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Like most members of the Fort Albany First Nation, Abraham was brought up as a Catholic. But he still has strong memories of his grandfather, a traditional 19th-century medicine man whom the RCMP hunted as an outlaw. Abraham’s father was recruited out of the bush into the Canadian army, and fought the Germans in the First World War.

At the time, he tells me, Indian servicemen were promised all sorts of things upon their return — a plot of land for farming, a barn, and animals. The family even considered giving up the bush life. But when the war ended, Abraham’s father was put on a train, and deposited at the Pagwa trading post. He headed downriver to the bush, where he continued hunting and trapping until the end of his days.

Abraham remembers that life as tough but exhilarating: The hard work and natural diet made everyone strong, fit and wiry. He brought down wolf, deer, moose, caribou, beaver, muskrat, otter, mink and fox — even squirrels for his dogs to eat as snacks. At trading posts, he exchanged some of his furs and cured hides for the few things he couldn’t hunt or make, such as flour, sugar, lard, tea and coffee.

He had everything he needed. After the Second World War, the Canadian government even gave Abraham a gun and a steady supply of ammunition, as part of a Cold War-era military reconnaissance program. All Abraham had to do in return was share his knowledge of the land, and shoot any invading Russians.

But in the 1950s, he remembers, the old ways became more difficult. The fur trade dried up. And a rail line from Cochrane, Ont. to the James Bay town of Moosonee had vastly diminished the commercial importance of the Albany River, formerly the region’s lifeline. Natives started to migrate to Moosonee, which had a large residential school, a tuberculosis clinic, and a substantial government presence.