News Room
June, 2008
Practicing Traditional Governance: Kelly Lake Cree Nation
PRAIRIE REGION: There may have been a time in history when First Nations lacked the knowledge and awareness to balance the intricacies of traditional governance with modern-day bureaucratic expectations. This is not the case with the Kelly Lake Cree Nation (KLCN).
Prairie Region staff will be assisting KLCN with the process of documenting existing KLCN governance initiatives to strengthen what they already have: a strong, cohesive, accountable, and legitimate government that is based on its own traditional laws and history.
Kelly Lake Cree Nation straddles the BC/Alberta border in the Rocky Mountains, just north of Jasper, Alberta.
In 1996, eight ancestral and territorial families of the As’in’a’wachi Ni’yaw tribe formed a
political alliance and created the KLCN. This marked an important step towards adapting a traditional governance structure for contemporary implementation. As Chief Cliff Calliou provides, “Oral affi liation of governance was rekindled, and the sacred pipe was lit.”
There are no Indian Act elections in Kelly Lake.
The Chief, who is required to be a Pipe Carrier, is chosen by the people and leads for as long as the people decide. Leadership includes a council of Headmen that represents the eight ancestral families. Only the families hold the power to change its Headman representative. Dispute resolution is the responsibility of a council of elders or “the four thinkers” who are grounded in traditional law.
Albert C. Peeling’s paper “Traditional Governance and Constitution Making Among the Gitanyow” states that the constitutional project for such nations “is not so much one of constitutional development as constitutional documentation.” Peeling also observes that documenting the constitution of traditional forms of governance “is largely a matter of recording the process and adapting it for modern situations.”
This documentation has begun for the KLCN. NCFNG is supporting the KLCN in the following broad areas; constitutional documentation, consultation and accommodation, and communications. With the right support, KLCN is fulfi lling its ancestors’ vision and moving ahead with its children’s future in mind.
A monumental story, important to First Nations across Canada is unfolding on the BC / Alberta border.
