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 Voices from Hudson Bay
Cree Stories from York Factory
 Rupert’s Land Record Society Series
Jennifer S.H. Brown, Editor

1 The English River Book 9 The Spirit Lives in the Mind:

A North West Company Journal Omushkego Stories, Lives,
and Account Book of 1786 and Dreams
Edited by Harry W. Duckworth Louis Bird
Edited and compiled
2 A Country So Interesting
by Susan Elaine Gray
The Hudson’s Bay Company and
Two Centuries of Mapping, 10 Memories, Myths, and Dreams
1670–1870 of an Ojibwe Leader
Richard I. Ruggles William Berens as told to A. Irving
Hallowell
3 Arctic Artist
Edited and with Introductions
The Journal and Paintings
by Jennifer S.H. Brown and
of George Back, Midshipman
Susan Elaine Gray
with Franklin, 1819-1822
Edited by C. Stuart Houston 11 Letters from Rupert’s Land,
Commentary by I.S. MacLaren 1826–1840
James Hargrave of the Hudson’s
4 Ellen Smallboy
Bay Company
Glimpses of a Cree Woman’s Life
Edited by Helen E. Ross
Regina Flannery
12 Treaty No. 9
5 Voices from Hudson Bay
Making the Agreement to Share
Cree Stories from York Factory,
the Land in Far Northern Ontario
Second Edition
in 1905
Compiled and edited by Flora Beardy
John S. Long
and Robert Coutts
13 Law, Life, and Government at
6 North of Athabasca
Red River
Slave Lake and Mackenzie River
Volume 1: Settlement and
Documents of the North West
Governance, 1812–1872
Company, 1800-1821
Dale Gibson
Edited with an Introduction
by Lloyd Keith 14 Law, Life, and Government
at Red River
7 From Barrow to Boothia
Volume 2: General Quarterly
The Arctic Journal of Chief Factor
Court of Assiniboia, Annotated
Peter Warren Dease, 1836-1839
Records, 1844–1872
Edited and annotated by William Barr
Dale Gibson
8 My First Years in the Fur Trade
The Journals of 1802-1804
George Nelson
Edited by Laura Peers and Theresa
Schenck
Voices from Hudson Bay
Cree Stories from York Factory

Second Edition

CO M P I L E D A ND E D IT E D B Y
F L O RA B E A R D Y
A ND
RO B E RT C O U T T S

McGill-Queen’s University Press

Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago
 © McGill-Queen’s University Press 2017

I S B N 978-0-7735-5174-9 (cloth)
I S B N 978-0-7735-5143-5 (paper)
I S B N 978-0-7735-5169-5 (eP D F )

Legal deposit third quarter 2017

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

First edition 1996

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

This book was first published with the help of a grant from Parks Canada,
Department of Canadian Heritage.

McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of

the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.
We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Voices from Hudson Bay: Cree stories from York Factory/compiled and
edited by Flora Beardy and Robert Coutts. – Second edition.

(Rupert’s Land Record Society series; 5)

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-7735-5174-9 (hardcover). – I S B N 978-0-7735-5143-5 (softcover).–
I S B N 978-0-7735-5169-5 (eP D F )

1. Cree Indians – Manitoba – York Factory – Social life and customs.

2. Cree Indians – Manitoba – York Factory – Social conditions. 3. Cree Indians –
Manitoba – York Factory – Interviews. 4. Cree Indians – Manitoba – York Factory
– Biography. 5. York Factory (Man.) – Social life and customs. 6. York Factory
(Man.) – Social conditions. 7. Hudson’s Bay Company – History.
I. Beardy, Flora, 1946–, editor II. Coutts, Robert, editor
III. Series: Rupert’s Land Record Society series; 5

E 99.C 88V64 2017 971.2'71 C 2017-901714-4

C 2017-901715-2

This book was typeset by

Typo Litho Composition Inc.
in 10/13 Palatino.
 Contents

Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

Introduction xiii

Preface to the Second Edition xxxvii

voices from hudson bay

Traders, Trippers, and Trappers 3
Work and Wages 17
York Boats, Coast Boats, and Steamers 21
Company and Community 26
Recreation and Social Events 33
Food, Clothing, and Shelter 39
Women’s Lives and Activities 44
Growing up at York Factory 49
Churches and Ministers 51
Education 57
Sickness and Medical Care 61
Descriptions of York Factory 66
vi Contents

Stories and Local Events 67

Ancient Legends and Traditions 76
Seasonal Life in the York Factory Area 79
Treaties and Treaty Days 84
Grandfathers and Grandmothers 89
Leaving York Factory 91

BIOGRAPHIES
David Massan 97
Catherine Anderson 99
Alex Ouscan 101
Joseph and Amelia Saunders 102
Abel Chapman 105
Archelaus Beardy 107
Fred Beardy 109
Richard Beardy 111
Albert and Amy Hill 112
Elizabeth Oman 115
Mary Redhead 117
John Neepin 119

Afterword 121

Notes 123

Suggestions for Further Reading 149

Index 153
 Illustrations

Regional setting: York Factory I xvii

The lower Hayes and Nelson Rivers I xix
York Factory, c.1853 I xxii
An aerial view of York Factory, 1925 I xxviii
Plan of York Factory, c.1930 I xxx-xxxi
Alex Spence after a goose hunt at York Factory, c.1930s I 2
Goose hunters at York Factory, c.1940 I 5
Jake Spence, Hector Spence and Alex Spence at York
Factory, 1946 I 5
York Factory Cree workers and hunters with beluga
whale carcass c.189o I 12
Buying furs at York Factory, 1923 I 14
Sawing lumber at York Factory, 1930s I 19
Josiah Beardy mana=uvring a York boat, n.d. I 22
Loading the schooner at York Factory, 1930s I 22
Dragging a York boat across a portage on the Hayes
River, n.d. I 25
Interior of York Factory store, 1910 I 27
viii Illustrations

Eliza Oman ("Kihei Cook") at York Factory, c.1930s I 29

Chief Abraham Beardy and wife Sally, n.d. I 30
Men from York Factory, c.1930s I 32
Group wedding at the Church of StJohn of York
Factory, 1926 I 34
Wedding group at York Factory, c.1930s I 36
Playing cards at York Factory, c.1940 I 38
Unidentified woman and child at York Factory, 1930s I 45
York Factory group, c.1950 I 48
Children with cannon near the riverbank at York
Factory, 1916 I 50
The Church of StJohn of York Factory, 1916 I 52
The Reverend Richard and Catherine Faries, n.d. I 54
Local people in front of the "iron" church at York
Factory, n.d. I 56
McKay Residential School at The Pas, c.1923 I 59
Alex and Martha Chapman and family at York
Factory, c.1932 I 81
Chief Charles Wastasecoot and councillors after signing
Treaty Five at York Factory~ 10 August 1910 I 85
Royal North-West Mounted Police patrol during the payment
of treaty annuities at York Factory, 1914 I 87
The Reverend Richard and Catherine Faries with local people
after the signing of Treaty Five at York Factory in
August 1910 I 88
 Acknowledgments

The origins of this book go back to the spring of 1989 when, with
much laughter and apprehension, we practised interviewing
each other on a new tape recorder in a hotel room in Churchill,
Manitoba. The many hours spent recording and transcribing
the stories of Cree elders from York Factory were followed by a
painstaking selection and editing process that resulted in the rec-
ollections contained in this book.
Many people provided assistance throughout the project. First,
of course, we owe a great debt of gratitude to the elders who gen-
erously contributed their stories and teachings. The spirit and
enthusiasm of Mr Archelaus Beardy, Mr Alex Ouscan, Mr Fred
Beardy, Mr Richard Beardy, Mr and Mrs Joseph and Amelia Saun-
ders, Mr and Mrs Albert and Amy Hill, Mr John Neepin, Mrs
Elizabeth Oman, Mr David Massan, Mrs Mary Redhead, Mrs
Catherine Anderson, and Mr Abel Chapman was both compel-
ling and rewarding. Much was learned from them and we hope
this publication is deserving of their trust.
The support of the chiefs and councils of the York Factory, Split
Lake, Shamattawa, and Fox Lake First Nations was critical to the
project's success. We would also like to thank Parks Canada,
which sponsored the Voices oral history project and contrib-
uted financially to the publication of this book. Parks staff in
Churchill provided their ideas and support, especially the late Lily
McAuley, a dear friend and mentor, while Winnipeg colleagues
Gary Adams and Margaret Burnip supplied advice and exper-
tise during the initial phases of the project. Jennifer S. H. Brown,
X Acknowledgments

the Editor of the Rupert's Land Record Society, gave encourage-

ment and guidance as well as her considerable editorial skills.
Raymond Beaumont and the anonymous readers who reviewed
the manuscript at an early stage made a number of useful sugges-
tions, and David Pentland contributed advice regarding the
many Cree words contained in the book. We would also like
to thank John Buckner for his marvellous sketches that appear
alongside the biographies, and Susan Plenert who drafted the
maps. Jane Graham smoothed out much of the rough prose of the
Introduction and notes, and Joan McGilvray of MeGill-Queen's
University Press helped guide us through the wonderful myster-
ies of publishing. Permission to quote from documents contained
in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Provincial Archives
of Manitoba, and the National Archives of Canada, is gratefully
acknowledged, as is permission from these institutions to repro-
duce a number of the photographs which appear in the book. We
would also like to thank various individuals for allowing us to
publish photographs from their private collections, including
Flora Beardy’s family, some of the elders interviewed, and John
Ingram (for photos by his father Ralph Ingram, post manager at
York in the 1930s, on file at Parks Canada in Winnipeg).
Lastly, we would like to thank our families: Flora Beardy's hus-
band Edwin and daughter Evelyn, and Robert Coutts's wife
Catherine. Their encouragement and patience are appreciated be-
yond words.
 Preface

Volumes of documentation exist on the activities of the Hudson's

Bay Company at York Factory. Less is known, however, about the
Cree people who once lived and worked at this great fur-trade
post, known locally as Kihci-waskahikan or Great House. The York
Factory Oral History Project was sponsored by Parks Canada to
document Cree recollections of daily life and activities at the post
in the first half of the twentieth century.
I started work on the project in 1989. It was hoped that Cree
elders who had lived at York Factory, and still resided in various
northern Manitoba communities, would provide us with infor-
mation about their past. Since most of these individuals lived on
different reserves, we contacted the chiefs and councils of various
First Nations to explain the project and ask for their comments.
Their response was encouraging: "If the elders agree to share
their stories then the Chiefs wholly support the project." I also
asked the chiefs to provide names of all the elders in each com-
munity who either had been born at York Factory or had resided
there for some time. The people I interviewed were chosen from
this list.
Prior to each interview I visited the elders at home in their
respective communities. I introduced myself and related how I
had lived at York Factory when I was a child. Their eyes lit up in
recognition when I mentioned my parents' names, Alex and
Eliza Spence. After spending some time getting reacquainted, I
explained the project to them and asked them how they felt
about making available to other people, on tape and in print, the
xii Voices from Hudson Bay

experiences and memories of their lives at York Factory. Was it

important to them that future generations, both aboriginal and
non-aboriginal, have knowledge of their past? Their response
was unequivocal. Without hesitation they were willing and eager
to share their knowledge and stories. Some said this should have
been done a long time ago while there were more elders alive to
share their experiences.
Between May 1989 and September 1992, I recorded twelve
interviews in the Cree language which I then translated and
transcribed into English. The information gathered from these
interviews will be useful, not only to Parks Canada's programs
in northern Manitoba, but to Native study groups, students, and
all those who have an interest in the history of subarctic commu-
nities. By agreement with the interviewees, their recordings
will be deposited in the Provincial Archives of Manitoba, while
copies will go to the elders or their children, and to various First
Nations.
I consider myself very fortunate to have been part of this
project. My contact with the elders has been personally reward-
ing and I am thankful to them for bringing alive the stories and
traditions in our culture that I had forgotten. I encourage future
generations to respect their elders and to listen to them, for they
have great knowledge to pass on to us. They are our teachers.
My heartfelt thanks go out to all who shared their knowledge
with me, for the wonderful support of their families, and also for
the support of the chiefs and councils of the First Nations in-
volved. The project was a great success.
With great respect this book is dedicated to all the elders, our
teachers. Ekosi.

