The Actions Taken

As more and more explorers, surveyors, prospectors, and lumber men entered into their territory, the Nishnawbe Aski sent word through Indian Agents and other non natives that they expected to be taken into Treaty. In 1901 the Inspector of Indian Agencies, Mr. Macrae, informed the Department of Indian Affairs that the aboriginal people who hunted between James Bay and the Great Lakes wanted to know when the Government would enter into a Treaty with them. When visiting Brunswick House at the headwaters of the Moose River, Inspector Macrae and the Department Accountant, D.C. Scott, met with “many others whose rights of occupancy to the territory north of the tract covered by the Robinson Treaties, have not been and have not since the date mentioned, been extinguished.” Macrae continued:

These Indians came from considerable distances and asked what the Government proposed to do about the rights of Indians residing between James Bay and the Great Lakes who had not been treated with … in 1850, saying that they heard that railroads were projected through their country, and that already miners, prospectors, and surveyors were beginning to pass through it [in] such largely increased numbers that the game was disturbed, interference with their means of livelihood had commenced, and their rights were being trespassed upon.