Innu Declaration on the Demilitarization of Ntesinan

Canada and the U.S. first established a base at Goose Bay in 1941 to service wartime flights between North America and Europe. The US Air Force ended their program at the base in 1976, with British, Canadian, German, Belgium, and the Netherlands Air Forces continuing low level training flights. The Innu are not party to any Treaty and have wide unextinguished Aboriginal land claims across Newfoundland/Labrador. In the 1980's Canada proposed a NATO Tactical Fighter Weapons Training Center at Goose Bay which is highly distruptive to the Innu way of life, especially disturbing caribou and other wildlife they depend on. The Innu responded with resistance in multiple fronts from international informational campaigns to storming the base. (nmh) Innu Elder Tshuakuesh Elizabeth Penashue has stated: “Canada sees our land as uninhabited land. It is inhabited by the Innu, and it is inhabited by wildlife. This is hunting territory, nomadic territory. It is not for war games.”

Penashue has also noted: “Innu women never used to go out to meetings, but it was time to wake up and do something to stop the destruction caused by low-level flying and weapons testing. …I went to the bombing range with other activists. We put tents on the base to protest. We were jailed many times, in Goose Bay and Stephenville. We walked from Toronto to Ottawa and they put us in jail there, too… I went to Europe twice to speak.” Although it was a long battle, low level flights over Innu territory ceased in 2005