Flora Beardy
Churchill, Manitoba
 Introduction

For most human societies storytelling has been the means by

which individuals and groups have communicated their percep-
tions of the world around them. Oral tradition is as old as history
itself and, like the written word, is a form of expression with lay-
ers of meaning and intent. From ancient stories passed down
through the generations- usually referred to as "myth"- to de-
scriptions of daily life and subsistence strategies, oral narratives
represent a continuity between past and present. The spoken
traditions of the Swampy Cree of the York Factory region are a
window through which we can observe community memories
that often transcend written history.
The York Factory Oral History Project was developed to collect
and preserve these memories by recording the stories and experi-
ences of a number of Cree elders who once lived and worked at
York Factory and resided at the time of the interviews in Split
Lake, Gillam, Churchill, Bird, Thompson, and York Landing. Al-
though archival repositories contain a massive amount of written
documentation, from almost exclusively non-Native sources, on
the history of the aboriginal peoples who were associated with
York for almost three centuries, far less material is available from
the perspective of Native people themselves. Hudson's Bay Com-
pany post journals, correspondence, and account books, along
with missionary and government records, provide a detailed and
systematic picture of Cree peoples of the region from the perspec-
tive of Euro-Canadian observers. These accounts have largely
shaped our perceptions of aboriginal life in the region and have
xiv Voices from Hudson Bay

commonly been treated as authoritative. Yet these texts, re-

stricted as they are by the biases of outsiders, observers, and non-
participants, offer limited views of Cree life and history and often
record little beyond the social and economic interactions that
were part of fur-trade life in the central subarctic during the cen-
turies after contact. Although much may be learned from the
written record, for it is an invaluable ethnographic source, it is
narrated life histories that can put the meat on the bones of cul-
tural experience. Embedded in the autobiographical themes of
daily life and religious and mythological narrative are descrip-
tions of community experiences which reflect reconstructions of
the past that are both personal and dynamic. As oral historian
Julie Cruikshank observes, there is often little in Native oral
accounts that conforms to strict notions of Western narrative
biography. Instead, she argues, it is the "emphasis on landscape,
mythology, everyday events and the continuity between genera-
tions" which forms the core of these stories. 1 For the Cree people
of York Factory their life stories, the shared memories of family,
community, and daily life, define their past. Their telling enlarges
our understanding of what constitutes historical truth.
Over the last three decades much has been written about ab-
original life in northern Manitoba, largely focusing on Native in-
volvement in the fur trade before 1900. More recently, scholarly
interest in the early relations between Natives and newcomers,
and in the participation of aboriginal peoples in the European fur
trade during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been
broadened to encompass the study of social, economic, and
cultural themes associated with Native life in the north before
World War II. The goal of Voices from Hudson Bay is to expand on
ethnographic and economic analyses through first-person oral
accounts that provide a different perspective on the lives and atti-
tudes of the York Factory Cree in the first half of the twentieth
century. Like the company journal and account book, the govern-
ment census, or the missionary record, these testimonies present

1 Julie Cruikshank (with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith, and Annie Ned),
Life Lived like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders (Vancou-
ver: University of British Columbia Press 1990), 2.
 Introduction XV

complex and many-sided histories. Most important, they enlist

new voices in the reconstruction of the historical past.
The written record pertaining to the history of aboriginal peo-
ples in the York Factory district amounts to tens of thousands of
pages, principally contained in the Hudson's Bay Company Ar-
chives. York Factory is one of the most extensively documented
contact sites in western Canada. Its records, largely continuous
from the founding of the post in the late seventeenth century to
its closing in 1957, include almost 200 post journals, a number of
nineteenth-century district reports, volumes of correspondence to
and from the post, and roughly 2,000 account books covering the
period 1688-1932. The account books offer insights into such top-
ics as the material culture of the Cree, their seasonal movements,
trade practices, provision of "country" produce, furs, and labour
services, kinship patterns, and social organization, and the fluctu-
ating animal populations within the region. For the twentieth
century new types of company records, which include district
reports, detailed personnel records, post manuals, a register of
Native births, deaths, and marriages, and a few census records,
furnish useful material for ethnohistorical study. Documents from
sources other than the HBCA also exist. The journals and corre-
spondence of the Protestant missionaries who served at York after
1850, along with the records of the Department of the Interior, In-
dian Affairs, the Geological Survey of Canada, and the North-
West Mounted Police, contain a considerable body of information
on Cree life in the region, especially after the York Factory band
took treaty in 1910. 2

2 For a description of the archival record pertaining to York Factory see:

Victor Lytwyn, York Factory Native Ethnohistory: A Literature Review
and Assessment of Source Material, Parks Canada, Microfiche Report
Series no. 162 (Ottawa: 1984); Gary Adams, Margaret Burnip, and
Robert Coutts, York Factory Ethnohistory Project: Phase I Progress Report,
Parks Canada, Research Bulletin no. 284 (Ottawa: February 1991;
and Robert Coutts, "York Factory as a Native Community: Public His-
tory Research Commemoration and the Challenge to Interpretation,"
Prairie Forum 17, no. 2 (1992): 275-94.
xvi Voices from Hudson Bay

The oral record from York Factory is less developed. Over the
years, oral accounts from the Cree of northern Manitoba have
been collected by anthropologists and folklorists, but few pertain
to the history of the York Factory people.3 Narratives of aborigi-
nal life in the Hudson Bay area written by Native people them-
selves largely date from the period after World War I and include
traditional Swampy Cree legends compiled by the late Cree artist
Jackson Beardy, and by Carl Ray and James Stevens.4 The stories
and reminiscences of Cree elders collected as part of the York Fac-
tory Oral History Project help to fill a gap by providing a first-
person account of many aspects of daily life at the post, especially
for the years after 1920. Although memory is often selective, these
reminiscences offer a counterpoise to the written record. They
represent another dimension to historical understanding, a recon-
struction of the past by the people themselves.
The people of the York Factory region are usually identified in
the historical and contemporary literature as belonging to a

3 See, for example, Robert Bell, "The History of the Che-che-puy-ew-tis:

A Legend of the Northern Crees," Journal of American Folklore 10,
no. 36 (1897); S.C. Simms, "Myths of the Bungees or Swampy Indians
of Lake Winnipeg," Journal of American Folklore 19, no. 72 (1906); J.R.
Cresswell, "Folk-Tales of the Swampy Cree of Northern Manitoba,"
Journal of American Folklore 35 (1922); J.J. Honigmann, "The Atta-
wapiskat Swampy Cree: An Ethnographic Reconstruction," Anthropo-
logical Papers of the University of Alaska (Fairbanks: University of
Alaska Press 1956), 23-82; and David Turner and Paul Wertman,
Shamattawa: The Structure of Social Relations in a Northern Algonkian
Band, Canadian Ethnology Service, Mercury Series Paper no. 36 (Otta-
wa: National Museums of Canada 1977).
4 See Maxwell Paupanekis, "The Trapper," People and Pelts: Selected
Papers of the Second North American Fur Trade Conference (Winnipeg:
Peguis Publishers 1973), 137-43; Tom Boulanger, An Indian Remem-
bers: My Life as a Trapper in Northern Manitoba (Winnipeg: Peguis
Publishers 1971); Jackson Beardy, "Cree Legends from Northern
Manitoba" (unpublished manuscript, Dafoe Library, University of
Manitoba 1971); and Carl Ray and James Stevens, Sacred Legends of the
Sandy Lake Cree (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1971).
Regional setting: York Factory.
xviii Voices from Hudson Bay

larger group known as the Swampy Cree, Lowland Cree, or West

Main Cree. The territory of the western Swampy Cree, or West
Main Cree, covers the low-lying coasts of James and Hudson
bays from the Moose River in northeastern Ontario to the
Churchill River in northern Manitoba. The term "Cree", used to
designate the people of the Canadian subarctic, comes from a
word used by the French, Kiristinon, itself derived from an
Ojibwa term and first employed by French traders in the seven-
teenth century to identify a small band that lived south of James
Bay. As these traders moved farther west, the term was applied to
a variety of groups who spoke a similar language, and it was
eventually shortened to "Cree" by English-speaking observers
and writers.s The West Main, or western Swampy Cree (includ-
ing the Cree of York Factory) speak then-dialect, except at Moose
Factory on James Bay where the 1-dialect is used. According
to eighteenth-century HBC traders, the ethnonym A'thinnew
or Athinuwick was employed by the indigenous people of the
western Hudson Bay lowlands to identify themselves. 6 Today,
Maskekowininiwak [Swampy People] is the self-designation used
by Cree speakers on the bay's west coast.
As one of the oldest HBC posts in North America, York Factory
was the site of some of the earliest encounters between aboriginal
people and European traders. The post is situated near the mouth
of the Hayes River on a flat, marshy peninsula on the western
shore of Hudson Bay (see maps pp. xvii and xix). Twelve years
after the founding of the HBC in 1670, traders from England,
France, and New England established a series of temporary posts
in the area of the Hayes and Nelson rivers in hopes of attracting
Native traders from the interior. In 1684 John Abraham of the
HBC relocated his company's post to the north bank of the Hayes,

