First Nations

WAHGOSHIG FIRST NATION

Wahgoshig First Nation is situated in the District of Cochrane near Longitude 79o 58" W and Latitude 48o 35" North. The reserve, which was first named Abitibi # 70, was created by the signing of Treaty 9 on June 7, 1906. It encompasses 19,239 acres, or 30 square miles. Highway 101 provides access to the 5.8 km long reserve road, approximately 50 km east of Matheson, Ontario, within a few miles of the western Quebec border. The north end of the reserve meets the south shore of Abitibi Lake, which separates the two provinces.

McCool Creek crosses the southern part of the reserve, running west to east, and Wahgoshig Lake in the west-central portion of the reserve is drained via Low Creek into Chesney Bay.

The village where all the on-reserve people now reside, occupies about 25 hectares of the 70 hectares of flat land adjacent to, and just east of, tiny Blueberry Lake. West of the village, the land becomes undulating and it contains many wet swampy areas - ideal moose habitat. Moose, bears, grouse and other game are quite abundant in the area.

There are now 37 houses on the reserve. In addition, there is a new band office recently constructed, a health clinic, a warehouse / fire hall, a garage, and a storage garage which serves as the existing community hall.

The first recorded reference to the native people of this area was in the House of Commons debates in 1897 when the treaty status was discussed. For centuries prior to that, however, they were a nomadic group of hunter-gatherers, whose traditional territory straddled a large segment of what is now northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec.

The hunting and trapping grounds extended and still extend east and northeast of Long Sault to Pierre, Harris, and Montreuil Lakes in Ontario, and on a parallel line into Quebec and as far east as Amos. The southernmost limit of the territory was a little south of Kirkland Lake in Ontario and Rouyn In Quebec. Cochrane, Ontario is the approximately western boundary.

When the James Bay Treaty was signed at the Hudson's Bay Company post on Lake Abitibi in Quebec, the treaty commissioners revealed that they were only authorized to negotiate with the Anishnawbe whose hunting grounds were in Ontario. The Abitibi Indians who were part of the same group, but whose hunting territory lay within Quebec, were told that negotiations for a reserve for them would occur later, but the Quebec government stalled that process for a considerable time after a treaty was signed with the Ontario band.

Two years after the signing of the James Bay Treaty the federal government still had not been able to get Quebec to set aside a reserve for the Quebec Indians. It then arranged with the Quebec government to bring them under Treaty 9, which meant that they would receive annuities and would share in the revenues allocated to Abitibi # 70, and income from this reserve was, and still is, divided on a per capita basis. This is the origin of much of the economic disparity that Wahgoshig First Nation contends with today; due to the way disbursements are set up through the federal government's intervention into their affairs, the Wahgoshig people receive only a minor share of any revenue that they may generate from natural resources on Wahgoshig Reserve. This has proved to be a disincentive towards developing the on-reserve natural resources. Currently, the First Nation's are trying to resolve these complicated issues in the courts.

Until 1972, the Department of Indian Affairs in Quebec, administered the affairs of both bands. From 1972 on, Indian Affairs in Sudbury, Ontario, took over the affairs of the Abitibi-Ontario band.

In 1979, the Abitibi-Dominion band changed its name to Abitibiwinni, and the Abitibi-Ontario band became Wahgoshig First Nation.

Although Wahgoshig had a land base, they did not have the funds to establish a community on Abitibi # 70. In 1986, some families moved to the reserve, where they resided in tents for up to two years, until the first houses could be built.

The Wahgoshig First Nation has a system of roads, a potable water distribution system and a solid waste disposal site in the community at this time.

Freight services (railway and trucking) are available in Matheson, Ontario.

A school bus makes the run twice a day to pick up and return the elementary school children to the public school in Matheson. The children are on the bus approximately one-and-a -half hours a day. The band supplies a van and a driver to transport the high school students to and from the Town of Iroquois Falls each day.

One hundred and twenty-nine of the Wahgoshig First Nation members live on the reserve and another 92 live off-reserve. A number of Cree people and others have either transferred band membership to the band or simply live as part of the community.

For more information:
Wahgoshig First Nation
P.O. Box 629
Matheson, Ontario
P0K 1N0
Tel. (705) 273-2055
Fax (705) 273-2900

Created on 01/31/2005 02:03 PM by verdon
Updated on 09/28/2007 10:54 AM by admin