The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.2004, Qupperneq 19

Vol. 58 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
113
as a result of increasing usage. When it
came time to sign treaties that would extin-
guish their land title, the Native peoples
were motivated to negotiate reserves and
other conditions, since it was clear to them
this was their only way to retain any means
of livelihood. They wanted to sign treaties
not because the treaties were a good deal,
but because the people had no alternative.
Wild game and fish stocks were declining,
increasing steamboat traffic reduced their
employment as lake trippers on the York
boats, and numbers of white hunters, set-
tlers and surveyors gave indisputable proof
of future changes.
When Lieutenant-Governor Morris
granted the Icelanders a reserve in 1875 he
most likely assumed that the Aboriginal
peoples around Lake Winnipeg would
soon sign Treaty No. 5. In fact, not all
bands signed that year. A number of them
were missed during the autumn trip Morris
made around the lake for the purpose of
collecting signators to the treaty. Morris
was unaware of the number and nature of
band organizations, including the Sandy
Bar-White Mud River band. This was not
unusual during the treaty-signing process
in Canada. Many groups and bands have
been and continue to be excluded inten-
tionally or unintentionally; they are subse-
quently grouped with other bands for rea-
sons of bureaucratic expediency.
Aboriginal self-identity is overlooked. The
pressure of incoming settlers made officials
move quickly to force land surrender in sit-
uations bereft of equality or informed con-
sent. According to Dickason (251), “In the
case of Manitoba, the federal government
gave surprisingly little thought to the terms
of the expected surrenders; officials seem to
have regarded the exercise as little more
than a formality.”
It was too late in the season to open
negotiations with the overlooked bands.
Instead, a meeting was set up at Dog Head
Point for 25 July 1875. The Sandy Bar-
White Mud River people, including John
Ramsay, went to the meeting, which could
not have turned out worse for them.
Morris had given very explicit instructions
to the two commissioners who met with
the Saulteaux. First, the various bands were
to be treated as one band, which was to
elect one Chief. Amalgamation and elec-
tion of a single leader went against
Aboriginal ideas of social order; they were
accustomed to small groups and more
informal negotiations of leadership based
on personal qualities. Judging from the
commissioners’ account of the negotiations
and the Natives initial objections, the
Aboriginal peoples did not want a foreign
social order imposed upon them. But in the
face of the commissioners’ adamant refusal
to negotiate and determination to stick to
the letter of Morris’s instructions, they
finally agreed to elect a chief, as long as the
commissioners agreed to carry forward
each band’s request for a separate reserve.
The commissioners agreed - except in the
case of the Sandy Bar-White Mud
Saulteaux. Ramsay’s people requested the
lands they already occupied at White Mud
River-Sandy Bar. The commissioners
denied the request for a separate reserve on
the grounds they had accepted annuities11
at the St Peters reserve at Netley Creek. In
effect, Ramsay’s people were denied any
existence as a legal entity despite the ques-
tionable criterion.
Contemporary land claims researchers
say the place from which individuals take
annuities is no indication of their band
membership. The St Peters reserve was a
prosperous one, and it acted as a magnet
over a large region, attracting people from
as far away as Norway House
(Thompson).
Were the commissioners consistent in
their judgements about the annuities? It
would appear not. Some 20 of the 22 fami-
lies of another band at the Dog Head Point
meeting that day also collected their annu-
ities at St Peters, but they were not denied
a reserve. Given this inconsistency, it
stands to reason that the commissioners
had other motivations for disenfranchising
and dispersing the Sandy Bar-White Mud
River band. That reason could very well
have been to erase the error Morris and the
Department of the Interior had made in
granting land to the Icelanders before the
extinguishment of its aboriginal title. This
interpretation cannot be treated as conclu-
sive, however.