Synopsis
On June 11 and 20, 1981, the Quebec Provincial Police (QPP) raided Restigouche Reserve, Quebec. At issue were the salmon-fishing rights of the Mi’kmaq. Because salmon has traditionally been a source of food and income for the Mi’kmaq, the Quebec government’s decision to restrict fishing aroused consternation and anger. Released in 1984, this groundbreaking and impassioned account of the police raids brought Alanis Obomsawin to international attention.
A word from Tënk
Alanis Obomsawin grounds Incident at Restigouche with a (hi)story of place that she has written and narrates, focalized through an Indigenous, decolonial lens using a map, illustrations and stock footage (of salmon swimming and eggs hatching), as well as interviews with community members. These historical lessons function as antidotes and remedies administered by Obomsawin to counter active forgetting but also the revisionism and outright deception that feature in colonial governance.
The film documents the escalating crisis following the violent 1981 raid of the reserve town of Restigouche (now Listuguj) by the Quebec Provincial Police (QPP) and the arrest of twelve Mi’gmaq fishermen, employing still photographs, live film footage and insightful testimonies from members of the community including children’s perspectives. Also documented is the solidarity by other Indigenous nations. She follows the ensuing court trial (illustrated with drawings intercut with interviews) when the presiding judge condescendingly dismisses the damning, decisive photographs of this brutality by Mi’gmaq photographer Sterling Keays which are submitted by the defense as evidence.
In several memorable scenes intercut through the film, Obomsawin features Quebec’s (former) Minister of Fisheries, Lucien Lessard, including his arrival in Restigouche to meet Mi’gmaq Chief Alphonse Metallic to manage the crisis, and a later onscreen interview with Lessard filmed in Obomsawin’s own living room. In one scene, their discussion heightens when Obomsawin challenges Lessard’s contradictory argumentation regarding Quebec sovereignty being grounded in language and land. This is signature Obomsawin – precise, enraged, condemning of the violent and racist double standards and hypocrisy of state apparatuses of government, police and courts. The multivocality of Obomsawin’s films represent the contested borders of engagement between Indigenous peoples and settlers to actively unsettle the presumptions and centuries of colonial myth-making.
Monika Kin Gagnon
Communications Professor
Concordia University