5 David H. Pentland, "Synonymy," in John J. Honigmann, "West Main

Cree," Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 6, Subarctic (Washing-
ton: Smithsonian Institution 1981), 227-8. See also Victor Lytwyn,
"The Hudson Bay Lowland Cree in the Fur Trade to 1821: A Study in
Historical Geography" (PHD dissertation, University of Manitoba
1993), 28-9.
6 Lytwyn, "Hudson Bay Lowland Cree," 28.
The lower Hayes and Nelson Rivers.
XX Voices from Hudson Bay

calling the new establishment York Fort. The post soon attracted
the trade of the Cree, Ojibwa, Assiniboine, and occasionally a few
other groups, who each year made the long journey to the bay
from the interior. Over the next three decades there was intense
competition between rival English and French traders for com-
mercial supremacy in the region. As expanding mercantile con-
cerns in Europe sought new areas for exploitation, it soon became
apparent that whoever controlled the Hayes and Nelson water-
ways controlled the fur resources of the western interior. York
changed hands a number of times in this period. Between 1697
and 1714 the post was under French control as Fort Bourbon, but
it was ceded back to England with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
By 1730 York Fort had become the HBc's most important post
on the bay, the volume of its trade far surpassing that of such cen-
tres as Eastmain, Fort Albany, Moose Fort, and Prince of Wales'
Fort (at the mouth of the Churchill River).7 The establishment of
the company's bayside network of posts consolidated the role of
the Cree and Assiniboine as economic intermediaries who bar-
tered guns, knives, kettles, and tobacco at marked-up prices to
Native groups living farther inland. Competition in the interior,
first from the French, and after 1763 from rival concerns operat-
ing out of Montreal, significantly reduced the volume and quality
of furs traded at York. In response, the HBC established a number
of interior posts, beginning in 1774 with Cumberland House on
the Saskatchewan.
With the establishment of these inland posts, York assumed a
new role as a storage, manufacturing, and distribution centre in
the HBC's Northern Department, the company's administrative
designation for its fur-trading districts west of Albany and east of
the Rocky Mountains. The post became the hub of a vast, tightly
scheduled system of supply that began with the fall arrival of
the annual ships from England. Large warehouses, including the
still-extant depot building, were constructed to house the many

7 In 1730 the volume of trade at York Factory peaked at approximately

42,ooo "made beaver" (MB ), compared with 8,ooo MB at Prince of
Wales' Fort, n,ooo MB at Albany, 4,000 MB at Moose Factory, and
3,ooo MB at Eastmain. See Arthur Ray and Donald Freeman, Give Us
Good Measure (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1978), 34·
 Introduction xxi

tons of furs, supplies, and trade goods awaiting shipment to either

England or the interior. As well, York was the centre of consider-
able activity by artisans who manufactured a variety of articles
for use in the local and inland trade. With this expanded role
came new administrative and record-keeping functions, as com-
pany clerks and accountants processed the considerable volume
of paperwork that accompanied the daily transactions of a major
entrepot.
By the 185os York Factory (as it was called in the nineteenth
century) had reached its peak, with over fifty buildings located at
the site and a permanent workforce of some fifty-one labourers,
tradespeople, clerks, and officers, many of whom were of aborig-
inal ancestry. Two decades later, however, the post was in decline.
Changes to the HBC's transport network saw an ever-increasing
volume of goods shipped to the posts of the Northwest via rail-
ways in the United States, steamboats, and Red River carts along
a southern supply line headquartered at Upper Fort Garry in Red
River (now Winnipeg). By 1872 York Factory was outfitting only
those posts in Manitoba located north and east of Norway House,
including Oxford House, Nelson House, Severn, Trout Lake, Split
Lake, and Churchill. Later in the same decade the factory's ac-
counting functions and transport responsibilities were removed
to Upper Fort Garry.
In 1911 York was made the headquarters of the newly created
Nelson River District, but it lost the role in 1929 to Churchill with
the completion of the Hudson Bay Railway which connected
Churchill with Winnipeg. York soon declined to the status of a re-
gional trading post, and the small Cree communities at nearby
Ten Shilling and French creeks were eventually abandoned in
favour of settlement on the nearby Anglican mission property or
on the company's 118-acre reserve at the post itself. When the fac-
tory closed in 1957 the remaining Cree families left for Split Lake,
Shamattawa, and the new community at York Landing.
Throughout the transformation from trading post to entrepot,
distribution centre, and district headquarters, York Factory re-
mained an important part of the lives of the aboriginal peoples of
northern Manitoba. At the factory many assumed roles as traders,
provisioners, consumers, and employees, while helping to forge a
post community that possessed unique cultural characteristics as
well as its own social and economic patterns and structures.
York Factory, c. 1853. Artist unknown. (Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Rupert's
Land Collection, 13).
 Introduction xxiii

Even before the move inland by the HBC in 1774, a small band
of coastal Cree who inhabited the area around York Factory had
long specialized in supplying the post with a variety of country
goods and services. The small furs, provisions, country tech-
nology, and services of the hunters, guides, packers, and couriers
known as the Home-Guard Cree were indispensable to the prof-
itability of the fur trade at York. According to Andrew Graham,
who served at York for varying lengths of time between 1753 and
1772, the seasonal round of existence of the Home-Guard, both
at and away from the post, was perhaps the most enduring fea-
ture of their relationship with the factory. 8 The approximately
200 men, women, and children who were then associated with
York Factory pursued a variety of activities - the caribou and
goose hunts and the winter trapping and summer voyaging -
which were largely dictated by the seasons of the year.
Though the relatively small Home-Guard group associated
with York maintained frequent contact with the factory, the post's
hinterland in the coastal lowlands and the upland regions of the
Hayes and Nelson rivers also included a larger population of
trappers and seasonal traders. The effects of contact between
the HBC traders at York Factory and these Cree people were
significant and varied. Economic and social change, from alter-
ations in material culture and patterns of resource extraction, to
changes in family and kin networks, characterized life among
both the York Factory Home-Guard and the upland groups who
regularly traded at the post. Not the least of these effects was the
devastating impact of European epidemic diseases which over
three centuries took a heavy toll among the Swampy Cree of the
region. Smallpox, measles, influenza, scarlet fever, and tubercu-
losis periodically swept through the lowlands and decimated
the population. The most catastrophic of these outbreaks was the
smallpox epidemic of the late eighteenth century, which first
reached York from the southern plains in the spring of 1782. From
company records it is estimated that during a four-year period
fully one-half to two-thirds of the population of the York district

8 Andrew Graham, Andrew Graham's Observations on Hudson's Bay,

1767-91, ed. Glyndwr Williams (London: Hudson's Bay Record Soci-
ety 1969), 192.
xxiv Voices from Hudson Bay

perished, a mortality rate similar to that experienced on the

southern plains during the same outbreak.9 Writing in 1786, after
the epidemic had largely run its course, the chief factor at York,
Humphrey Marten, described the region as "dismally depop-
ulated."10 In the late 183os smallpox once more swept through
the west, having spread north from the Missouri area in 1837.
Although mortality rates were again high among plains tribes,
the contagion had little effect on the inhabitants of the boreal for-
est zone and the Hudson Bay lowlands. A campaign to vaccinate
western aboriginal groups, including the Home-Guard Cree of
the York Factory region, had been initiated, and the proliferation
of inland trading posts had relieved plains groups from having to
travel as far as Hudson Bay. As a result, the outbreak of 1837-38
had little effect upon the Ojibwa, Western Woods Cree, and
Swampy Cree peoples living north of the parkland zone. 11 A third
smallpox epidemic, in 1869-70, again affected plains groups but
had little impact on the Cree peoples of the York area.

9 Because of the French capture and destruction of York Factory in Sep-

tember 1782 records are unavailable for what was possibly the worst
period of the epidemic in the Hayes-Nelson district. Estimates of mor-
tality were made by company traders the following year when the
post was re-established by the HBC. Only a handful of deaths from
smallpox, however, were recorded at York itself during this period,
largely because of the company's efforts to persuade Native traders to
stay away from the factory. For a discussion of the effects of smallpox
on the Cree of western Hudson Bay in the eighteenth century see
Lytwyn, "Hudson Bay Lowland Cree," 353-73.
10 York Factory Journal, 18 June 1786, Hudson's Bay Company Archives

(Winnipeg), B.239/a/86, fo. 41d.

11 Michael Payne, "Smallpox at York Factory: Epidemic Disease, Burial
Practices, and the York Factory Cemetery," A Social History of York Fac-
tory, 1788-1870, Parks Canada, Microfiche Report Series no. 110 (Otta-
wa: 1984), 429-47. See also William B. Ewart, "Causes of Mortality in a
Sub-Arctic Settlement (York Factory, Manitoba), 1714-1946," Canadian
Medical Association Journal129 (September 1983): 571-4. For a general
discussion of epidemic diseases and Native populations in the west
see Jody Decker," 'We Should Never Be Again the Same People':
 Introduction XXV

If smallpox posed little threat after 1784, a number of other epi-

demics occurred in the York area in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. An 1819 outbreak of measles, carried by company bri-
gades from Red River, led to many deaths. Scarlet fever, whoop-
ing cough, and influenza periodically visited the camps and
settlements in the latter part of the nineteenth century. One source
mentions thirty-five deaths from scarlet fever among the York
Factory Cree in 1862. 12 In the twentieth century oral and written
records describe widespread occurrences of scarlet fever and in-
fluenza which resulted in a high mortality in the York-Severn area
in the 1920s, especially among children and the elderly. 1 3
The effects of disease, combined with a depletion of fur-bearing
animals in the lowlands surrounding Hudson Bay in the latter
part of the eighteenth century, altered the population dynamics
of the York region after 1790. While small groups of hunters and
their families from the Severn River were moving into the York
area, a number of Swampy Cree from the York Factory hinterland
were migrating inland to the Norway House region and as far
west as Cumberland House. This out-migration from York contin-
ued into the early decades of the nineteenth century and modified
the population patterns that had once characterized the Hayes-
Nelson district. 1 4
Those Home-Guard who remained after 1821 saw their role af-
fected by changing company policies and practices, particularly
in the second half of the nineteenth century. When the HBC began
to restrict its recruitment of Europeans as permanent servants for
work at posts such as York Factory, it relied more heavily upon
the Cree.

