You can trace the change back, not to the coming of the mines, but to the first initial contact with Europeans through the fur trading – that’s when we started to change our traditional way of life, when we started to abandon our traditional way of life in order to get some other form of revenue. It’s not black and white – it’s a gradual change. Our way of life was transformed gradually with contact with Europeans and other factors – a curve. You don’t go right or left. It’s a slow curve of change. It’s a mindset, you know. I feel more and more voiceless, powerless compared perhaps to 30 or 40 years ago, in the sense that nobody cares much about us. People and companies and governments go on with their projects – business as usual – and it just rolls over us without considering us much or our aspirations as Innu.

After that a lot of Innu people died because they starved. They could have made a lot of money selling furs to the Europeans and the Northern Store. My cousin starved to death.

Some people are not yet ready to talk about abuse.

I was there for three years and then I went on for two years to the convent. Because of this I lost all my culture. They broke up our family. If I had been able to grow up there I would have known all the animals, what is there, what their names are. I would have known all about the country if they hadn’t done that. If I hadn’t gone there my life would have been very different. That’s what I can’t forgive. Now I am trying to help younger people not to feel bad like I did. I tell children where they came from, their history, about their land, their culture. That makes me feel better in myself, helping other people.