In 1668, the English ships, the Nonsuch and the Eaglet sailed for the shores of what would be later known as James Bay. The Crees knew it as Wiinipauwkh. The English christened it Charles Fort.

In the 1980’s, Jim Chism and Sinclair Diamond, conducted archaeological digs in Waskaganish and found food bones, cloy pipes, bricks, gunflints, gun parts and musket balls. Chism describes Fort Charles as a 1668 pilot project.

“A place like Charles Fort is an important part of Canadian history. It was not only the beginning of the Hudson’s Bay Company but the first time any northern people had sustained contact with the English. This turned the trade around because there was trade a long time before the English or the French came here. In 1686 it was attacked and dismantled by French military and paramilitary forces even though the French and English were not at war.”

Sinclair agrees with Jim on Cree history. “I was going through the archives here and found the dates and years when the actual story took place. The Elders who tell the stories about old times… Some of them were from way, way back. The story tells it like it was only yesterday.”

Born three years ago, the Waskaganish Cultural Institute is housed in a nondescript riverside building lacking running water and many rooms in half repair. Fitting the “pieces of the jig saw puzzle together,” Jim and Sinclair study the stacks of books, journals, photos, church records, Hudson Bay Company archives and the oral history of Cree people.

How long do you think this work will go on we asked. “It will go on just as long as we have money. Genealogy is something you pass on to the next generation. It keeps going as long as you’re producing people.” joked Sinclair.

We visited and chatted with Jim and Sinclair during a recent visit to Waskaganish.

…How does it feel like to dig up your back yard and find all this history?

Sinclair. (Silence… Nods… )

Jim: He’s saying that’s not his history…

Sinclair: Direct that question to him. (Laughter)

Jim: People traded with each other and items from all over the continent were traded. When the French and the English came in they brought exotic goods. Exotic goods just like today, we have gadgets and things that are new. People back then felt the same way. If it was new or exotic it was enjoyed and appreciated. It was all down there and there was about three middlemen between down there and here. So the guys here got the worst deal for most of the goods. The English came here and that’s what turned it around for the people who lived here. They were now the source for exotic items for the trade.

So the English and the French were always at odds with each other?

Jim: As soon as the French governor down south heard about the English around the Bay he sent a religious emissary, Father Albanel, to checks things out and see what they were up to. He also tried to get people to realign themselves with the French trade.

What kind of artifacts have you found?

Sinclair: We found a Stone pipe and an arrowhead.

Jim: lots of small pieces of chert that had been used for cutting and scraping. Post holes where you can see where there have been posts for a Miichiwaahp or some other tent with poles driven into the ground. That is very much under appreciated in terms of preserving the waterfront because that is where you find these old camps. They are very easily disturbed, you just go once with a bulldozer and it doesn’t take much to destroy a little stain in the sand where you see a post had been driven in.

What about the pestle that’s sitting there? (Pointing towards the other table.)

Jim: Oh! This was… I was walking down the street the other day. A young fellow rode up to me on a bicycle and screeched to a stop and said “you guys still doing archeology over there?”

I said “yeah.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out this big stone object here about six inches long. Heavy.

He said “here would you like this?” I looked at it and saw it was a pestle or pemmican pounder. I said “yeah sure!” I asked him where he got it and said “Smokey Hill.”

He rode off on his bicycle, I didn’t even know who he was. I hollered out to him to come by the Cultural Centre so we can get down and find out where he found it and everything. But he never showed up, I don’t know who he was… Yeah…

Its from Smokey Hill. That’s a big fishing spot 20 km or so from here. It might’ve been used to pound dried fish to make fish pemmican.

What do you think of the last names and where they come from? Do you have any interesting stories or have you found out any interesting facts?

Jim: Yes, quite a bit. The latest one is the Cowboy one that was in the Nation. That was pretty interesting to look through to find out where they originally came from. The changes came when the Indian missionaries came in and baptized everybody. Old names seemed to disappear and were replaced by the present names used now. Like Jacob Wabinoshkum was eventually replaced by the first name of the father. Wabinoshkum was one of three brothers. One was called Six Geese and the other Jolly. They had three individual names and were perceived as three different families. You can see these families today except for Six Geese, we’re not sure what happened to him. When Wabinoshkum started baptizing children that’s when they started doing this sort of thing where they changed the names. Wabinoshkum had three sons, one was Jacob, one was Jonah and Robert.

That started off three more families, the Robert family, the Jonah family and the Jacob family. This went down for two generations right there. So you might have a lot of family names but they can be traced back to one grandfather. That’s six or more families with the same grandfather. There were some surprises.

So would that make searching out the names a little confusing?

Jim: In some cases yes, it’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. One thing we found out pretty quickly was that we couldn’t just look at the names in the community because people move out and move in. You have to look in all the communities.

Especially when the canoe brigades used to come in. There would be marriages, especially the women from Waskaganish. They used to hide the girls when the Mistissini canoe brigade would come in. They took them over to Nooskan. Just like in the Broadway show “South Pacific” when the American soldiers came to the island they took the girls to another island. (Laughter)

In what ways is this accessible for the people? Do you hope to see a museum someday?

Jim: It can happen on many levels, like last night, after supper. Two groups came in to come in to see what we were doing, what we might have. Another one came in looking for their family history. Looking through church records and looking for some of their kin folk. A lot of people are asking, so we’re bringing them in and help them in what they’re interested in. And we have show and tell days. That’s a lot of fun.

Sinclair: Someone can come in and say “I’m looking for this, I want to know a little bit more of this.” We’re a resource centre.

Jim: We’re trying to develop tools that people can use. Search

tools, building up family genealogies, photo collections, a library. We’re in a building phase. At the same time we’re doing special projects. There was some concern brought up by the Elders council about the unmarked crosses at the cemetery. Sinclair has gone out and made a map of the crosses and stones. We were hoping, with the elders, we could get them marked. We had an exhibit once of family history, genealogy, Island naming, place names and photographs over at the Kanio Kashee Lodge. People came in and I guess they were expecting to be there for a few minutes. They start looking at that stuff, we had the church records right there. They would look at the genealogy on the wall, then sit down to look at the church records. And an hour and a half would pass then maybe they would leave. (Laughter)We concentrate d a lot of our energy towards the family history. People really enjoy that.