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Frustrated by over 40 years of failed negotiations with Ottawa, a Quebec First Nation has abandoned the land claim process and will instead wage a court battle against the federal government.

Chief Christian Awashish says his people want title over a land mass that stretches across the Haute-Mauricie region, covering 26,360 square kilometres of wetlands, rivers and boreal forest.

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The Atikamekw never signed a treaty ceding their territory to the government of Canada. And yet their villages have been flooded to make way for dams and thousands of acres of forest have been clear-cut over the past century.

Awashish filed suit against the federal government in Montreal’s Superior Court Tuesday.

The territory isn’t anything like it was when I was a child.”

“The territory isn’t anything like it was when I was a child,” said Siméon Chachai, an Atikamekw elder who spoke on the courthouse steps. “We’ve lost moose herds, traplines and seen the fish populations dwindle. We used to be able to navigate everywhere in a canoe.