Evidence on the Adequacy of First Nations Consultation - BC Hydro ...

DRAFT REPORT: Rights and Title Interests in the Columbia Valley Transmission Project Area
1819]. 140 At the time of the meeting, Morigeau was practicing a nomadic lifestyle and living in
his “portable palace,” as De Smet described the man’s lodging. 141 Morigeau had travelled from
some unknown place “in haste” to intercept the priest at the headwaters of the Columbia to have
his family baptized. De Smet said that Morigeau was with some “Shooswap” [Shuswap] hunting
companions when he met him on this occasion in 1845. 142 He did not identify these men, their
chief, or indicate where they lived. Thus, this letter does not say anything about an Aboriginal
presence being documented in 1819, or that De Smet concluded anything about the tenure of the
Canadian trapper’s Shuswap hunting companions in 1845. What the 1845 De Smet does provide,
however, is direct evidence that Shuswap men were hunting near the Columbia Lakes area in
1845.
An interview with Chief Martin Morigeau (b. 1885) by CBC broadcaster Imbert Orchard in
November 1964 confirms the itinerant nature of this man’s ancestor, the Canadian trapper who
travelled in haste to meet Father P.J. DeSmet. The earlier Morigeau was also a farmer and,
according to Chief Morigeau, first settled in Oroville, Washington:
Imbert: Tell me about, was that, was this the
yoursame grandfather ranch that first settled on?
Martin: No, I don't think so. I don't think he ever did settle
down. My dad had one, two, three places that I know of. He sold two of
them and then this last one and then we moved into Alberta, you know.
We moved in where my great-grandfather come from, Rocky Mountain
House? Right on, over the mountain, you know. After David Thompson,
you know. The second man in the valley, you know. As far as I know,
you know. 143
140 The Shuswap Indian Band studies (2008 and 2009) rely upon excerpts of this letter that are summarized
and appear in an article by Rev. Robert J. McGuinness (1941-1942). CCHA, Report, Vol, 9. Available online:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1941-42/McGuinness.html; accessed 5
November 2009. It was Rev. McGuinness’ own statement, not one by DeSmet, that asserted, “[Morigeau] left then
[NWC] and migrated with the Shuswaps from around Fort Thompson on Shuswap Lake in the year 1819 and with a
few of them settled in the Columbia Valley.” The 2007 Robertson study prepared for the Ktunaxa Nation cites a
1932 article written upon the death of Morigeau’s son, Baptiste Morigeau, stating that his father came to the East
Kootenays in 1819 (p.22). Robertson suggests that Morigeau’s wife was not from the Kinbasket band, as some
people may have assumed. The precision of the date suggests that it was informed by one of the secondary accounts
about the migration, such as the one compiled by Rev. McGuinness.
141 Chittenden and Richardson 1905, Vol. 2, page 498.
142 Chittenden and Richardson 1905, Vol. 2, page 500.
143 Available online: http://dspace.cc.uregina.ca/dspace/handle/10294/898. The present authors have not
cross-checked the transcript of the interview with the original tape recording.
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