The Diffusion and Cumulative Impact of Acute Infectious Diseases

Afflicting the Natives on the Northern Plains of the Western Interior
of Canada, 1774-1839" (PHD dissertation, York University 1989).
12 As cited in Percy W. Mathews, Notes on Diseases among the Indians
Frequenting York Factory, Hudson's Bay. (Montreal: Gazette Printing
Company 1885), 13.
13 See the comments of David Massan, Fred Beardy, and Elizabeth
Oman in the section entitled "Sickness and Medical Care", pp. 61-6.
14 Lytwyn, "Hudson Bay Lowland Cree," 419-28.
XXVl Voices from Hudson Bay

Traditionally hunters and provision suppliers for at least part

of the year, while at other times engaging in subsistence activi-
ties outside the fur trade, 1 5 a number of Cree families assumed
new duties at the post, primarily as wage labourers fulfilling
many of the daily tasks that had once been assigned exclusively
to European servants. As either part-time or permanent servants,
they were engaged in a wide variety of tasks, such as voyaging
on the York boats, loading and unloading goods and furs at
ship time, cutting wood, packing fur, repairing and constructing
inland boats and post buildings, whaling and rendering blubber,
fashioning fish nets, assisting the post tradesmen, and transport-
ing goods between storage facilities at the site. Whether perma-
nent or part-time labourers, however, they tended to occupy the
lowest levels of the hierarchy at the post in accordance with the
division of work that characterized much of fur-trade mercantil-
ism throughout the Northwest. The formation of nearby seasonal
communities at French Creek and Kaskatamagun, as well as the
development of a more permanent settlement at the post itself
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was indica-
tive of York's changing composition. Once a company settlement
of largely European permanent servants and officers, it became a
Native community of provisioners, and permanent and seasonal
workers.
At the time that York was evolving as a community of Native
labourers and their families, the development of associated

15 The extent to which Native people engaged in activities outside the

fur trade is a topic only recently addressed by fur-trade scholars.
Complaints throughout the archival record by HBC officers that Indi-
ans were "lazy" or "improvident" in terms of trapping or voyaging
to the post are being reinterpreted to demonstrate the Native people
often followed different priorities that remained outside their partici-
pation in the trade. See Jennifer S.H. Brown, "The Blind Man and
the Elephant: Fur Trade History Revisited," Proceedings of the Fort
Chipewyan and Fort Vermillion Bicentennial Conference, ed. Patricia A.
McCormack and R. Geoffrey Ironside (Edmonton: University of
Alberta, Boreal Institute for Northern Studies 1990), 15-19.
 Introduction xxvii

institutions, such as the establishment of a Christian church and

school, was taking place. Although a missionary had first visited
York as early as 1820, the first permanent mission there was not
established until the 185os. A church and school served the local
population until the post closed in 1957·
York Factory's decline after 1875 was to have severe and far-
reaching effects upon the Cree people who lived at or near the
post, or who had traditionally traded and taken debt there. As
the company "restructured" its operations in the north, it re-
duced its demand for seasonal labour. This reduction coincided
with a protracted decline in the population of fur-bearing ani-
mals in the Hayes-Nelson watershed after 1890, which resulted in
much deprivation among the Native peoples of the area and the
out-migration of many families to Split Lake, Churchill, and Nor-
way House. Starvation became a reality for many of those who
lived in the York district as HBC efforts to "rationalize" expendi-
tures there -primarily by reducing Native debt- drove many to
the bush and the vagaries of a land where game was increasingly
scarce. 16
By the turn of the century, however, competitive fur markets
had re-emerged, largely because independent traders were now
operating in the region. Better prices, coupled with the annuity
payments guaranteed to the York Factory band under Treaty
Five, helped to re-establish a more stable population of post ser-
vants and hunters and their families after 1910, although it was
much reduced in numbers from the pre-1875 era. Fluctuating fur
prices after 1920 affected the York Factory region, as did periodic
supply shortages that reflected the seasonal cycle of local fur-
bearing populations and the pressures on the carrying capacity
of the district. The high prices for certain types of fur in the mid-
192os, in part caused by a shortage of supply and in part related
to changing market demand and the influence of independent
traders in the region, were soon followed by a steep plunge after

16 See Frank Tough, 'As Their Natural Resources Fail': Native Peoples and
the Economic History of Northern Manitoba, 1870-1930 (Vancouver: UBC
Press 1996), 63-74.
An aerial view of York Factory, 1925. (National Archives of Canada, Air Photo
Library, F.A. 211.18).
 Introduction xxix

1928. Values rebounded to some extent after 1935 and continued

to rise until the early 1940s. 1 7
The selection of York in 1911 as the company's headquarters for
the Nelson River District helped to create an increased demand
for Native labour at the post, although employment remained
largely seasonal. Cree families continued their traditional sea-
sonal movements based upon the subsistence cycle. For many,
winters were spent at such small communities as Kaskatamagun,
located east of York near the mouth of the Kaskattama River,
while summers would find them at the post, trading, purchas-
ing supplies, and providing part-time labour services. A much
smaller population tended to stay at the post the year round and
worked for the company there as full-time wage-earners. With
the shifting of the Nelson River headquarters to Churchill in
1929, York Factory experienced a fairly rapid decline in both its
economic profitability and its population. The company's deci-
sion to close the post in 1957 led to the relocation of the few
remaining families to York Landing, Gillam, and other nearby
communities. Many of these people sought work with the rail-
way or with the mining and logging operations that had replaced
the fur trade as the major resource-extraction industries in north-
ern Manitoba. After almost three centuries, aboriginal-Euro-
Canadian trade at the mouth of the Hayes River ended, and with
it the long association of Cree peoples with York Factory.
If "official" written records provide one perspective on the
lives of the York Factory Cree, the oral record allows for another,
a direct voice that presents the social history of life experiences
and everyday events. In presenting the recollections of ordinary
people who were associated with York over the last four decades
of its existence as a trading post- people whose lives are usually
reduced to the almost statistical tabulation of historical and eth-
nographic surveys - we illustrate that historical reality is indeed
multivocal. As a component of social history, oral traditions can
reveal how people comprehend and attempt to make sense of the

17 See Frank Tough, "Native People and the Regional Economy of Northern
Manitoba, 1870-1930s" (PHD dissertation, York University 1987),
322-408.
Plan of York Factory, c. 1930.
xxxii Voices from Hudson Bay

upheavals they have experienced, such as new religious beliefs,

technological changes, personal tragedy, and alterations to age-
old patterns of subsistence and migration. Their stories substan-
tially alter the focus of historical inquiries, opening perspectives
that are otherwise lacking.
In understanding the life histories of aboriginal people at a
community such as York Factory, it is often difficult for non-
Native people to step outside their own cultural boundaries and
literary genres. When Cree elders from York Landing talk about
their lives they tend to use narrative forms which, although
familiar to anyone sharing their cultural background, are not
always clear to outsiders - and here we mean "outsiders" in
both the physical and the cultural sense. Individuals versed in
Western tradition, Julie Cruikshank argues, view personal his-
tory with predetermined notions about what constitutes an ade-
quate account of life. For them, the model has come from written
biography and autobiography - chronological reflections about
individual growth and development usually presented as a nar-
rative continuum. However, this form of exposition, she notes, is
relatively recent, only occurring regularly after the eighteenth
century with the expansion of literacy and the more widespread
use of the written text. As a genre it has become so entrenched
and so structured by convention that it is perceived as natural
and an approach that not only requires no explanation, but is
considered the sole acceptable way of writing personal history. 18
For Cree elders from York Factory, descriptions of past events
and experiences rely upon an oral tradition that is deeply rooted
in local idiom and vernacular speech. Traditional tales, mythol-
ogy, references to places of importance not found on any map,
second-hand apocryphal accounts, funny stories, and common-
place events often take on a greater significance in the oral
accounts of the Cree than they do in Western forms of autobiogra-
phy and are often the shared aspects of life that provide continu-
ity between generations.
Although oral history can furnish new perspectives and new
sources of information, it has often been criticized for being

18 Cruikshank, Life Lived like a Story, ix.

 Introduction xxxiii

overly subjective and biased. Sceptics argue that memory is selec-

tive and often not reliable; that the interview situation may dis-
tort recollections; or that individual interviews are often not
representative. Oral history, however, is not a separate branch of
history, but is a method to be used together with other sources.
Photographs, written records, and data about material culture
provide a more complete picture when they are combined with
the oral record. And while oral history has its biases, so do all
other forms of historical documentation, including the govern-
ment report, the fur-trade journal, the photograph, the archaeo-
logical find, and even the census book.
The construction of a particular version of history requires
more than simply understanding how and why certain types
of historical documents were generated. The integrity of the
research process itself is central to an honest and adequate por-
trayal of the past. This issue is particularly acute in the gathering
of oral testimonies, where the sorts of questions asked and the
selection of material for publication can easily skew the recollec-
tions of the individual who speaks into the microphone. At the
commencement of the York Factory Oral History Project we for-
mulated a number of general questions that touched on a wide
range of topics relating to life in the region. These questions were
largely designed to serve as guidelines to facilitate conversation
and provide a broad structure for the interviews. Recognizing
our own biases and limitations, we attempted to keep the inter-
views as open as possible so that respondents had free rein to
discuss the topics of greatest interest to them. The results were
illuminating, for the elders provided recollections that were
thoughtful, candid, and sometimes surprising. The subjects cov-
ered at times followed the direction of the questions; at other
times they led into new and revealing areas about work and daily
life, recreation, survival, and traditional knowledge.
The interviewer was Flora Beardy, a Cree speaker born at Kas-
katamagun and raised at York Factory. Either related or known
to many of the elders who spoke with her, Flora was able to es-
tablish a bond of trust with each individual which resulted in
conversations that were for the most part relaxed and open.
Often people were as eager to share their stories with Flora as
they were to see these reminiscences made available to others.
xxxiv Voices from Hudson Bay

The trust between Flora and the elders was central to the success
of the endeavour. Her own deep personal commitment to the
project honoured and respected this trust and went a long way in
helping to create a collection of unique personal documents about
the lives of the Cree people of York Factory.
Some comments about translation are necessary. All of the
interviews were conducted in the Cree language and were later
translated and transcribed into English by Flora Beardy. As much
as possible the English text is a literal translation of the spoken
Cree, although at times the phrasing was slightly altered in an
attempt to make the English more comprehensible to readers. We
regret that it has not proved possible to publish Voices in Cree
syllabics, but we are pleased that an English translation will reach
a larger audience unfamiliar with Indigenous life in the region
in the first half of the twentieth century.
Beyond the challenges of language and translation, another
issue arises when converting an oral tradition to a written text:
the problem of the perceived authority of the written word over
the spoken. Writing down the oral accounts of the York Factory
elders as we have done in this book is not intended to supplant
storytelling as an oral tradition, nor does it privilege these ac-
counts over others. Rather, it is a way of sharing them with a
wider audience in a format that is easily understood by people fa-
miliar with the written tradition. By depositing the original tapes
with the Provincial Archives of Manitoba and making copies
available to the elders and their families as well as to the govern-
ments of the various First Nations, we hope to keep these oral tra-
ditions in their spoken form alive and accessible.
Many hours of recordings were made throughout the course of
the project and each interview was translated and transcribed in
its entirety. Faced with the restrictions on length imposed by the
realities of publishing, we were forced to select portions for use in
the book. In doing so we adhered to no hard and fast criteria,
instead trying as best we could to choose material that we felt
was representative of the interview as a whole. This process was
by nature a subjective one - certain accounts were chosen over
others for their representativeness, their clarity, and their illustra-
tive value - but it was guided by the principle of integrity and a
desire to preserve the confidence of each interviewee.
 Introduction XXXV

