Weeshinagoo - Ancestral Village

In living and collective memory, there have always been people living at Weeshinagoo (Beaverstone, or castoreum, River) junction with the Atchigo Siipi (Sachigo River). Regularly used transportation routes once linked families south to Kitchenuhmay Koosib (Big Trout Lake), west to Shammattawa on the God’s River in northern Manitoba, and east to Weenusk.

The outlines of traditional circular shelters, dating back to the late 1800's, remain visible amid a youthful growth of poplar several hundred metres from the river bank.

Further inland, an older ancestral village and burial sites exist. Together with the five riverbank graves from four separate families, these represent only some of the more recent evidence of Beaverstone’s long seasonal occupation.

The people of the area were joined into treaty with the 1930 Adhesion. The importance of the Beaverstone village is demonstrated by its selection during treaty negotiations as part of the reserve lands to be set aside. Signatories and living Elders described their understanding of the reserve to be roughly a parcel of land along both sides of the Atchigo Siipi from the Weeshinagoo Siipi to the junction with the Wasaho Siipi (Severn River) at Kishammattawa, and extending a distance of five miles inland from both sides of the Atchigo Siipi. This area would encompass the Whitefish Lakes, which were considered by the Elders as a precious water source.

According to the printed copy of Treaty # 9, treaty was:

“SIGNED at Fort Severn on the Twenty-fifth day of July, 1930, by His Majesty's Commissioners and the Chief and headmen in the presence of the undersigned witnesses after having been first interpreted and explained.

Witnesses:
JOHN T. O'GORMAN.
DAVID A. HARDING.
R. KINGSLEY ROSE.
GEO. THIRD.
GERALD McMANUS.
RENE GAUTHIER.
H. F. BLAND.
HENRY J. MANN.
WALTER CHARLES CAIN, Commissioner.
HERBERT NATHANIEL AWREY, Commissioner

GEORGE BLUECOAT Signed in Syllabic.
MUNZIE ALBANY Signed in Syllabic.
SAUL CROW Signed in Syllabic.”

The reserve is described in the printed copy of Treaty #9 as:
“Fort Severn (reserve). At the mouth of the Beaverstone River, where it joins the Severn River, 1½ miles frontage on each side of the Beaverstone river and back 5 miles more or less from the mouth, the said river being shown on map No. 20a, issued in 1926 by the Province of Ontario, as "Beaverstone", although called "Castorum" by the Hudson's Bay Company and "We-ke-mow" by the Indians, containing 15 square miles more or less.”

The Fort Severn First Nation (www.fortsevern.firstnation.ca) has submitted a land claim regarding the issue of the original reserve. The printed reserve description is different from the understanding by Fort Severn people. In fact, it is not possible for the printed description to be correct, due to the fact that the Beaverstone and Severn River junction reference in the description does not exist.

Older edition Government of Canada maps of Ontario show the reserve occupying an area approximately 1 ½ miles inland of both sides of the Sachigo River and extending five miles upriver on the Sachigo River from the junction with the Severn River the location of the ancestral village of Kishamattawa, or “Rocksands”.

The reserve location was changed to the present site during the 1950's.