Pimicikamak is the namethe Anglicized version of its collective name. of one of the Cree-speaking aboriginal peoples of Canada.It is also referred to erroneously as Pimicikamak Cree Nation. Pimicikamak is "a people of rivers and lakes. The traditional territory of Pimicikamak is around Sipiwesk Lake in the heart of the boreal forest, five hundred kilometres north of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Flowing through their land is Kichi Sipi, the Great River."John Miswagon, "A Government of our Own", Frontier Centre for Public Policy, 21 April 2005, http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=1043 , accessed 24 September 2008. Pimicikamak's traditional territory also is known as Pimicikamak.Used in this sense it connotes the rocks, trees, animals, water, humans, etc. as distinct from a purely geographic meaning.
Pimicikamak is related to but appears to be culturally and linguistically distinct from neighboring Swampy Cree and Rock or Rocky Cree peoples of the boreal forest.About whom see: James G.E. Smith, "Western Woods Cree" in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6, June Helm, ed., Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1981), p. 256: "Western Woods Cree ... encompasses ... the Rocky Cree, the Western Swampy Cree, and Strongwoods or Bois Fort Cree." There is less than complete consensus about these and other such anthropological definitions that may have been confused by changing fashions in colonial naming.For example, James Smith, in Handbook of North American Indians, says "[I]t was apparent merely that the name Cree that was [in the late 18th century] extended westward to apply to these divisions, previously known by generic terms...". The existence of distinct peoples in Canada, though constitutionally entrenched,See: Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35, Schedule B to the Canada Act, 1982 (U.K.) c. 11. is controversial by reason of perceived implications for Quebec separatism.See, e.g.: Lucien Bouchard, A Visage Découvert, Lés Editions du Boréal, Montréal (1992); and see: Reference Re Quebec Secession, 2 S.C.R. 217 (Can.). The identities and roles of aboriginal peoples in Canada continue to be clarified.John Borrows, "Uncertain Citizens: Aboriginal Peoples and the Supreme Court", (2001) 80 Can. Bar Rev., 15.
Names Etymologically, pimicikamāk and related terms were understood as connoting "flowing across".Archives of Manitoba/Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Post Histories, Post Cross Lake; the Post History is annotated "Cree name: PEMICHIKAMOW – 'flowing across'", possibly by the first Hudson's Bay Company archivist Richard Leveson Gower in 1934; see also D.A. Simmons, ‘Custodians of a Great Inheritance: An Account of the Making of the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, 1920–1974’, thesis, University of Manitoba/University of Winnipeg, 19 May 1994, at p. 73. This is widely presumed to be the origin of the name of Cross Lake in Pimicikamak territory.Note that there was another Cross Lake, now flooded, that was upstream of Grand Rapids, Manitoba, on the Saskatchewan River. "Pimicikamak" is the collective singular name for the whole peopleThe singular noun is Pimicikamowinew; its plural is Pimicikamowinewuk. and also the collective name for its traditional territory. Grouped as part of the closely related Rocky Cree, Pimicikamak refer to themselves as Nahathaway (nīhithawī)"[T]heir native name", see David Thompson: Travels in Western North America 1784-1812. (those who speak our language) or ithiniwi (real people); they called themselves "Cree" only when speaking English or French.David Pentland, "Synonymy", in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6, June Helm, ed., Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1981), 227. Canada's history of suppressing indigenous languages, including aboriginal peoples' use of their own names such as "Pimicikamak", was controversial until 2008, when Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly acknowledged and apologized for this policy.Hansard, Wednesday, 11 June 2008, Stephen Harper, "Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools", http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3568890&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=2, accessed 1 August 2008. The name "Pimicikamak" appears to have entered into English-language usage by Cree-speakers in the 1990s. "The Pimicikamak Cree Nation" is a polyglot and imprecise description of Pimicikamak, not a name. It is also known in English as "the Cross Lake Band", a description that may be confused with the Cross Lake Band of Indians (now known as the "Cross Lake First Nation").See, for example: "Cross Lake Band", http://crosslakeband.ca/, accessed 4 September 2008.
Traditional territory Aboriginal concepts of territory are sui generis and do not correspond to those of Western cartography."[T]he fact that land occupied a central position in the traditional world did not necessarily mean there was a comprehensive monopolistic concept of power applicable to all matters, to every person and thing within a rigorously laid-out geometric boundary that was unique and fixed in space." Ghislain Otis, "Territoriality, Personality, and the Promotion of Aboriginal Legal Traditions", in Indigenous Legal Traditions, ed. Law Commission of Canada, UBC Press, Vancouver (2007), p. 146.
