By Rob McKinley
Windspeaker Staff Writer

Chief Abel Bosum's determination and commitment to his people are the main reasons for the existence of the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree Nation in Quebec.

Fifteen years after Bosum, and other Woodland Cree in the area, began the fight to form their own community, he has been awarded with a National Aboriginal Achievement Award for community development.

The category is fitting since Ouje-Bougoumou has become internationally recognized for its superior quality of life and environmental responsibility. In fact, Ouje-Bougoumou has been identified as one of 50 communities around the world that best exemplify the goals of the United Nations.

In receiving the award, Bosum said it was a very welcome and unexpected recognition.

"Never in our dreams did we ever [think] that we'd win an award," he said.

For all the work the community has done to improve itself, Bosum said, they often forget to pat themselves on the back. The awards ceremony offered that congratulations.

"I guess for a long time we're the last ones to recognize ourselves, and I think this [awards] program is sort of a beginning of changing that," he said.

The award is especially important to the younger generation of Aboriginal people who will make their mark in the future, he said.

"It helps our young people to be able to look up and say, 'If those people can reach those goals and make those changes, I'm sure I can,'" said Bosum.

Kenny Mianscum, a councillor at Ouje-Bougoumou Cree Nation, who has worked with Bosum "since the first step of the journey," said the chief is deserving of the National Aboriginal Achievement Award.

"It's for all the work he has done. He's dedicated half his life toward his vision and to the dreams of his people and he's taken them far," said Mianscum.

Before 1983, when Bosum and a few others began the work to bring a scattered population together into one Cree nation, "there was nothing," said Mianscum.

Now, more than 550 people have a place to call home.

Even though he was the award recipient, Bosum was probably accepting the achievement award on behalf of the whole community, said Mianscum.

"I believe he shares this award with the community," Mianscum said.

Bosum can add the achievement award to a long list of awards he and the community have received.

Bosum has a Grade 11 education, with training in management, geology, surveying and mining exploration.

Since helping to create Ouje-Bougoumou, he has been instrumental in developing culturally appropriate methods of healing the community after decades of poverty and neglect; in building a sustainable heating system for the village which uses wood wastes from neighboring sawmills and is converted into energy for the entire village and he also helped develop the architectural design for the structures in Ouje-Bougoumou to best duplicate Cree culture and traditions.

The community has already been honored with the United Nations Centre of Human Settlements, Best Practices Designation in 1996, and was nominated for the German Travel Agents Association Tourism and Environment Award in 1996. The community also received an honorable mention in the CMHC Technology and Production Awards in 1994.

The National Aboriginal Achievement Award is their crowning glory.

Although there is much to celebrate for the people of Ouje-Bougoumou, and despite the recognition from the awards and from the United Nations, the federal government has still not officially recognized the community.

Mianscum said the community hopes the achievement award will be a building block for them to get the recognition from the government.

"We'll keep pushing. We hope this is another step in achieving some of the things we have not yet achieved," he said.

The community of Ouje-Bougoumou will be getting more international exposure in two years, as it has been invited to provide an exhibit at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany.

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