Archive 1992: looking back over 20 years with the Cree

In the '90s, attention was focused on the James Bay 2 project, the second of five phases of Hydro-Quebec's plans at the time. The plan was for a massive impoundment, an area roughly 180 by 800 miles. Environmentalist and First Nations peoples were pushing back. While reporting on the controversy, Martha Foley talked with Nicholas Smith, an Ogdensburg librarian who had visited the Cree in northern Quebec over 20 years, starting in 1969. He visited often, sometimes alone, sometimes with his wife and daughters. He brought wonderful scrapbooks of those years for an interview at our studios. He paged through them as he talked about the people he had gotten to know, and what they told him. The Cree he met in 1969 had some modern conveniences, like kerosene and outboard motors. But they were still living largely as they had 400 years ago. Here's the conversation, broadcast January, 14, 1992.