Nutaui's Cap

Nutaui’s Cap begins with very pastoral scene, one in which a father and his 10-year-old daughter, Nanass, leave their family’s tent with its fir bough floor to go fishing. When Nanass is successful in catching a fish, she proudly takes it back to the campsite where her mother and grandmother cook it over an open fire for a meal. Suddenly, the tranquility of the setting is shattered as low flying jet aircraft buzz their camp. At this point in Nutaui’s Cap, readers might think that they are about to read a war story and that the family is under attack.

Instead, what readers will meet in Nutaui’s Cap is a retelling of an actual event that occurred in parts of Quebec and Labrador in the 1980s when the Canadian government decided to allow jet aircraft from its NATO allies to use large tracts of what was supposedly uninhabited land to practice low-level flight training, including the dropping of practice bombs. The Innu asserted that, despite their having been relocated to villages, they still hunted and trapped as family units in these traditional lands they called “Nitassinan, our homeland”, during the spring and fall and that the noise from the tree-top flights was scaring not only the people but also disturbing the animals.

When their communications with government did not lead to any change, the Innu decided that more active measures needed to be taken, including their action of preventing the jets from taking flight by having people, including children like Nanass, walk on the airport runway. Over time, tensions rose, and finally the government arrested several of the Innu leaders, including Nanass’ father. As Nutaui was being placed in a police car, his Innu Nation ball cap, with the Innu flag on the front, fell off and was retrieved by Nanass who then wore it while her father was imprisoned far way as a reminder that “Nitassinan will always belong to the Innu.”

The text of Nutaui’s Cap is presented in a sandwich-like manner. An opening note explains: “The Labrador Innu speak two dialects of their language Innu-aimun. In this text the Sheshatshiu dialect is presented first, followed by the English and finally the Mushuau dialect.” At the conclusion of the “story” portion of the book, there is a four-page “Backgrounder” to Nutaui’s Cap which places the story into its factual historical context. An additional page provides a map of Labrador. The map’s usefulness is somewhat diminished by its not explaining some of the labels on the map, such as “corridors”, though visually it does reveal the significant amount of land that was being appropriated for low level training. The book concludes with a 16-page “Aimuna” in which the Innu words are translated into English. In most cases, one of Mary Ann Penshue’s simple colour illustrations occupies one page of each pair of facing pages. In some cases, her illustrations help to establish the setting while in others they reinforce the actions being described in the text.

Considering Nutaui’s Cap only from the perspective of its English text, some adult intervention may be needed in order to get the book into the hands of children. The book’s cover art and its title are not very enticing, and, as can be seen in the above excerpt, the English text also incorporates a number of Innu words. Though the reader can turn to the “Aimuna”, it includes all of the words in the Innu texts and not just the few words located within the English portion. Translating the words into English on the page in which they were used or providing this portion of the book with its own small Innu/English dictionary might have been a more reader-friendly approach. While Penashue’s illustration on p. 13 might assist readers in guessing that a “namesh” is a fish, her artwork on p. 19 will not help them to identify that “mashk*”, “nishk” and “atik*” are, respectively, bear, goose and caribou. A pronunciation guide to the Innu words in the English text would have been most useful as well. It’s difficult for readers to connect with the book’s central character, Nutaui, when they aren’t even certain they are pronouncing her name correctly.

Though the events of Nutaui’s Cap occurred decades before its intended readers were born, the book’s contents need to be shared with all young Canadians during this time of renewed efforts at restitution and reconciliation with Canada’s original peoples.