Editor’s Note: This is part seventy-two of a series of testimonies given by our aboriginal neighbors. We are posting these in an attempt to allow everyone to better understand just how badly Canada has neglected the first nations of Canada. These are the words submitted to the JRP Hearings, to Enbridge and to the Government of Canada.
ORAL PRESENTATION BY MR. DICK A’HUILLE
MR. A’HUILLE: I am Dick A’Huille.
I’ve been on the trap line since I was about 15 years old. I quit school and I went out at springtime and I been on that trap line all my life there. Every year I go up there. And there’s lots of creeks there where the pipelines are going through there.
I see lots of lakes. There’s a creek going right there. Is that the end of the lake there?
A creek going in here, then a creek going in here, then a creek going in here. And there’s all beaver dams right in here. They’re all going up to Salmon River there. There’s all little lakes there and there’s all beaver dams all in through here that goes into this here and in here.
We got all the trap lines set right down through here. And we take short cuts from there to the Salmon River to here and from there to there. We’ve got two trails there going through there. Then these go through the Salmon River in there.
All of the creeks there going through all these to the Salmon River where we trap all the way through. And all the beavers they all go down to the river, that’s where we catch them, and the rest they all go down to the Beaver Lake there.
There’s all beavers that’s going from the Salmon River here, going through here and right there. There’s a creek going through there. And we got all the beaver stretchers hanging up all through here. They must be all torn down by now — all rotten there.
And where is that pipeline going through? Oh, there — yeah, that’s bad there. I don’t think I’ll let them go through — the pipeline through there. Pretty hard — so many creeks there and so much beaver there too.
We got lots of traps there are all going through there, all them — trees are all gone there, forestry took them down. Now they want to put the pipeline through there. What more do they want?
They destroyed my life from now on now and I don’t want to let them go through there. They’re going to destroy everything in there if the pipeline busts. There’s too many creeks going through in there and beaver dams.
Yes, that’s all.