Pimicikamak's traditional territory is reported to have been the watershedTypically, river basins were reported to be the basis of distinct peoples' territories in the region; see: Victor P. Lytwyn, Muskekowuck Athinuwick: Original People of the Great Swampy Land, University of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg (2000), pp. 12 - 13. of the upper Nelson River.Margaret Anne Lindsay & Jennifer S.H. Brown, The History of the Pimicikamak People to the Treaty Five Period, The Centre for Rupert's Land Studies at The University of Winnipeg (2008); this is consistent with the difference between the intended and actual boundaries of Treaty 5 in 1875. It is located within the boreal forest or taiga of Canada. Like other indigenous peoples, Pimicikamak sees its spiritual relationship with the land as fundamental to its identity.Ronald Niezen, Defending the Land: Sovereignty and Forest Life in James Bay Cree Society, Allyn and Bacon, Boston (1998); and see Ghislain Otis, "Territoriality, Personality, and the Promotion of Aboriginal Legal Traditions", in Indigenous Legal Traditions, ed. Law Commission of Canada, UBC Press, Vancouver (2007), p. 145, emphasizing "the importance of the material and cultural connection with the land that was often a sacred space and the very foundation of communal life." Displacing indigenous spirituality through Christian missions was said to be "one of the most effective tools of assimilation" leading to "conformity within newly prescribed territorial limits."Ronald Niezen, Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building, University of California Press, Berkeley (2000), pp. 222-3. Canadian law continues to recognize relationships of aboriginal peoples with their traditional (cf., treaty) territories.E.g., Mikisew v. Canada, 3 S.C.R. 388 (Can.), http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc69/2005scc69.html, accessed 18 August 2008.
History Oral history passed down by Pimicikamak elders says that Pimicikamak existed since time immemorial. Anthropological and archaeological evidence places aboriginal occupation of Pimicikamak after the last ice age "sometime before 4000 B.C.E."Lindsay & Brown, History of the Pimicikamak People to the Treaty Five Period, p. 1. European documentary records date back at least to 1768, when a map showed Pemichicomo Lake in the area known as Rupert's Land.Andrew Graham, "A Plan of Part of Hudson's Bay and Rivers Communicating with the Principal Settlements", (1768) in John Warkentin & Richard Ruggles, Historical Atlas of Manitoba, The Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, Winnipeg (1970), p. 95. In 1770, Thomas Hutchins included the Pemmichi-ke-mè-u people on a list of tribes trading into Hudson Bay.Sir John Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition: A Journal of a Boat-voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea, in Search of the Discovery Ships under Command of Sir John Franklin, v. 2, Harper, New York (1851), p. 37. Famed explorer and geographer David Thompson overwintered on Sipiwesk Lake in 1792.Joseph Burr Tyrrell, in David Thompson's Narrative of his Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812, Champlain Society, Toronto (1916), lxvi-lxvii. Peter Fidler charted the upper Nelson River through Pimicikamak in 1809.Archives of Manitoba/Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Journals of Exploration and Survey (1809), E.3/4, ff. 4 – 7; . Pimicikamak made treaty (Treaty 5) with the Crown in 1875. In 1977 it was party to an amendmentAn agreement with Canada, Manitoba and Manitoba Hydro dated 16 December 1977, informally known as the Northern Flood Agreement. to address effects of the Nelson River Hydroelectric Project operations on its Treaty 5 rights.
Constitution Like other indigenous peoples in Turtle Island (the name for North America in many indigenous languages), Pimicikamak was constituted under spiritual law. These were passed down orally through stories and reflected in ceremonies and traditions of the Pimicikamak people. They formed part of the culture that enabled it to survive as a people in a harsh environment.See: "Köppen climate classification", sub-arctic climate Dfc, Tom L. McKnight & Darrell Hess, "Climate Zones and Types: The Köppen System", in Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ (2000). Treaty 5, signed by the British Crown and by Tepastenam and two others on Pimicikamak's behalf in 1875, clearly were intended to and did amend this customary constitution. Pimicikamak is a body politic or corporate.Gillespie, C., Portrait of a People: A Study in Survival, Winnipeg: Big Fizz (2017), p. 97. In 1996, Pimicikamak enacted its First Written Law which began the adaptation of its constitution to modern circumstances.See: Galit A. Sarfaty, "International Norm Diffusion in the Pimicikamak Cree Nation: A Model of Legal Mediation", (2007) 48 Harvard International Law Journal 441, at p. 473."Based on ... inherent jurisdiction, the Cree ratified The First Written Law ... which laid the foundation for their adaptation of customary practices. ... It outlines the constitutional powers of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation..." Since the 1990s Pimicikamak has made other written laws with constitutional effect in the English language, including a citizenship law and an election law. These are based on consensus.Pimicikamak, The First Written Law, 1996, http://pimicikamak.ca/html%20pages/Laws/Pimicikamak/First%20Law.html . The government of Canada has doubted the validity of the First Written Law and written laws made pursuant to it but accepted the validity of one such law, The Pimicikamak Election Law, 1999, on other grounds.
The Winnipeg Treaty