What is lost in writing down and selecting oral testimonies for

publication, however, is the tonal quality of the interview itself;
the character and pitch of the voice, the richness of oral and ver-
nacular expression, or simply the nature of conversation where
pauses, gestures, and facial expressions convey meaning that is
beyond the communicative powers of the written word. We en-
deavoured to maintain the conversational tone and style by mini-
mizing the number of changes to the transcript. Grammatical
errors in the translation reflect the colloquial quality of the origi-
nal spoken Cree. Square-bracketed insertions, which provide the
names of people mentioned in the text as simply "he" or "she,"
or which are used to make short explanatory notations, were
added sparingly. Punctuation was also employed to improve the
flow of the text and ellipsis points were occasionally inserted to
indicate where sentences or parts of sentences were omitted. Ex-
cept in a handful of instances where their inclusion was essential
to understanding the nature and context of the response, the in-
terview questions were left out of the edited transcripts. This
choice was made partly to sustain the readability of the narrative
and partly because the selected material did not always come out
of a direct enquiry by the interviewer. As well, many of the ques-
tions asked by Flora- "Can you tell me about your childhood?"
or "What kind of work did you do for the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany?" - were of a general nature and the substance of the an-
swers tended to make the actual question if not redundant, then
at least self-evident. Rather than reproduce the questions, we
chose to organize the responses under eighteen subheadings. In
the written transcripts certain themes emerged that were com-
mon to many of the interviews, although individual recollections
often provided different perspectives. Attitudes toward the HBC
at York Factory, or the fairness of the company's fur prices, for ex-
ample, varied among the elders. In the end we felt that the group-
ing of responses under these subheadings managed to capture
the essence of each interview while maintaining the narrative
quality of the text.
The texts are supplemented by occasional endnotes to provide
the reader with information on specific points such as the loca-
tion of certain geographical features or the background of histori-
cal personalities. The notes also offer context for topics raised in
xxxvi Voices from Hudson Bay

the narratives, often giving comparative examples or tracing his-

torical phenomena to an earlier period at York Factory. They rely
heavily upon documentary and published sources and are in-
tended only to complement the oral narratives, not as correctives
to the recollections of the elders. Both forms of documentation,
the oral and the written, speak for themselves.
A number of photographs were lent to us by the elders and
others for reproduction in the book. They illustrate aspects of
daily life at York Factory in the twentieth century and are pub-
lished here for the first time. Additional photographs from archi-
val repositories are also included.
Through these oral accounts and autobiographical stories, the
York Factory elders have provided insights into a way of life that
has largely disappeared in northern Manitoba. The era that they
describe and were part of, namely the years between 1920 and the
closing of the post in 1957, saw dramatic transformations in ab-
original life in the north. The extension of Treaty Five in 1910 to
include members of the York Factory band, the arrival of police
and government agents, and the changing economy of the fur
trade all had their impacts, both good and bad, on the lives of the
Cree people who resided along the western shore of Hudson Bay.
But these accounts also depict the continuity of northern life in
the twentieth century, from the persistence of traditional ways to
the ongoing role of community and kinship ties. The stories are
more than recollections of a distant past. They are a legacy to a
younger generation of aboriginal people whose present reality is
both forward-looking and informed by the past. In this sense the
York Factory elders who speak in this book are teachers in the
truest meaning of the word.

Robert Coutts
Winnipeg, Manitoba
 Preface to the Second Edition

In the Afterword to the first edition of this book (1996), we wrote:

“It is our sincere hope that this book makes a small contribution
to the preservation of [the elders’] heritage and will help others
to understand and appreciate the remarkable lives of the York
Factory people.” In the twenty-one years since its publication,
Voices from Hudson Bay has realized that goal and has gone some
way in keeping the stories of the Muskego people alive, stories
that are integral to their strong historical and cultural traditions.
We fondly remember the launch of the book in 1996 at a feast
held in the school gymnasium at York Landing, the honouring of
the elders who were present, the wonderful food and music, and
the warmth and hospitality of the community. Over the years
Voices and its stories of daily life at York Factory in the first half of
the twentieth century have found a consistent audience. The book
became part of the curriculum at University College of the North
at its campuses at The Pas and Thompson, where it has contrib-
uted to studies of Indigenous history and the sharing of traditional
knowledge, beliefs, and values. It has also been used in Native
studies programs at a number of universities across the country, at
the George Saunders Memorial School in York Landing, and at
schools in other northern Manitoba communities. York Factory
was (and remains) a special place. Many students and others have
enjoyed learning about the remarkable lives and legacies of the
elders who grew up there.
York Factory’s story in the twentieth century is not unlike that
experienced at a number of other subarctic communities in Canada.
xxxviii Preface to the Second Edition

Intensive hunting and trapping from the 1850s on ultimately

depleted the region of resources, while the fur trade mode of
production that had once brought the Muskego people into a
global economy would leave them on the sidelines of an emer-
ging national commerce. In 1957, when York Factory closed down,
they were forced to leave their traditional homeland for new com-
munities far inland.
Sadly, the men and women who were interviewed for this book
have all passed away, although we hope that this work does some
justice to their memories. It might have been luck or it might have
been providence, but the timing of these interviews, held between
1989 and 1992, managed to capture the first-hand stories of an
Indigenous way of life that was exceptional by then, although
typical of older times. The lives of the fourteen people inter-
viewed for the book – most in their seventies and eighties – bore
considerable resemblance to the lives of their parents and even
their grandparents. For instance, daily life on the trap line, work
at the post or on the boats, seasonal travel, recreation, and the
routines of women and girls had not changed a great deal for the
better part of a century. The customs and conventions of their
lives were little altered. Yet for the most part the elders who speak
in this book were the last to lead such traditional lives. The next
generation, their children, lived away from the lowlands, the
band having relocated in 1957 to York Landing on Split Lake
approximately three hundred kilometres inland. Some band
members moved to northern communities such as Thompson
and Churchill, and others to Winnipeg, their lives much changed
from those of their parents. Voices, however, can remind them of
times past, of a proud heritage, and of the strength and resiliency
of their ancestors.
Over the years we were sometimes asked about the York elders
and their experience with residential schools. As is recognized
now, these schools had a destructive effect on most of those
who attended, and the intergenerational impacts on Indigenous
communities and families are still being felt today. However,
at the time of the interviews less was known about the terrible
toll that these schools took; J.R. Miller’s Shingwauk’s Vision and
John Milloy’s A National Crime had yet to be published, and the
final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was
 Preface to the Second Edition xxxix

more than two decades away. Of the fourteen elders interviewed

for this book, only two – Elizabeth Oman and Mary Redhead –
attended residential schools: the McKay School at The Pas and
the Elkhorn Residential School located west of Brandon near the
Saskatchewan border. They did not say much about their treat-
ment at these schools, although Mary talked about the constant
hunger and the loneliness of not seeing her family for seven years.
When asked if she was ever lonely during those long years away
from her family, Mary replied, “Holy smokes! Don’t even ask that.
I was in the hospital for a month when my father died … I almost
died from grief and loneliness.”
Today, many descendants still travel to York Factory for reunions
and for the opportunity to savour simply being in a place that
was an important part of their history. It is “heritage work”
being at this site, renewing memories, and sharing experiences
with friends and family members, all to help strengthen present
and future community relations. The elders of today remember
childhood stories about this place; they can talk of traditional life,
make cultural observations, or even tell funny stories about events
and people. For the York Factory First Nation members, whether
they live on reserve or elsewhere, it is here that their history, their
heritage, can be more than merely about the past. Returning to
their historical home is an act of engagement and a process of
finding meaning that resonates in the present. It is about place
and belonging and the layers of memory and meaning that they
attach to it.
York Factory is now a lonely site on the remote shores of Hudson
Bay. But the elders’ stories of that place and that region continue to
speak to the historical centrality of Indigenous people as kin and
community at the places that are remembered.

Flora Beardy
Robert Coutts
xl Preface to the Second Edition

A N o t e o n T e r m inology

Since the original publication of Voices in 1996, the term Muskego

has gradually come to replace Maskêkôwininiwak as the Cree-
language name for the Indigenous people who traditionally
inhabited the York Factory region. In the Ontario communities
of southwest Hudson Bay and James Bay such as Fort Severn,
Winisk, Attawapiskat, and Moose Factory, where the term
Mushkego is used, the s is usually pronounced to sound like “sh.”
Literally translated as “the people of the muskeg,” the Muskego
are known in both the historical and contemporary literature as
the “West Main,” “Lowland,” or “Swampy” Cree. The spelling
“Omushkego” is also in common use.
Voices from Hudson Bay
Alex Spence after a goose hunt at York Factory, c. 19305. (Courtesy of Flora
Beardy).
 Voices from Hudson Bay

TRADERS, TRIPPERS, AND TRAPPERS

John Neepin. In the summer, all summer, they [my family] would
set nets for fish. They'd check the nets when the tide goes out.
They would put up some poles, in a row, and attach the net to
them. Then after the tide goes out they'd go and remove the fish
from the nets. Later on, as I got older, I was able to help them. I
would go and set nets. When we were old enough to travel with
our father we would go and stay northward of Port Nelson. This
place is called Asiniy Sfpiy [Stony River]. This is where we always
went. This is where I grew up and became a man. That's where
we fished and trapped. We were there for the winters. Then I left
there. I left there in 1941. I've been on the railroad since. Seventy-
six ... yes, 1976 was when I stopped working for Canadian Na-
tional Railways.
This is one thing that I remember, that I find strange. I often
think of this. Why the people aren't allowed to hunt any time. We
are allowed to hunt only at certain times. This doesn't make
things any better for the wildlife. That's just like having a garden
and not tending to it. If this garden is not looked after properly all
that would grow in it would be weeds. God put all these animals
on earth for the people to use. And today they stop people from
hunting.' I hear a lot of people say that the geese don't taste as
good as they used to.
We were taught certain ways of hunting. People weren't al-
lowed to build a fire at night. We weren't allowed to hunt after
dark or when it was calm. A person wasn't allowed to do this. 2
4 Voices from Hudson Bay

