:45]>> Very cool.

[00:11:48]Was this just a light pole?

[00:11:50]>> That was standing on top.

[00:11:52]>> That was up on top.

[00:11:53]>> Yeah.

[00:11:53]>> Oh, wow.

[00:12:13]Yep. Definitely have to take at least a small peek down in here.

[00:12:30]Well, I can see just a little bit down in here, but of course, in typical Dustin fashion, I do not have a flashlight with me.

[00:12:48]Wow.

[00:12:54]Seems crazy that this is sitting here on land because you can't tell because the trees are here, but the ocean is actually just right there.

[00:13:04]Thomas was telling me they put this up here for fuel storage. Doesn't surprise me because when you go down in there, you can really smell strong diesel.

[00:13:15]So, I'm guessing they were just using the great big tanks of the boat to store diesel.

[00:13:20]He said he came up here lots as a kid to play.

[00:13:38]>> That's a very nice beach here in the summer time.

[00:13:42]>> Yeah.

[00:13:42]>> So, what I wanted to do is build a stairs?

[00:13:46]>> Yeah.

[00:13:48]>> We will sit on the beach.

[00:13:52]Just for the buyout.

[00:13:54]>> Yeah, still a lot of ice here.

[00:14:04]Here's a closer look at this pipe.

[00:14:07]And I guess there was another tank somewhere over here. Then they would pump the diesel out of the ship and then over into that tank where they could use it for I don't know, heating or generator. I'm not entirely sure.

[00:14:40]Just finished our tour at Fort George, heading back to camp. There's something else really interesting happening here called goose break.

[00:14:47]All the kids are off school and the families go out and hunt their year's supply of geese and it's happening right down at the bay where we're camping.

[00:14:58]>> Can't even see them.

[00:14:59]I don't know where it was.

[00:15:00]>> The goose break [music] is something that was heavily traditional before we we were here.

[00:15:08]We used to stay in our own trap lines.

[00:15:12]And people in the south were uh killing geese.

[00:15:19]People in the north were trapping muskrats. [music] Uh after we got here, we had our traditional process of teaching our own children that this uh tradition should not die. And what do we do?

[00:15:39]The first goose was shot by a uh young boy.

[00:15:45]It's recorded. They tell stories about it.

[00:15:48]How the kid was happy that he got a goose.

[00:15:53]And that will course that will hopefully that will continue on for life. It goes on, you know, in in in various stages.

[00:16:04]From the uh people in the year the further south they like those sky dinners.

[00:16:09]The oldest community uh all down the line and then in [music] the inland, too.

[00:16:16]Inland of course, you know, it didn't quite take it as the tradition before.

[00:16:22]Maybe it was just just a habit of of going out. And then we we uh we sort of thought as it was more and more kids you know growing up and so we had to teach those kids what this means all.

[00:16:38]And that's why we closed school for 2 weeks in the spring and in the fall.

[00:17:14]>> Finding a story like this is exactly what gives [music] me fuel for story chasing on Destination Adventure, but for the first time in quite a long time, I felt like I didn't do this story justice.

[00:17:26]My conversation with Robert lasted nearly an [music] hour, one of the most inspirational to date, but our time within the community was so limited, I simply didn't have enough footage to utilize the entire thing.

[00:17:37]Nevertheless, it's a story that's going to stick with me for the rest of my life, and it was truly an honor to be able to share even a portion of it here on the channel. I want to give a great big thank [music] you to the entire community of Chisasibi for such a warm welcome, and most of all, thanks for watching, everybody.

[00:17:54]>> [music and singing] [music] [singing] [music and singing] [music] [music] >> I'm just [music] a house of stones.

[00:18:38]Somebody hold me steady.

[00:18:41]This doesn't feel like home. [music] These walls are getting heavy.