1 This ethnographic study was part of a broader initiative carried out by the Naskapi Development Corporation (NDC) aimed at revitalizing local cultural and ecological knowledge. At the request of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, which is associated with the Université du Québec, we undertook this study in close collaboration with the community (see details p. 14 in the present chapter). The team of Naskapi elders brought together by the Naskapi Development Corporation included Jane Einish, Philip Einish Jr., Thomas Einish, Joseph Guanish, Luke Guanish, Sandra Guanish, Ann Joseph, Matthew Mameamskum, Ruby Nattawappio, Sandy Nattawappio, Donald Peastitute, John Shecanapish, David Swappie, Shinapest Tooma, Kathleen Tooma, Minnie Uniam, and Sandy Uniam. The team of researchers, under the leadership of Carole Lévesque and Denise Geoffroy, consisted of Nadine Trudeau, Marcelle Chabot, Muriel Paradelle, and Geneviève Polèse. Assisting the participants were translators Noat Einish, Philip Einish, and Silas Nabinacaboo.

2 Article 8(j) stipulates: “Subject to its national legislation, [each Contracting Party shall] respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices” (United Nations 1992, 6). For a discussion of Indigenous environmental knowledge in the context of northern Québec, see Lévesque et al. (2004).

3 Article 31 (1) reads: “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts” (United Nations 2007, 11).

4 All comments from Naskapi elders were recorded in Kawawachikamach.

5 In identifying these four knowledge complexes, our intention is merely to systematize and synthesize the information that we gathered, rather than to propose a new system of categories for general use. Many of the researchers who have studied the topic of traditional ecological knowledge have suggested useful methods of classification, particularly Berkes (1999), Mailhot (1993), Menzies and Butler (2006), and Stevenson (1996). Here, however, we are referring more immediately to categories derived from anthropology and ethnology (see Leroi-Gourhan 1971 and 1973).

6 For a discussion of women’s roles in Naskapi daily life, see Desmarais, Lévesque, and Raby (1994).

7 Citations dated 1999 and 1985 originate from earlier work with the Naskapi that has not been previously published.

8 It is not our intention to provide detailed information concerning the methods used to prepare specific medicines and the application of specific remedies to specific illnesses or afflictions. Such information belongs to the Naskapi people, and it is up to them to decide whether and under what circumstances to render it public.

9 Although the “scientific method” is often opposed to Indigenous epistemologies, knowledge was of course gained in part through a process of observation and reasoning. This is evident in a comment made in 1999 by a Naskapi elder man: “By observing the behavior of a hurt wolf, my grandfather followed the wolf and was able to see that it was eating Labrador tea. Then he saw how fast the wolf was cured; he then deduced that Labrador tea had curative properties.”

10 Lévy (1999, 13) defines collective intelligence as “a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills.” Collective intelligence allows human beings to forge links among bodies of knowledge, thereby producing what Lévy (2003) describes as “ecosystems of ideas.” An analogy can certainly be drawn with the Naskapi, who are, in effect, attempting to reconstitute the ecosystems of ideas that at one point constituted the product of their own collective intelligence.

11 Regime of nature corresponds to types of relationships that different people have with nature. For example, in Eurocentric approach, nature is a source of resources to be exploited; alternatively, in an Indigenous context, humans are part of nature.