I was taught very well by the old man [kise-ininiw] that taught
me. He taught me everything about hunting. We were taught to
never wear anything red. Especially when we were hunting
geese. The geese are afraid of the colour red. And today I believe
that. That last time I was hunting at York Factory, I had to come
around the point. Anyway, there were all these geese flying in all
directions! It was calm that day. It looked like they were afraid of
something. An Indian can tell when the geese are afraid. They act
differently when they are not afraid. They take their time flying.
That's how you can tell. But these ones were all excited. [The
hunters] were dressed in red clothing! That's what the geese do
when they see the colour red.
At Kaskatamagun there was a big group of people living there.
People survived by trapping. Sometimes they would come to
York Factory during the winter if they ran short of supplies. They
would bring their fur to sell. Then the same person would arrive
again at Easter with more fur to sell. I don't think the Hudson's
Bay Company paid a fair price. But then, in turn, things weren't
very expensive at that time. For instance, when I first took a fox
pelt to sell I received ten dollars for it. That was the highest price
paid and the same with mink. It was worth ten dollars. But later
on the fur prices went higher. They paid more for fur but then the
prices for food items also went up. There was no difference.
The Hudson's Bay Company encouraged people to take cash
on credit. If the people didn't have money they were able to get it
from the Hudson's Bay Company, on credit.
I never trapped beaver. When I started trapping nobody was
allowed to trap beaver. Beaver was closed all the time I trapped!
The odd time I would trap one. Secretly. For food.
The geese were hunted every spring. The powder was kept in
barrels. There would be a person in charge of this gunpowder.
They would have a barrel and a little dipper I cup. It was called a
one one-hundreth scoop ... If you got one scoop that was enough
for ten geese! So if you got ten scoops that was enough for a per-
son to get a hundred geese! Yes! Some did get a hundred but
some only got fifty. And again some only got twenty-five! There
were also some who did not kill any geese at all! That's what I
used to hear. The ones that were good hunters usually had some
gunpowder left. Some of the ten scoops that they received. One of
Another random document with
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Operations Staff, were suddenly ordered to the Reich Chancellery
that I heard of the intention for the first time.
DR. EXNER: Then did you have a plan made, or what?
JODL: The Führer surprised them by stating that the question
involved was the Austrian problem; and then they remembered, that
there was a General Staff plan called “Otto.” They sent for me and
for the directive, and learned from me that such a directive actually
did exist, but that in practice nothing at all had been prepared. As it
had only been a theoretical plan and drafted solely in the event of an
Austrian restoration, and as such a restoration was not expected for
the moment, the High Command of the Army had virtually done
nothing about it.
DR. EXNER: How did you yourself understand the entire
Austrian action?
JODL: It appeared to me to be a family squabble which Austria
herself would solve through her domestic politics in a very short time.
DR. EXNER: And what made you think that?
JODL: My own extensive knowledge of Austria. Through
relatives and acquaintances, through the German-Austrian Alpine
Club to which I belonged, as one who knew the Austrian mountains,
I had been in closer contact with Austria than with northern
Germany, and I knew that in that country there had been a
government against the will of the people for a long time. The
peasant uprising in Styria was a characteristic example.
DR. EXNER: Was the march into Austria the carrying out of the
suggestion, C-175?
JODL: No, it was completely improvised within a few hours with
the corresponding result. Seventy percent of all the armored vehicles
and lorries were stranded on the road from Salzburg and Passau to
Vienna, because the drivers had been taken from their recruitment
training to be given this task.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, you said just now, didn’t you, that
the Führer told them it was the problem of Austria? You said that,
didn’t you?
 JODL: I said that the Führer had informed General Keitel and
General Viehbahn about that on 10 March, in the morning. He did
not talk to me, and until that day I had not talked to the Führer either.
THE PRESIDENT: I only wanted to know the date. You said it
was 10 March?
JODL: Yes, on 10 March, in the morning.
DR. EXNER: Is it correct that only peacetime formations
marched into the frontier districts, into Austrian territory?
JODL: Yes; it is a fact that only peacetime units which were
intended for the parade in Vienna actually marched in. All units
which might have been necessary for a military conflict, say, with
Czechoslovakia or Italy, were stopped at the last moment and did not
cross the border.
DR. EXNER: Ammunition columns, for instance?
JODL: No, everything remained behind.
DR. EXNER: Was there any hesitation among the political
leaders at the last moment?
JODL: On 11 March, in the afternoon, I had news from the Reich
Chancellery that the Wehrmacht was not to move in, but that the
Police would pass through the Wehrmacht and move in alone. In the
evening, however, on 11 March, at 2030 hours, the final decision
reached me, which was that the Wehrmacht was to move in after all.
I was unable to find out the reason for that hesitation.
DR. EXNER: So that altogether there was not really an invasion
by force?
JODL: No, it was a purely peaceful occupation. It was
characterized by my suggestion to the chief of the operations
department of the Army that he should have bands marching at the
head of the columns and that all drivers should be sure to wear
goggles, otherwise they might be blinded by the flowers thrown at
them.
DR. EXNER: What was the significance of the order you signed
regarding the march into Austria? It has been put before you under
Document Number C-182, Exhibit USA-77. You remember it, do you
not?
 JODL: Yes, I remember. That is nothing other than the written
record of something which had previously been ordered orally and
which was already being carried out. That written order, you see,
would have come much too late.
DR. EXNER: And what is the significance of Document C-103,
Exhibit USA-75, referring to a possible clash with Czech troops or
Italian troops on Austrian territory? How did you come to that?
JODL: That was based on an inquiry from the General Staff of
the Army. They wanted to know, even in the case of the remotest
eventuality, how the troops were to comport themselves. I clarified
the matter over the telephone, through General Schmundt, with the
Führer, and I then put his decision down in writing, by his order.
DR. EXNER: And how did the operation come off?
JODL: It came off exactly as expected. There was jubilation and
a triumphal march, such as the world probably has seldom seen—
even though no one likes to acknowledge it today. The population
came to meet us during the night already; the custom barriers were
removed, and all the German troops called that march just a battle of
flowers.
DR. EXNER: We now turn to the question of Czechoslovakia.
Did you participate in the conferences on 21 April 1938, and 28 May
1938, which the Prosecution have described as conspirators’
conferences?
JODL: I did not participate in any of these conferences.
DR. EXNER: What type of General Staff work were you carrying
out for “Case Green”—which is, of course, the Czechoslovakia
operation?
JODL: I must refer again to Document C-175, which is on Page
17 of the first volume of my document book. In that general directive
for the unified preparation for war two important cases were dealt
with, or were to be dealt with: A defensive deployment against
France if she opened hostilities—“Case Red” and an offensive
deployment—Case Green—against Czechoslovakia. That would
have been worked out in just the same way, even if we had not had
an acute conflict with Czechoslovakia, because a war on two fronts
—which was the problem we always faced—could never be
conducted or won in any other way than by means of an attack
against the weaker. This directive, as far as the Case Green is
concerned, had to be drawn up afresh the very moment that Austria
automatically became a new assembly zone. Thus, on 20 May 1938,
a new draft was made by me for Case Green which began with the
customary words: “I do not intend to attack Czechoslovakia by
military action in the near future without provocation...”
DR. EXNER: Just wait a minute. That quotation is Document
388-PS, Exhibit USA-26. It is the document dated 20 May 1938. “I do
not intend to attack Czechoslovakia by military action in the near
future without provocation...” Now, please continue.
JODL: That was 20 May. On the 21st, the day after, a monstrous
incident occurred. Czechoslovakia not only mobilized but even
marched up to our borders. The Czechoslovakian Chief of General
Staff explained this to Toussaint by saying that 12 German divisions
had been assembled in Saxony. I can only state—and my diary
entries prove it—that not a single German soldier had been moved.
Nothing, absolutely nothing had happened.
DR. EXNER: In this connection I think I ought to draw the
attention of the Tribunal to a questionnaire—Exhibit AJ-9 (Document
Jodl-62). It is a questionnaire submitted to General Toussaint who at
that time was the German military attaché in Prague. He confirms
the mobilization of that time. Third volume, 199—Page 201 of the
document, at the bottom, there is the following question: “What was
the reason for the Czechoslovakian mobilization in May 1938?”
And he answered:
“It is my personal opinion that the Czechoslovakian
Government wished to force her political allies to take up a
definite position. Krejci, the Czechoslovak Chief of General
Staff, informed me, as the reason for the mobilization, that
he had exact information that 10 to 12 German divisions
had assembled in the Dresden area, and that he could no
longer bear the responsibility of not taking
countermeasures.”
On the other hand a diary note from Jodl, Volume I, Page 26
should be mentioned:
 “The Führer’s intention not to touch on the Czech problem
yet is altered by the Czech deployment on 21 May, which
took place without any German threat and without even any
apparent cause. Germany’s silence thereto would lead to a
loss of prestige for the Führer, to which he is not willing to
submit again. Hence the issuing on 30 May of the new
directive for Case Green.”
[Turning to the defendant.] That is from Jodl’s diary, Page 26,
first volume. Now continue, please.
JODL: That was the information which I received, partly through
General Keitel and partly through the then Major Schmundt,
regarding the impression made on the Führer. The result was that he
personally changed my draft of 20 May and put at the beginning the
following words:
“It is my unalterable decision that Czechoslovakia must be
destroyed within a reasonable period of time by military
action. To decide upon the militarily and politically
opportune moment is a matter for the political leadership.”
DR. EXNER: These words appear in the Document 388-PS,
which I have already referred to, which is Exhibit USA-26. It is the
order of 30 May 1939.
[Turning to the defendant.] Please tell us briefly what the
contents of these directives were.
JODL: In that order of 30 May three possibilities were mentioned
by the Führer as to how a conflict with Czechoslovakia might arise:
1) Without particular cause—politically impossible and out of the
question; 2) after a prolonged period of tension—most undesirable,
because of the lack of the element of surprise; 3) the best solution,
after an incident, such as were happening nearly daily at that time,
and which would justify us morally before the world if we decided to
intervene.
Furthermore, there was the command that on the first day the
Army should break through the fortifications in order to clear the way
for the free operation of the mobile forces, the armored divisions, so
that after 4 days such a situation would be created that the military
position of Czechoslovakia would become untenable.
DR. EXNER: Why was the entire directive redrafted in June?
JODL: The entire directive C-175 was thoroughly revised in
June. This was done because on 1 October a new mobilization year
began, and because this directive C-175 was in any case planned to
be valid only until 30 September 1938. The old directive was, of
course, still in force until 1 October, but became invalid on 1 October
through that directive which had been drafted by me on 24 June, or
18 June. In that directive the Case Green was mentioned in the
sense of the Führer’s intention—namely, that it was the immediate
aim of his policy that from 1 October 1938—not on, but from 1
October 1938—every favorable opportunity was to be utilized to
solve the problem of Czechoslovakia, but only if France did not
interfere or march, or Great Britain either.
I confirm that no date existed in any of the orders for the starting
of a war against Czechoslovakia. In the directive of 30 May the date
was left open altogether; and the new instructions, C-175, of 18 June
stated only from 1 October, on the first favorable occasion.
DR. EXNER: That is on Page 29 of our document book, second
paragraph: “I have decided, from 1 October...”
JODL: May I perhaps conclude this whole question by saying, in
order to be explicit, that actually before 14 September, as far as the
military forces were concerned, nothing happened.
DR. EXNER: I once again refer to an entry in Jodl’s Diary
Volume I, Page 32. It is an extract from Document 1780-PS, Exhibit
USA-72, and is the entry under 14 September 1938:
“At noon it was announced that the general order for
mobilization had been posted in Czechoslovakia.... This,
however, did not take place, although approximately eight
age groups were called up at short notice. As the Sudeten
Germans are crossing the border en masse, we request at
about 1730 hours, at the suggestion of the OKH,
Department 2, the calling up of the strengthened frontier
guard (GAD) along the Czech border in military districts
 VIII, IV, XIII, and XVII. The Führer gives his authorization
from Munich.”
THE PRESIDENT: What was it that you were reading from
then?
DR. EXNER: I have read from Page 32 of my document book;
Volume I, Page 32, and it is an excerpt from Jodl’s diary of 14
September, therefore an entry made in the midst of that critical
period.
[Turning to the defendant.] Just what were these military
measures which were being introduced?
JODL: On 13 or 14 September the eight age groups were called
up in Czechoslovakia. We used the strengthened frontier guard so
that the many escaping Sudeten Germans could be taken over.
On 17 September the Führer formed the Freikorps Henlein,
contrary to the previous agreement and without telling us
beforehand. Previously it had been agreed that these Sudeten
Germans of military age were to join the Reserve Army.
Around that time the political discussions started. The first one
at the Berghof had already taken place. Beneš ordered mobilization
in Czechoslovakia on 23 September and only now, and in
accordance with the political discussions, did the military deployment
against Czechoslovakia commence.
I had no doubt that it was going to be used in the event of
Czechoslovakia not submitting to any agreement we had made with
the Western Powers; for the Führer had clearly stated that he would
negotiate only if France and England did not intervene politically or
militarily.
DR. EXNER: You made two more entries in your diary, on 22
and 26 September, which prove that you were worried at the time.
Statement made by Captain Bürckner, in the first volume of my
document book, on Page 34; again an excerpt from 1780-PS, dated
22 September:
 “Captain Bürckner, chief of the foreign section, reports that
according to an intercepted long-distance telephone
conversation between Prague and the local Czech Legation
Counsellor, the German Embassy in Prague has just been
stormed. I am immediately having connection made by
telephone and wireless with Prague through Colonel Juppe.
“1050 hours: Bürckner reports that the incident has not
been confirmed. The Foreign Office has spoken with our
Embassy.
“1055 hours: I establish liaison with Prague and with
Toussaint. To my question as to how he is getting along, he
replies, ‘Thanks, excellently.’ The Commander-in-Chief of
the Air Forces, who had been informed of the first report
with the suggestion that he should think over what
measures would have to be taken if the Führer should wish
for an immediate bombardment of Prague, is informed
through Ic about the false report which may have had the
purpose of provoking us to a military action.”
Then, on 26 September, it says:
“It is important that false reports do not induce us to military
actions before Prague replies.”
The Prosecution have stated that 1 October had long before
been decided on as the date for aggression. Will you tell me what
significance that date, 1 October 1938, had for Case Green?
JODL: I have already said that, I believe. I explained that the
new mobilization year had started, and that no order contained a
fixed date for the beginning of the campaign against Czechoslovakia.
DR. EXNER: Did you believe that the conflict might be
localized?
JODL: I was certainly convinced of that, because I could not
imagine that the Führer, in the position we were in, would start a
conflict with France and Britain which had to lead to our immediate
collapse.
 DR. EXNER: And the entries in your diary probably show your
concern about incidents?
JODL: Yes. In my diary on 8 September there is reference to a
conversation with General Stülpnagel. According to that, Stülpnagel
was at the moment very worried lest the Führer should depart from
his oft-defined attitude and allow himself to be dragged into military
