Frank Speck and the Moisie River incident: Anthropological advocacy and the question of Aboriginal fishing rights in Quebec

Photo: The First Nation of Uashat mak Mani-Utenam want the provincial government to buy the Moisie Salmon Club and hand the property over to them. (Marc-Antoine Mageau) CBC News.

This article examines Frank Speck's role as a mediator of Indigenous resource rights in early 20th-century Canada. I examine how Speck's role as an ethnologist was deeply informed by his role as an advocate. Similarly, I show how the work he carried out as an advocate was informed by the ethnological data he collected. I explore an incident that occurred while Speck was working in the field in 1912, within the context of the development of colonial regulations to control and administer a national fisheries policy in Canada and Quebec. This particular incident focuses on the how the Innu First Nation of Uashat mak Mani-Utenam were denied access to their traditional fishery. Interestingly, almost 100 years later, how the Innu First Nation of Uashat mak Mani-Utenam continue to challenge the state’s fisheries policies and its impacts on their Indigenous rights to harvest and use their traditional; territories.

Pulla, S. (2003). Frank Speck and the Moisie River incident: Anthropological advocacy and the question of Aboriginal fishing rights in Quebec Anthropologica, 45(1), 129– 145.

Read the article here.