Outside tent - Innu - Mingan Quebec 1947

Innus of Ekuanitshit (French: ''Les Innus d'Ekuanitshit'') are a First Nation

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary * Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

, Canada. They live primarily in the

Indian reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the ''Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Indi ...

of Mingan on the north coast of the

St Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

. , the band had a registered population of 677 members.

Demographics

Members of the band of Ekuanitshit are

Innu The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period (French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the n ...

s. , the Nation had a total registered population of 677 members, of which 54 lived off reserve.. According to the

2016 Canadian Census The 2016 Canadian census was an enumeration of Canadian residents, which counted a population of 35,151,728, a change from its 2011 population of 33,476,688. The census, conducted by Statistics Canada, was Canada's seventh quinquennial census. ...

, the median age of the population is 24.9 years old.

Geography

Innus of Ekuanitshit has only one reserve, Mingan, also called Ekuanitshit, where the

is headquartered and where lived the majority of its members.. The reserve is located on

Quebec Route 138 Route 138 is a major highway in the Canadian province of Quebec, following the entire north shore of the Saint Lawrence River past Montreal to the temporary eastern terminus in Kegashka on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The western terminus is in E ...

, west of

Havre-Saint-Pierre Havre-Saint-Pierre is a town on Pointe-aux-Esquimaux, which is on the Quebec north shore (Côte-Nord) of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Located along Route 138 some east of Sept-Îles, it is the largest town and seat of the Minganie RCM, ...

in the

Côte-Nord Côte-Nord (, ; ; land area ) is the second-largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada, after Nord-du-Québec. It covers much of the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River estuary and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence past Tadous ...

region in

at the mouth of the Mingan River on the

. It covers an area of . The closest important city is Sept-Îles.

Governance

Innus of Ekuanitshit are governed by a

band council In Canada, an Indian band or band (french: bande indienne, link=no), sometimes referred to as a First Nation band (french: bande de la Première Nation, link=no) or simply a First Nation, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subjec ...

elected according to a custom electoral system based on Section 11 of the

Indian Act The ''Indian Act'' (, long name ''An Act to amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians'') is a Canadian act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still ...

. For the 2018 to 2021 tenure, this council is composed of the chief Jean-Charles Piétacho and four councillors.

Languages

The language spoken by the Innus is

Innu-aimun Innu-aimun or Montagnais is an Algonquian language spoken by over 10,000 Innu in Labrador and Quebec in Eastern Canada. It is a member of the Cree–Montagnais– Naskapi dialect continuum and is spoken in various dialects depending on the com ...

, a language of the Cree-Innu-Naskapi dialect continuum of the Algonquian languages family. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 95.4% of the Innus of Ekuanitshit have an Aboriginal language has the first language learned and 100% know an Aboriginal language and speak it at home. With respect to official languages, 6.4% know both, 88.1% know only French and 0% know only

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

References

External links

*
Ekuanitshit
on the Mamit Innuat Tribal Council's website
First Nation Detail
by

Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention * Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band * Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehor ...