Innu Nation has cancelled a long-planned cultural exhibit in Labrador after a disagreement with the Newfoundland and Labrador government over how the history of the Innu people should be presented. According to those involved, the dispute came down to a single question: how far back in time the exhibit would be allowed to trace the Innu presence on the land. Innu Nation announced the difficult decision to call off the exhibit on Wednesday.
The exhibit had been years in the making. Jodi Ashini, Innu Nation's cultural guardian, said she had been developing it together with the Canadian Museum of History and The Rooms, the provincial cultural institution. The project aimed to bring Innu cultural objects from collections around the world back to Labrador, and was framed as a celebration of reconciliation and repatriation, returning both archaeological and ethnographic items to the community.
Among the objects were coats and moccasins tied to people's grandparents and parents, pieces that Ashini described as holding families' connections to their past loved ones. The plan to put those belongings back where they came from was meant to be one of the central achievements of the exhibit, a tangible act of returning heritage to the people it belonged to.
The breaking point was the timeline. Ashini said her version would have shown that Innu people have been present on the Labrador and Quebec Peninsula for thousands of years, since the glaciers retreated from Labrador. She said the province instead wanted to show that the Innu had lived in the area for only about 300 years, and that she was told her timeline would not be allowed in the exhibit.
Ashini said she could not accept that condition. Drawing on eight years of learning from elders, knowledge keepers and historians, she said she refused to go back to the Innu people and tell them that what they know as their own history was wrong. For her, the demand cut against everything the community had taught her and everything the exhibit was meant to honour.
Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation Chief Eugene Hart said the province was failing to recognize who the Innu people are or what their history is. He called the situation disheartening and described the timing, just before Indigenous Day celebrations the community had been planning, as a strong slap in the face. Hart said the province should come to Sheshatshiu and apologize for how the matter had been handled.
The province's position rests on a hypothesis from its Provincial Archaeological Office. Archaeologist Anthony Jenkinson said that, based on the available evidence, he agrees with Ashini, and that he does not believe many archaeologists subscribe to what the Innu Nation has characterized as a fringe theory. He added a note of caution of his own, acknowledging that not all theories dismissed as fringe ultimately turn out to be wrong.