I must start off this post by saying that it is not with any political intention that I write it; the story and is posted for heritage, historic and family legacy reasons alone. I also want to state that I have two strong heritage backgrounds in my family, Italian from my beautiful mother, who will be 92 in a few weeks, and Cree from my father. I am immensely proud of both of these heritages but this post deals with the Cree side of our family.

Last Friday, November 27, 2015, I was invited by Chief Keith (Keeter) Corston to witness the initialing of Chapleau Cree’s proposed Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE) agreement with the governments of Canada and Ontario at the offices of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs.

I want to stress that this initialing ceremony is not the signing of the agreement as that can only be done after it is ratified by Chapleau Cree band members.

I must start with saying that it was an honour to be invited by the Chief to this event as I did not play any key role in the TLE, I only followed it at the community meetings that organized by the TLE committee to keep off-reserve members up-to-date on the process.

My first thank you of this post is to thank the committee for diligently holding the remote community sessions over the last six years to keep off-reserve membership informed and engaged. These meetings did much more that keep me current with the TLE process, they provided me a chance to engage with my community and to meet or re-engage with my many second cousins and other members of the Chaleau Cree nation.

Before continuing with the initialing ceremony, I want to introduce Isaiah Sailors, who with his brother Henry, tie me and my immediate family, together with my many cousins, second cousins, aunts and uncles, my father and grandmother directly to the historic event that happened last Friday. According to Laurie Mills, another third cousin of ours that I just met through this post, "Isaiah's father was Jacob Sailors, his mother Rachel Goodwin.  His grandfather our great-great-great grandfather was Joshua Ageneshkum.  When the missionaries were busily baptizing everyone in the 1840's they chose last names for their new flock some of Joshua's sons and daughters became Sailors."

Isaiah became a trapper himself and along with his wife Mary, raised a relatively large family of eight children; Henry,  Louisa, Mariah, Annabella (or Bella our grandmother), Amon, Clara, Josephine, Charlie and, Joseph and Kitty (a new blog update from her daughter Mary Maides).  It is through Isaiah that my brothers and I are related to, it seems, more than half of the Chapleau Cree band members. I know less about Isaiah’s brother Henry but I do know that he is one of the signatories to Treaty 9, originally signed in 1905, and signed with Chapleau Cree at the second Fort Hope on July 19, 1906, which brings, full circle, back to the initialing of the TLE agreement last Friday.

I next want to acknowledge my daughter Kailtlin who has also fortunately become inextricably tied to this story. As I mentioned, the TLE committee has been coming to the Toronto area to keep us up-to-date on the progress of the TLE. On the second meeting I attended in downtown Toronto, I suggested that Kaitlin, who was studying native studies as part of her under graduate Political Science BA, should attend with me to gain a better understanding of native issues from a grass roots level. There we both met Bryce Edwards, a partner at Olthuis-Kleer-Townshend (OKT) who represented the Band on the TLE file.

Kaitlin pretty well decided then and there that she would study law and try to gain employment the field of native law. To make a long story short, Kaitlin was later hired by OKT as a summer law student and has been working on the Chapleau Cree TLE file for the last 4 years. While not a status native, Kaitlin has been truly welcomed into the community by the TLE committee and by many others as she has continued with Bryce to follow the project through to its near conclusion last Friday.

While I mentioned that this post is not politically motivated, it is reasonable for me to introduce to you what a Treaty Land Entitlement represents. In 1905, when the Treaty 9 was signed, there was a commitment by Canada to provide an amount of land to each member of the community. For whatever reason, this commitment was never fully provided for our Band. At some point, there was 1 square mile provided between the front and back Chapleau rivers that was not suitable for habitation and much later we were provided the land that now is home to the Fox Lake Reserve but the full ‘entitlement’ was never met. The TLE is a process, and now an agreement, that provides that land and addresses the period in which the land was not available.

With that explained, we shall return to Friday, November 27^th when I was doing some other work with Chapleau Cree in downtown Toronto and was fortunately extended the generous invitation by Chief Corston to join the ceremony. The session was opened up by David Didluck, Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs for Ontario (pictured in the centre of the shot below) who welcomed everyone to this happy occasion.

The full Chapleau Cree TLE committee of Chief Corston, Mike Cachagee, Bill Cachagee, Marjorie Cachagee-Lee and Norma Caldwell were in attendance as were the lead negotiators from Ontario and Canada and almost everyone, Kaitlin tells me, that worked on the file from the two governments over the years.

When the introductions were over, Marjorie sang and drummed several Cree songs; I must admit witnessing this was a first-time experience for me and I was humbled by the serenity of the her singing and the grounding beat of the drum. I must sit with Marjorie in the near future and understand the stories and meaning behind these songs.

At the same time, Chief Corston took us all through a traditional piping ceremony which culminated in the sharing of a pipe with each of the lead negotiators, Mike Cachagee (in the red shirt below), John Nolan (Ontario – right below) and Daivd Snodon (Canada – left below).

After this, while the David, John and Chief Corston initialed the 80+ pages of the agreement in triplicate, they invited all of us to speak about what this moment represents to us. It was during these personal statements that Mike Cachagee reminded us all that we are witnessing the honouring of a commitment from a treaty that Henry Sailors signed 109 years ago.

I spoke of my gratitude to the committee for keeping us up-to-date in the regional TLE update meetings and of the honour of being invited to this key event for our community. Kaitlin, similarly, spoke about the rich experience of being able to understand more of her family’s heritage on the native side and how it has led to a tremendously rewarding career choice for her.

We all, including those from government, shared our feelings. It was, as Norma and Marjorie said, a bitter-sweet moment since many have passed before seeing this settlement reached. For Kaitlin and I, and others in the room, it was an amazing honor to be at this table, where these 3 groups of people initialed an agreement concluding a land entitlement commitment that was signed by my great-grand-unlce Henry Sailors so many years ago. For us, it was the closing of a wide and far-reaching circle that began many years ago, circling through time, lives and history and concluding there as we witnessed it.

Again, I must thank the TLE committee for allowing me to understand and keep current with the TLE process, but more importantly, for the opportunity to learn more about my Cree heritage, to meet or reacquaint with my many second cousins and to engage more deeply with the Chapleau Cree community in general.

If, as is likely the case, I have attempted to change history by documenting anything that is not a true reflection of our heritage, please forgive me and comment so that I can reflect our heritage more accurately. Also feel free to comment, on any related stories that you may have so that others may share in the stories, history and wisdom.

Meegwetch!