action, in spite of the danger of France’s intervention.
According to the entry in my diary I replied that actually at the
moment I shared his worries to some extent.
DR. EXNER: This is an entry which the Tribunal will find on
Page 26 of the first volume of my document book. Once again it is
an extract from Document 1780-PS, and it is the entry of 8
September 1938.
[Turning to the defendant.] You have already said, have you not,
what your worries were? Our weakness?
JODL: It was out of the question with five fighting divisions and
seven reserve divisions in the western fortifications, which were
nothing but a large construction site, to hold out against 100 French
divisions. That was militarily impossible.
DR. EXNER: On 24 August, in a letter addressed to Schmundt,
you referred to the importance of an incident for the tasks of the
Wehrmacht in this case. You have been gravely accused of that, and
I want you to tell me what the significance of that statement is.
Your Honor, it is 388-PS, and it is on Page 35 of the first volume.
It is an extract from the often quoted Document 388-PS: It is a report
made at the time of the “X” Order and the preliminary measures.
[Turning to the defendant.] Please, will you state what you
intended in this work of the General Staff?
JODL: The Führer’s order of 30 May which I have already
explained, assuming that it ever came to this action, left no other
choice than to attack on a previously decided date. This could only
follow as the result of an incident, because without provocation the
operation was out of the question; and it was not to be attempted if
too long a time had passed.
 The Army, in order to be ready for such a surprise break-through
of the Czech fortifications, required 4 days of preparation. If nothing
happened after those 4 days, the military preparations could no
longer be kept secret and the surprise element would disappear.
Therefore, nothing else remained but either a spontaneous incident
in Czechoslovakia, which would then 4 days later have resulted in
military action, or a date which had to be decided on previously. In
that case an incident had to happen during those 4 days which the
Army required for deployment.
The Führer’s demands could, in fact, not be solved in any other
way from the point of view of the General Staff. My letter to Major
Schmundt was meant to explain that difficult situation to the Führer.
At that time incidents occurred every day. May I remind you that
since the first partial mobilization in Czechoslovakia the Sudeten
Germans liable to be called for military service had mostly evaded
the order. They escaped over the border into Germany, and the
Czechoslovakian border police shot at them. Bullets were shot over
daily into Germany. All together, more than 200,000 Sudeten
Germans crossed the border in that manner.
From that point of view the conception of an incident was not so
mean and criminal as it might have been, for instance, if peaceful
Switzerland had been involved. If I said, therefore, how keenly
interested we would be in such an incident, that was meant to
express that if one resorted to military action at all—all this is, of
course, purely theoretical—one might use just such an incident as a
casus belli.
DR. EXNER: And how do you explain this remark of yours:
“...unless the intelligence department is ordered to organize this
incident in any case”?
That is at the end of Page 38 in the second paragraph. It is an
extract from 388-PS.
JODL: Yes, I had too much knowledge of European military
history not to know that the question of the first shot—the apparent
cause of war, not the inner cause of war—has played an important
part in each war and on each side.
 The responsibility for the outbreak of war is always attributed to
the enemy; it is not characteristic of Germany alone, but of all
European nations who have ever been at war with one another. In
the case of Czechoslovakia the deeper cause of the war was quite
apparent. I need not describe the condition in which 3½ million
Germans found themselves who were supposed to fight against their
own people. I myself was able to watch that tragedy in my own
house. In this case, the deeper cause of the war, was firmly
established, and Lord Runciman, who came on that mission from
London, left no doubt about it whatsoever. In such a situation I
certainly had no moral scruples about exaggerating one of these
incidents, and, by means of a counteraction in vigorous reply to the
Czech doings and activities, extending and enlarging such an
incident in order that if the political situation allowed it, and England
and France did not interfere—as the Führer believed—we might find
a really obvious reason for taking action.
DR. EXNER: Gentlemen of the Tribunal, there is one point to
which I wish to draw your attention. In my opinion it is once more a
mistake in translation. I refer to the second paragraph from the
bottom on Page 36. It is the report about the incident. The second
but last paragraph on Page 36 states: “...that Case Green may be
set in motion as a result of an incident in Czechoslovakia which will
give Germany provocation (Anlass) for military intervention.” The
translation in English of these last words is a “provocation”; “Anlass”
is translated as “provocation.”
THE PRESIDENT: What are you saying? What is the alteration?
DR. EXNER: I believe that the translation is not correct. I am not
absolutely certain but I would like to call the Tribunal’s attention to it.
“Anlass” means “prétexte” in French—which as far as we know is
“pretext.”
THE PRESIDENT: But, Dr. Exner, there is no difference in the
meaning of the words, whether it is “provocation,” or whether it is
“cause.”
DR. EXNER: “Provocation” sounds a bit more aggressive, does
it not? I just want to call your attention to it. In the German it is
“cause” and not “provocation.”
 [Turning to the defendant.] Now the Prosecution calls these
considerations, which we have just talked about, criminal ideas and
connects them with the supposedly planned murder of the German
Ambassador in Prague. We are said to have planned that murder so
as to have a cause for marching into Czechoslovakia. What do you
have to say to that?
JODL: This, of course, is grotesque. The example that the
Führer allegedly mentioned in his talks with Field Marshal Keitel, that
the German Ambassador had been murdered by the people of
Prague, was not even known to me. General Keitel did not tell me; I
only heard of it here. Apart from that, I think it is useless to go on
discussing it as we did exactly the opposite. We gave the order to
General Toussaint to protect the German Embassy in Prague and to
protect the lives of the people in it, because, in fact, at one stage it
had been seriously threatened.
DR. EXNER: This is proved by Exhibit AJ-9, Document Jodl-62,
third volume of the document book, Page 200. That again is the
interrogatory of General Toussaint, who was a military attaché in
Prague at that time. The third question is as follows:
“Is it true or not that in the summer of 1938 you received the
order to defend the German Embassy at Prague and to
protect the lives of all the Germans in the Embassy?”
And his answer is:
“Yes, it is true. I remember this order was given to me by
telephone probably in September 1938...”—and so on and
so forth.
Then in Question 4...
“It is true that the German Embassy...”
THE PRESIDENT: The witness has already said once it was so.
DR. EXNER: [Turning to the defendant.] Then I shall only refer
to the testimony of Toussaint. In addition it has been said that the
incident had been staged by us. We need not go into that in detail.
Did the incident really happen?
 JODL: No, there was neither a preparation for the incident, nor
was it necessary. Incidents kept multiplying day after day, and the
solution was a political one and entirely different.
DR. EXNER: So that this note, which we have often read,
remained purely theoretical, did it?
JODL: It was merely work on paper, an idea, which was not
really necessary at all.
But it has already been made clear that as soon as the political
discussions started I made continuous efforts to prevent the
provocations, apparently desired on the part of the Czechs, from
leading to any military measures on our part.
DR. EXNER: Did the signatory powers in Munich at the end of
September know of Germany’s military preparations? Did the
statesmen there know that we were militarily prepared?
JODL: The Prosecution gave me the distinct impression that
that had become known only today, and that it was unknown in the
autumn of 1938 at Munich. But that is quite impossible. All the world
knew of the calling up of the eight age groups in Czechoslovakia in
September. The whole world knew of the total mobilization on 23
September. A political correspondent of The Times wrote an article
on 28 September against this Czechoslovakian mobilization. Nobody
was surprised that immediately after the signing of the Munich Pact,
on 1 October, we marched into...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner...
DR. EXNER: Well, that ends this subject.
Is it true that in August 1938 you prepared a new operational
plan of which you had already spoken on 7 July? A new plan based
on the previous one?
JODL: Yes. Already before the solution brought about by the
Munich Pact, I, on my own initiative, drew up a secret operational
plan for the protection of all the German borders. It was so arranged
that the borders only were to be protected while the bulk of the Army
was to be kept in reserve in the center of Germany. That complete
plan was available here during my interrogation. It is now no longer
contained in Document 388-PS, but there is a reference made to it.
 DR. EXNER: On Page 40, Volume I of our document book, I
again read an extract from 388-PS. At the very end the following is
stated:
“...after the conclusion of Green, it must be made possible
to put a provisional deployment into action soon.”
And then:
“...first the Wehrmacht will guarantee the protection of the
German frontiers, including those of the newly acquired
lands, while the bulk of the Army and of the Air Force will
remain at our disposal. Such a future ‘frontier protection’
deployment should be executed separately on the various
fronts.”
Why did you prepare this “frontier protection” deployment? What
was the cause of it?
JODL: The reason was that once the necessity for an operation
against Czechoslovakia had become superfluous, through the
problem being solved in some way, we would no longer have had
any deployment plan at all. And as no other intention of the Führer
was known to me, I on my own initiative drew up a plan for this
operation which would be suitable for any eventuality.
DR. EXNER: Did you know anything about the intentions of the
Führer, after the Munich Agreement, to go even further and occupy
Bohemia and Moravia?
JODL: No, I had no idea of that. I knew of his speech of 26
September where he said: “Now we are facing the last problem to be
solved.”
I believed in that assurance, and this is proved by the fact that
during those days—it was about 10 or 11 September—I suggested
to Field Marshal Keitel, than General Keitel, that he should ask the
British Delegation, whose arrival had been announced, to come to
Iglau in Moravia, because many Germans who were living there had
been threatened by armed Czechoslovakian Communists. This of
course was a suggestion which I would never have made if I had had
any idea that the Führer nourished any further intentions concerning
Bohemia and Moravia.
 DR. EXNER: These further intentions of the Führer were
recorded on 21 October 1938 in a directive. Did you know about that
in the OKW, or what was the position?
JODL: No, I did not know about it. I did not see it. I only saw it
here in this courtroom during my preliminary interrogation.
DR. EXNER: Then were you transferred to...
JODL: I was transferred to Vienna as Artillery Commander of
the 44th Division stationed there.
DR. EXNER: That was the end of October, was it not?
JODL: The end of October.
DR. EXNER: How did you imagine further military developments
would be? But, of course, you have already answered that.
JODL: Actually, I expected an easing of the political tension and
a period of peace. I can certainly say that.
DR. EXNER: And what happened to you then?
JODL: As I knew of no other plans, I transferred my home to
Vienna taking all my furniture with me. Naturally I would never have
done that if I had had the faintest idea that war was pending,
because I knew that in the event of war I was to become the Chief of
the Armed Forces Operations Staff and so would have to return to
Berlin. I asked General Keitel to help me to become the Commander
of the 4th Mountain Division in Reichenhall, from 1 October 1939, a
request which again it would never have entered my mind to make if
I had any idea of what was going to come.
DR. EXNER: Did you as Artillery Commander in Vienna remain
in contact with the OKW?
JODL: No, hardly at all. I had no connections with the OKW. I
received no military documents from the OKW during all that period.
DR. EXNER: And who informed you then about the situation
during that time?
JODL: Nobody. During that time I knew no more about what was
going on or what was intended than any lieutenant in my artillery.
DR. EXNER: Did you have private correspondence with Keitel?
 JODL: I received one letter from General Keitel. It was, I think,
at the end of July 1939. He personally gave me the good news that
quite probably I would become Commander of the 4th Mountain
Division in Reichenhall on 1 October, and that General Von
Sodenstern would become Chief of the Armed Forces Operations
Staff, now on peacetime footing, on 1 October.
DR. EXNER: Did you help to draw up the plan for the
occupation of the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia?
JODL: No, I did not. During this occupation I remained in Vienna
for the time being and temporarily became Chief of Staff of the 18th
Army Corps at Vienna. Then, later on, I was transferred to Brünn in
Czechoslovakia together with the entire 44th Division.
DR. EXNER: When did you hear about the whole thing?
JODL: It was through the orders of my divisional staff that I
heard of that operation in March of 1939, some 2 or 3 days
beforehand.
DR. EXNER: Was this move into Czechoslovakia the carrying
out of Case Green which you had originally drafted?
JODL; No; it had no longer anything to do with that. There were
completely different troop units, and not even half of the troops
provided for in 1938 were actually used for the march into
Czechoslovakia in 1939.
DR. EXNER: Now, during that period when you were in Vienna
there was a conference with the Führer on 23 May 1939, which has
often been mentioned here, concerning the disregarding of neutrality,
et cetera. It has often been stated that Warlimont was present there
as your representative. What was the position? Was he your
representative?
JODL: With great persistence it has been said again and again
that General Warlimont took part in the conference as the
representative of Jodl, or even, it was once said, as his assistant.
There is no question of that. He was my successor but not my
representative. And even if it is repeated again and again, it still does
not make it true. He was my successor.
DR. EXNER: You had left the OKW, had you not?
 JODL: Yes, I had completely left the OKW. The fact that quite
accidentally Warlimont became my deputy later on has nothing
whatsoever to do with the events of May 1939.
DR. EXNER: When did you hear for the first time of this meeting
in May 1939?
JODL: Here in Nuremberg in 1946.
DR. EXNER: Did you have any contact with Party leaders
meanwhile, or with Austrian National Socialists?
JODL: No, not at all; with nobody.
DR. EXNER: Or with these defendants here?
JODL: No, not with them either.
DR. EXNER: Once during that time the Führer went to Vienna
with Keitel. I think they were there 2 days or so. Did you have to
report to him on that occasion?
JODL: Yes, coming from Prague he visited Vienna quite
unobtrusively, and on that occasion I spoke a few words to General
Keitel, but I did not talk to the Führer.
DR. EXNER: You were not presented to him?
JODL: No.
DR. EXNER: What was your war appointment to be?
JODL: As I have already said, in the event of a war I was to
become Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff.
DR. EXNER: What about your private personal plans for that
summer?
JODL: For that summer I already had tickets for a cruise in the
eastern Mediterranean on 23 September 1939.
DR. EXNER: On 23 September 1939 the voyage...
JODL: The voyage was to start at Hamburg; I had already paid
for the tickets.
DR. EXNER: When did you buy the tickets? Do you remember?
JODL: I bought them about the second half of July.
DR. EXNER: When did you return to Berlin?
JODL: I am not absolutely certain about the exact date, but I
imagine that it was on 23 or 24 August—according to a telegram
which reached me unexpectedly in Brünn.
DR. EXNER: If you had not received that telegram, when would
you have had to go to Berlin?
JODL: In case of a general mobilization I would have had to go
to Berlin anyway.
DR. EXNER: And did you now have to report to the Führer in
Berlin?
JODL: No, I did not report to him, either. I only reported, of
course, to General Keitel and to the Chief of the General Staff of the
Army and the Air Force and to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
DR. EXNER: Mr. President, I have now completed that subject,
and I thought that this would be a convenient time to adjourn.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us how long you are likely to be?
DR. EXNER: I very much hope—certainly it will be in the course
of tomorrow morning; but shall we say until noon?
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for Defendant Seyss-
Inquart): Mr. President, as Counsel for Dr. Seyss-Inquart, I have to
ask on behalf of my client that he may be permitted to be absent
from the session for 2 days, to prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 5 June 1946 at 1000 hours.]
 ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVENTH DAY
Wednesday, 5 June 1946

