Toboggans were used and discarded regularly in Northern Ontario and Quebec, and have not traditionally been the kind of thing to catch caught the eye of collectors. However, the toboggan is an invention of First Nations of North Eastern Canada, and we know that it has been critical to survival in winter for centuries. Any hunter who killed a large animal miles from his winter camp, would have had no way to transport it back without some sort of device that could displace the weight, “float” on top of the snow, and allow the precious kill to be transported efficiently in the same way that snowshoes make it possible for the hunter himself to get around.

It’s likely that Henry Hudson himself might have seen toboggans in use by the people of the coast of James Bay, where he spent the winter in 1611. The toboggan, with its Algonquin language family name still attached, was eventually “borrowed” by all Canadians, and became a staple of winter sports. In fact, when I was little boy growing up in Vancouver, many families in the neighbourhood had toboggans they’d bought at the sports department of Eaton’s or Hudson’s Bay. We slid down hills of our town on those rare occasions when it snowed, or took it up to the local mountains in winter.

A Cree version of the word for this device, utabaan, is still used commonly to refer also to a pickup truck, a nod to the humble sled that made life possible in the bush in winter.

We have acquired a pair of toboggans attributed to the Mistissini area, and we’re excited to include them in Aanischaaukamikw’s collection. Along with canoes and snowshoes, there is no better example of how native technology underlay the European settlement of Canada and then became part of its recreational life.

The two ubagaan are important additions to the collection because:

• They help us to document the history of Cree material culture back into the 19th century
• They help us to visualize and interpret an important aspect of Cree economy – hunting and trapping
• They help us to document change (many Cree today use plastic sheets for the same purpose); and
• They help us connect native technology with broader Canadian experience.

This purchase was made possible by a grant from the Acquisition Fund of the Aanischaaukamikw Foundation.

Stephen Inglis

Aanischaaukamikw was honoured to receive a visit on May 17^th from Québec Premier Jean Charest, Cree Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come and several other Québec and Cree dignitaries, including Pierre Arcand, Minister of Sustainable Development, the Environment and Parks, Geoffrey Kelley, Minister responsible for Native Affairs, Oujé-Bougoumou Chief Louise Wapachee and Abel Bosum, Chief Negotiator for Cree-Québec Relations.

This group was in Oujé-Bougoumou that day to announce the creation of the Assinica National Park Reserve.  Following the announcement ceremony the attendees walked to the Aanischaaukamikw construction site for a brief tour of the nearly finished building with explanations from project architects Douglas Cardinal and Stephen Rotman, and Aanischaaukamikw executive director Stephen Inglis.

Aanischaaukamikw looks forward to inviting everyone to visit when the building is complete and we open our doors to the public next fall.

(front row – left to right: Douglas Cardinal, Stephen Rotman, Geoffrey Kelley, Premier Charest, Pierre Arcand, Grand Chief Coon Come, Stephen Inglis)

Architects typically have a strong vision of what their designs represent, but the responses of residents or visitors often turn out to be both diverse and unanticipated.

Douglas Cardinal talks of traditional Cree dwellings like the astchiaukamikw and sabtuan as the inspiration for his design and the relationship of the new building to the snow-bound canvas and pole tent house in Oujé-Bougoumou’s “cultural village” shown here, seem to fit. Nonetheless, Aanischaaukamikw President, Dianne Ottereyes Reid, spoke recently of elders who also described the beams of the building as the interior of a canoe, and alternatively as the ribcage of an animal. A longtime resident of Oujé-Bougoumou told me recently that he had overheard locals comparing the beams to those of Noah’s ark. Their question was, “when is the flood coming?”

What is brilliant is the fact that both Doug Cardinal and Stephen Rotman, who have both worked so hard in designing this building, would be delighted to know that there is a range of interpretations, each as unique as the perspective of the “beholder”, and all indicative that Aanischaaukamikw is striking a resonant, fundamental chord with those who have come in contact with it.

We look forward with great anticipation to sharing this remarkable building, and all that it represents, with thousands more people, and to hearing (and recording!) the many more interpretations that the space will evoke over time.

Stephen Inglis