Origins & Identity

Antoine Nation Origins

The town of Mattawa, at the confluence of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers, is the central location for Antoine Nation, with its territory emanating outwards in all directions from the town. Mattawa is an adaptation of an Algonquin word and is still known to Algonquins as “Mahtahwan” or “meeting of the waters.”

European explorers such as Étienne Brûlé, Samuel de Champlain and Pierre-Esprit Radisson passed through Mattawa during the fur trade era while travelling west. They were guided at the time by Algonquin people including Antoine Nation Members, who had an intimate knowledge of all the rivers and lands. Their guiding included Champlain’s journey up the Ottawa River in 1613.

Nhee-goo-zhance Antoine is the progenitor of the Antoine Nation, with many current Members being descended from or related to his family or connected families.

“You take, ah, this is where all the explorers come through here. There's all kinds of monuments down here put here by the government. They were used by the Indians before the white settlers ever set foot around here. That's where man came from around here and that's where we’ve always been, as far as I know.”
— Antoine Nation Member Robert Ferguson, born 1939.
“Well, there was people, Indian people that lived on the land here, and then people roamed quite a bit throughout the time we lived on the land, and we never did, at any point in time, give our land up. As far as I'm concerned, it’s still our land. We just been denied the right to be on, to be on our land. I don't see why that took place, when they used the term Crown land, what does Crown land mean. Basically, where does Crown land come from? Is it not Indian Land? I think it is.”
— Antoine Nation Member Lawrence Chevrier, born 1931

Antoine Nation Gatherings

Antoine Nation gatherings have always drawn us together, enabling our Members to reaffirm our common Algonquin identity. Gatherings serve to maintain our family connections, organize common activities like hunting and as a forum for discussing important issues. Gathering events usually take place in the summer, also including social activities like feasting, cultural crafting, singing and dancing, fishing and swimming.

“Hear lots about Boullion Rock, people having picnics on Bouillon Rock, and socializing, having everybody bringing meals or something to cook, a roast of deer meat, and whatever they could cook up, they'd all get together there and they would gather there. I guess it was kind of a meeting in a way. I guess they'd find out how each family was doing, or they'd gather and socialize together and talk about how they hunted, how they fished, talked about old times, and, so. And that's what it, it brought that community, that's where the community came in, 'cause it brought that, them people together, in this spot like Boullion Rock, and the Point … That’s mostly the two places where they really gathered there. Explorer's Point in Mattawa, and Boullion Rock.”
— Antoine Nation Member Carl Lefavre

Sharing is a distinctive feature of the Antoine Nation.

“Community means people, like it means caring and sharing, and doing all things together, like, as a whole to help one another out … My Native people first, because it’s the way I grew up. I mean, I was sort of shunned by the white people in that sense, so I got to look after my people first, but in the same token, I’m not going to turn my back on the white people in that sense, 'cause I mean, I got too big a heart …”
— Antoine Nation Member Alex Butler

Antoine Nation Identity & Constitutional Legal Rights

The Antoine Nation is distinct from surrounding Algonquin, Nippising and non-Indigenous communities. We commonly identify with a shared heritage, common values, and have always maintained a sense of ourselves as a people and community. It could be said that we are one large family, but also an Indigenous people with specific Aboriginal rights including holding Aboriginal title to our lands as protected by s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982:

RIGHTS OF THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF CANADA
Recognition of existing aboriginal and treaty rights
35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.
Definition of “aboriginal peoples of Canada”
(2) In this Act, “aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.
Land claims agreements
(3) For greater certainty, in subsection (1) “treaty rights” includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.
Aboriginal and treaty rights are guaranteed equally to both sexes
(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the aboriginal and treaty rights referred to in subsection (1) are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.

The Antoine Nation has never surrendered any of its rights, and hopes through the Algonquins of Ontario Treaty Negotiation Process to incorporate and exercise its rights in the future by way of a modern land claims agreement as referenced in s-s. 35(3) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Though even if such a Treaty is not concluded, our rights will remain including rights to consultation, accommodation, hunting, fishing, environmental and resource management, and land use.

“Well, they, I don't know, you sensed that. They stuck together, they fished together, they hunted together, they socialized together, and that's the only diff, that's the only kind of people that hung around together. Algonquins hung around 'cause they didn't feel like part of the other, part of the other community …
bring up some chickens there, and there'd be pots, and made chickens and dumplings, and we'd fry fish, there, everybody had a hell of a time fishing and swimming there. When the day was over, the truck come up and pick us up in the evening and bring us back home. Them days, I remember real well …
as families, we used to all go picking together, together, we, all by canoe, most of the stuff was all done by canoe. … We went up the river, camp, we camped up the river … Oh all along the Ottawa River, we used to go by boat, and canoe and camp.”
— Antoine Nation Member Carl Lefavre

Our Members have always felt part of our Antoine Nation. Post-contact, this was due in part to our exclusion from the local French-speaking and English-speaking settler communities, which meant that we focussed on relying upon other Antoine Nation Members for survival and support.

“Well, we’re a small community, Mattawa, and we pretty well knew all the Native people, 'cause I mean the Natives always sort of stuck together, because if you met with the English or the French you were sort of like an outcast back then, because when you were Native you were sort of thought less of as a person, but so we sort of stuck together with our own groups …”
— Antoine Nation Member Alex Butler
“Oh they socialize when they [Algonquins] had to socialize, to work and stuff, sure they did. But when it comes right down to it, they were their own kind. Out working and out doing other stuff they had to socialize with them because that was their jobs. They had jobs to go to, and that's when they socialized. But when they got back home, this is the people they hung around with. The Algonquin people. They fished and hunted with them, but any kind of parties they had, they hung around with them people, because they were friends for years and generation, generation, generation.”
— Antoine Nation Member Carl Lefavre

While the Antoine Nation has ties to other Algonquin communities in Ontario and Quebec spread over tens of thousands of square kilometres of territory, ours is a distinct experience, where we never signed a treaty and never surrendered any of our rights to the Crown. As a result the Crown never formally established us as a Band with a Reserve under the Indian Act, together with all the material support that comes with those things, notwithstanding that many of our Members hold status under the Indian Act. We have had to fend for our own people and Nation and make our own way, but we have persevered in continuing the Antione Nation's unique identity as a proud independent rights-holding Indigenous people of Canada.