Morning Session
[The Defendant Jodl resumed the stand.]
THE MARSHAL: If it please the Tribunal, the report is made that
Defendant Seyss-Inquart is absent.
PROFESSOR DR. HERBERT KRAUS (Counsel for Defendant
Schacht): Mr. President, in agreement with the Prosecution I ask
permission to submit a memorandum by Hitler, concerning the Four
Year Plan of 1936. It is a certified copy, certified by a British officer in
Dustbin Camp. I have numbered it Exhibit Schacht-48. In the
afternoon session of 1 May my friend Dr. Dix referred to this
memorandum, which could not at that time be incorporated into the
record. Dr. Schacht then quoted a few passages from this
memorandum. The President stated that we could submit the
memorandum at a later date on condition, of course, that the
Prosecution agreed. The Prosecution has acquiesced and I therefore
trust that I may now be permitted to submit it.
Furthermore I am handing in a number of English translations. I
regret I have not yet been able to have translations made in the
other languages, and I ask permission to supply those translations
later on.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kraus, until the other translations are
actually made, the documents will not become part of the record.
DR. KRAUS: No. The English translations are available, and the
others are not yet ready. May I submit them later?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. And they will then become part
of the record.
DR. KRAUS: Yes, as a supplement to the document book.
DR. EXNER: Generaloberst, you told us yesterday that you
were the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff during the war
and that your main task consisted in the preparation of military
operational plans. That is correct, is it not?
JODL: That is correct.
DR. EXNER: Then, where did you get the plans? Who decided
what plans you had to make?
JODL: It was the same as in any other military staff. The
Commander-in-Chief—in this case the Führer personally—received
data for the decisions to be made: maps, strength returns of both our
own and enemy forces, and information about the enemy. He then
made his own decisions, and thereupon I would set my general staff
to work, giving these decisions the military form necessary for the
entire machinery of the Wehrmacht.
DR. EXNER: Now, in the course of these tasks and studies you
also had to work on operations which were never actually carried
out?
JODL: I have prepared a great number of such operations. Of
the total number of operations for which I prepared orders and
instructions there was only one which I definitely knew would be
carried out; that was the operation against Yugoslavia. In the case of
all the other operational plans, the decision as to whether it would be
carried out or not remained undecided for a long time.
As an example of operational plans which had been drafted in
every detail but which were never carried out, I mention the invasion
of England, the march into Spain, the seizure of Gibraltar, the
seizure of Malta, the capture of the Fischer Peninsula near Petsamo,
and a winter attack on Kandalakscha on the Murmansk Railway.
DR. EXNER: Then, did these tasks of yours cover all the
theaters of the war?
JODL: At the beginning of the war the work of my general staff
did not apply to theaters of war at all, but the Führer’s instructions
went only to the branches of the Wehrmacht—that is to the Army, the
Navy and the Air Force; and it was only in the Norwegian campaign
that circumstances developed for the first time so that the Armed
Forces Operations Staff was made responsible for a theater of war.
And this condition changed completely when in the beginning of
1942 the Führer himself assumed supreme command in the Army.