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Visit to the Land

Because their culture is nomadic, all Innu communities are located close to a large river or lake, because these waterways are communication routes used yearly. The route we are visiting is Mishta-shipu, the Great River (Moisie). The underwater field of poles illustrated in the site’s home page can also be found on this route.


  • Preparations
    3:21 min - It’s the kind of trip requiring canoes, oars, etc. And in order to have them, you have to make ...
    A man splits a wooden plank with an axe to make an oar
  • Ashuanipi
    6:07 min - Ashuanipi is a very big lake with many islands. There is a cemetery on one of them. We’ll go ...
    Landscape and canoes on Lake Ashuanipi
  • Food, Visit
    6:40 min - We fish and hunt to feed ourselves during the trip. Also, it's important to visit a friend who died ...
    A man and woman in a canoe at sunset
  • Canoes with Sails
    5:18 min - When the wind is favourable and we’re on a large lake, we attach the canoes two by two and ...
    Groups of Innu in canoes with sails
  • Beaver
    4:49 min - Sometimes large expanses have been flooded by beavers. In that case, we visit by canoe.
    Group of Innu in canoes near a beaver dam
  • True Stories
    7:15 min - Innu have used the portage route ror an extremely long time. Thousands of stories were born of this experience. This ...
    Landscape on the Minai-nipi River
  • We’ll Leave at Night
    7:13 min - When the lakes are very big, we cross them at night so the wind doesn't take us by surprise.
    A group of Innu rests by a fire in the early morning
  • Oka
    2:34 min - “We felt sad on the portage route the day we heard on the radio about the army entering the Mohawk ...
    Angling in a canoe by a lake
  • Poles
    7:35 min - There’s a place on the land where we’ve preserved traces of the entire nomadic period of the Moisie ...
    Underwater image of poles planted in a lake bed


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