Little Hunter chief standing firm

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The chief on the Little Hunter band says his members won't budge from plans to occupy Crown land in west-central Alberta unless government officials prove their land claim invalid.

"If Rostad and Fjordbotten expect us to move off the land once we move onto it, they better have the documentation proving us wrong in one hand and the eviction papers in the other when they come to kick us off," said hereditary chief Garnet Desjarlais in a recent interview.

The band's claim has been met skeptically by Native Affairs Minister Ken Rosta and Leroy Fjordbotten, minister of forestry, lands and wildlife.

"They don't have any recognize as far as legal status as Natives and they certainly do not have any claim to this land they're on," said Fjordbotten

Rostad told reporters he was advised the Little Hunter band is from Saskatchewan. He said there is some doubt whether the band exists.

Some Little Hunter members have already moved onto the disputed land to build houses. They claim to have Indian status and that Treaty 6 gives them the right t to 2.6 sq. km of land each. They are claiming a total of 58,700 hectares of land.

Desjarlais said in an interview from his Mayerthorpe home the two ministers are mistaken in their assertion the Little Hunter band doesn't exist and that the land claim is invalid.

"The fact is most members of the provincial government have never studied the actual Treaty 6 document. And the saddest part is they're not using what the Crown said when they gave us our rights, but they will use the power of the Crown to go against us," he said.

H said the land now claimed by the Little Hunter band was given to his grandfather Dave Desjarlais in 1958. He said the proof is contained in a foot-high pile of documents gathered during his 10 years researching the issue.

"In the letters I received from the National Archives over the years it clearly states the Little Hunter band exists and that as long as there is one member of the band alive, the provincial government must abide by the text contained in the Treaty 6 agreement.

"I feel very fortunate to have the documentation to back up what I'm saying because I think it would be much more difficult today to get the information I would need to prove what I'm trying to say," he said.

It hasn't been an easy battle for Desjarlais, who has listened to people ridicule him and his claim over the decade he has researched the subject.

"It doesn't matter to me what they say. I've been called everything under the sun and I'm not going to give up just because a few people call me names or dispute what I say. I believe I have the necessary evidence to back up the land claim I've made on behalf of my people.

"One Indian Affairs official, Perry Bennett, told me my grandfather took land scrip and therefore I wasn't entitled to any land. I told him that didn't matter because I shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of my grandfather.

"Should I hang for my grandfather's crimes?" he asked.

Desjarlais said the government's claim he isn't entitled to any land for a reserve stems mainly from his great-grandfather Daniel Desjarlais having been kicked off Saddle Lake reserve for marrying a white woman.

The government said my great-grandfather married a white woman but that was another mistake on their part. When she first arrived in Alberta, the officials asked her where she came before moving to Alberta. She didn't understand the nature of the question and told them she had loved across the Big Water. They assumed that meant the ocean and they labeled her a European immigrant. She actually came from the Great White Plains in Manitoba, the exact same area her husband originated from."

Desjarlais said the federal government at that time was willing to use almost any tactic to take away the rights of Canada's original inhabitants.

"It's no different than when the past governments took away our Indian names and gave us the names of the white man. All they were trying to dowas strip us of our true identity and make us quite.

"I'd like to ask Rostad and Fjordbotten if they honestly believe Indians don't exist anymore. Do they think we simply stopped being Indians because they took our land and our names away from us?" asked Desjarlais.

He said the federal government was actually breaking the law when it began issuing land scrip to Native people, who chose not to live on reserves because according to the treaties written in the Queen's name the Indians were entitled to own land anyway.

"I am the hereditary chief of the Little Hunter band. My great-grandfather Frederick Desjarlais (Ka-Kake or Hawk) was chief of the Little Hunter band when the federal government was negotiating the land treaties. I am a direct descendant of him."

Desjarlais believes the federal government doesn't want to deal with the land claim issue and is shrinking its duty by passing the buck to the provincial government.

"They think we're going to give up or go away after awhile but they don't realize a few more years isn't much to a race of people who have spent generations waiting for the government to live up to their end of the agreement."

Desjarlais said he's ready to go to court anytime with either level of government to resolve the situation but he feels it should be Ottawa and not the provincial government that deals with the problem.

"After all Alberta wasn't even a province when the federal government and the Indians signed Treaty 6, so it shouldn't be the provincial government we're negotiating with now."

He said the issue will be resolved some day but if there is no progress made in the near future, band members are prepared to move onto the land in order to force the federal government's hand.

"All I want is what I'm rightfully entitled to," Desjarlais said.