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Sheshatshiu, Labrador
A community in agony


On the gentle slopes rising above the frozen waters of Lake Melville, in central Labrador, lies the Innu community of Sheshatshiu. Blanketed by

Elizabeth Penashue in a traditional Innu tent set up behind her house in Sheshatshiu. In winter she meets here with groups to talk. She also travels into the country with it for a few weeks each year. Here she stokes the fire in the wood stove.

glistening snow and fragranced by forests of black spruce, an aura of peacefulness hangs lightly overhead.

But the story beneath the idyllic setting is one of deep anguish.

It’s from here that images of gas sniffing children – their eyes empty, their systems intoxicated – flooded television screens across the nation last November.

The community also was sickened. With no authority to force children into treatment, a committee sent out a plea for child welfare authorities to seize the children until they had de-toxed and the community could start longer-term treatment.

The community’s story is also one of soaring suicide rates, alcoholism, and unemployment rates of 80 per cent.

“There is no way to understate the needs in this community,” said Pam Stevenson, from the cab of her pickup truck heading up the winding highway to Sheshatshiu. Sheshatshiu and Davis Inlet are the two Innu communities in Labrador, with approximately 2,000 people. Innu also live in 11 communities in Quebec.

As administrators of Mennonite Central Committee’s Labrador program, Pam and Bill currently live in Happy Valley, approximately 40 minutes away, but their hearts are in Sheshatshiu. Their goal is to sensitively help the community move towards healing years of wounds – wounds that were in many cases inflicted by non-Innu people.

The Innu were the last nomadic peoples of North America. Until recently, the Innu lived in tents and roamed the wilderness, following caribou herds and hunting other game in small family groups. In summer, they congregated on the coast or on lakeshores, in part to escape the voracious black flies and mosquitoes. Sheshatshiu was one such settlement. Between the 1950s and 1970s, the Innu were pressured by government to settle permanently. The Innu, who were already experiencing the loss of their hunting grounds and rights, were given welfare and family allowance cheques in exchange for regular attendance in the mission school.

Elizabeth Penashue, 56, recalls growing up in the country, “I never saw alcohol. I never saw sniffing. I never saw a person kill himself.”

Not only did the Innu struggle with loss of cultural identity and livelihood, but the already traumatic transition was exacerbated by repeated incidences of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of local priests and teachers.

“That sexual assault then becomes part of a cycle, and the abused becomes an abuser,” said Bill. “It’s contaminated the whole village.”

“A lot of people, of course, have adopted alcohol as a coping mechanism, a numbing mechanism,” said Lynne Gregory, who heads up the youth treatment centre in Sheshatshiu. When parents drink, they may become violent, or neglect their children. In turn, children also turn to addictive substances. “Over the last two or three years, we’ve seen a steady progression of kids sniffing in this community,” Gregory continued.

But when Gregory, and others, called on government officials to take action, they were only asking for temporary measures. “We said very clearly that we wanted the kids here

Apenam Pone, director of Innu Uauishitun, the adult treatment centre in Sheshatshiu.

but we needed some time to set up,” she explained. By mid-January none of the kids had been returned, despite treatment plans and space available.

“I think Innu have to be respected, allowed the opportunities . . . to find the right path through this,” said Gregory, a non-Innu who has lived in Sheshatshiu for years.

Across the road from the youth treatment centre, in the adult treatment centre, Gregory’s husband, Apenam Pone, shares that sentiment.

“The healing has to start from Innu,” said the director of Innu Uauishitun, the adult treatment centre. “Maybe the white people should be in the back and the Innu people should sit in the front.”

He said there’s room for non-Innu, like Bill and Pam, to contribute to the healing process as listeners and assistants.” We don’t want people to move ahead of us and make decisions for us.”

Pam, who counsels at Innu Uauishitun, helped coordinate a family treatment program last summer in the country (see sidebar). The treatment centre has now received government funding for a three-month pilot project, to provide treatment for 24 adults with substance abuse/mental health issues. Starting in mid-January, it targeted parents in danger of having their children removed from their homes. The project also included youth outreach services every evening.

Sheshatshiu leaders are also working on a comprehensive 10-year healing plan, which would require $1.5 to $2 million per year of government funding. “I believe it will take 10 years for the population to stabilize,” said Pam, who has a background in social work. “The focus of it is to help all of the community heal and begin to develop a healthy community.”

The comprehensive healing plan includes a family treatment component that would be held in the country. Community leaders are hoping to purchase a former hunting and fishing lodge, which sits on traditional Innu land, for that purpose. MCC has pledged financial support to help purchase the lodge.

The Stevensons say a core group of residents is working towards healing in their community, which gives them hope. “Right now there is a kind of peace that has come to the community,” said Bill.

 – Carol Thiessen, for MCC Canada

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Last modified July 5, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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