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A press release from the Cree Nation of Mistissini sent shockwaves through the community and other Cree Nations last week. In the release, Chief and Council of Mistissini, in central Quebec, nine hours north of Montreal, revealed the long-dormant Matoush uranium mining project it fought years ago could potentially be revived.
The community reaffirmed its sovereign authority over traditional lands and waters in the release and stressed its total opposition to uranium mining or exploration in the territory.
“I was very surprised to see this idea of uranium mining in the Mistissini territory resurfaced again,” said Jamie Moses, a cultural and Cree-language coordinator for the Cree School Board in the Cree Nation of Eastmain. A hunter, trapper and land steward raised with a traditional knowledge of the land and of Cree culture, Moses became politically involved nearly two decades ago due to opposition to uranium development.
The Matoush Project was a hotly debated uranium-mining exploration project in the nearby Otish Mountains that was subject to a groundswell of Cree protests over a decade ago. The project was ultimately rejected by Quebec in 2013 under the then-Parti Québécois government.
The uranium fight: 2008-2015
The protests began in response to Strateco Resources pursuing advanced uranium exploration near Mistissini in 2008.
Protests against uranium development occurred not only in Mistissini, but across all nine communities that comprise the greater Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee, uniting communities in their rejection of uranium development on Cree lands.
The vigorous opposition from the Cree Nation as well as non-Indigenous environmentalists, helped push the Matoush Project into public hearings by Quebec’s Bureau des Audiences Publiques sur l’Environnement (BAPE), which continued even after the Parti Québécois rejected the project.
In 2015, the BAPE released a report finding that uranium development lacked social acceptability from the Quebec population. The BAPE also argued there was no scientific guarantee the land would be protected from toxic byproducts of uranium extraction.
Though Strateco Resources sued the government of Quebec for lost revenue due to the cancellation of the project, the Quebec Court of Appeal dismissed the case in 2020.
In 2021, Strateco Resources sold the Matoush mine property to International Consolidated Uranium, and in 2023, that company merged with IsoEnergy, which now owns the Matoush site.
No change to Cree positions
At the time the Matoush mine property was sold in 2021, the Cree Nation Government announced that it maintained total opposition to uranium mining in the Cree territory.
“The Cree Nation is committed to protecting our environment and our way of life from the unacceptable risks that uranium mining presents, now and for future generations”, said then-Grand Chief Abel Bosum. “Our position on this important issue has not and will not change.”
The news that IsoEnergy was now attempting to resume exploration around the Matoush project, five years after purchasing the property, was not well received in Mistissini.
“There will be no discussions regarding uranium exploration or development projects in or around the lands of Mistissini,” said Chief Michael Petawabano. “The Chief and Council have unanimously decided that no uranium exploration or development will be permitted on Cree traditional territory.”
“The uranium fight”, as it came to be known, lasted several years, bringing together Crees with both political and non-political backgrounds.
One of those was Shawn Iserhoff, who was Mistissini’s Youth Chief until 2014, during the fiercest years of the uranium fight. After leaving office, he continued working as an anti-uranium and anti-nuclear activist, which took him around the world.
“It was a big moment, especially for the youth to realise that their voices could be heard,” he recalled in an interview with APTN News, “because they’re the ones that originally started this movement against uranium mining and the development in the region.”
Today, Iserhoff works with the Cree Nation Government on real estate development. He described the discussion of reopening the Matoush project as “interesting,” but said he wasn’t shocked.
“In terms of the market for uranium, it seems to be heating up again,” Iserhoff said, “especially with AI and how they’re using uranium resources to provide energy for AI. It’s not too surprising for me.”
Still, Iserhoff said he was troubled by the silence from the Quebec government.
The Wolverine and the Giant Skunk
Like Iserhoff, Moses’s life was marked by his participation in protests against uranium.
“During my involvement in the uranium fight, I was still quite a young man,” Moses said. “I was invited because of the fact that I was an active younger member of the Cree Nation, still practicing traditional activity. They wanted a voice that would say this is what we do, this is what I do as an individual, to occupy the territory and protect it from harm and for future generations to have an opportunity to have a safe environment for them to pursue traditional activity.”
In his testimony before the BAPE, Moses shared an instructive Cree legend, the story of the Wolverine and the Giant Skunk, which he learned from his great-aunt Florrie Mark-Stewart, a well-known knowledge keeper and Elder in Eastmain, which informed his opposition to the mining.
Before the BAPE in 2014, Moses told the story of the Wolverine who beats the Giant Skunk in a fight to save his village. He’s blinded by the Skunk’s spray and must speak with the trees to guide him to water. The Wolverine follows first inland trees, and then coastal trees, to the brushes at the edge of James Bay, where he’s finally able to wash the poison out of his eyes—leaving the water of James Bay unsafe to drink.
Though Moses never once mentioned uranium in his presentation, his message was clear: the land is a partner and a source of information for traditional peoples, and if it is threatened, those who live on the land cannot properly save themselves from being poisoned.
Film director Ernie Webb, from the Cree Nation of Chisasibi, turned Moses’s story into the short animated film “The Wolverine: The Fight of the James Bay Cree,” illustrated with imagery from Chisasibi artist Amanda Sam.
No turning back on uranium
His statement before the BAPE launched Moses on trips around the world as a representative of the fight against uranium, and as he traveled Europe and North America, he said he learned much more about uranium than how it threatened his ancestral land.
“Most of the messages from the Indigenous people from Canada and the U.S. is that they’re afraid that the uranium that we extract falls in the wrong hands,” Moses explained. “It could fall in the hands of somebody that is developing weapons to harm people.
“That’s what happened to the Dene people, because the uranium that was extracted in the Dene territory was the uranium used to bomb Japan. They don’t feel good knowing that they’re part of history, that their uranium extraction help destroy Japanese cities. That doesn’t sit well for them. So we don’t want to repeat the same thing,” Moses said.
For Moses, there’s a contradiction between the half-life of uranium, which remains radioactive for at least 700 million years, and the short lifespan of uranium extraction corporations.
“What happens with many mining companies is they sign these agreements, they make all these promises to the government, and all of a sudden they fold their company,” he said. “They file for bankruptcy, and the government is stuck with the responsibility of taking care of these lands, and they don’t put enough energy to reassure that is kept in good hands. So that’s what’s really frightening.”
Since the end of the uranium fight over a decade ago, Moses said, nothing has changed in the way uranium threatens the land the Crees have occupied for millennia, and he doesn’t feel the Cree Nation has become any more accepting of that threat. In particular, he said, he doesn’t see many Crees welcoming the revival of the Matoush project.
“Our ancestors believed that we were able to pin down dangerous things that threatened nature, that threatened humans, that threatened other animals, and pin them down with a rock,” he explained. “That’s why there’s a mountain there or a big rock there. So if you look at the Matoush mine, it’s all rocky. That’s the highest ground of the Cree Nation.”
He worries that any accident involving the Matoush mine threatens to irradiate the water sources from which the Crees have drunk since the beginning of time.
“How far downstream will that radiation travel? How much destruction will that radiation do? That’s why Mistissini must continue to protect that area. That’s why we must not allow any uranium development in the Matoush territory.”
Nā Jesse Staniforth nō APTN News
