OTTAWA REPORT

Page 2

A tiny Indian band in a remote region of British Columbia has reluctantly ended a remarkable chapter in the history of Indian politics. For years the Kluskus Indian band waged a brave and lonely campaign for financial independence. The struggle ended in April, though, when the band began accepting government funding. The Kluskus band was probably the last band in Canada to refuse government money.

On the face of it, refusing government money is crazy - especially when everyone else is complaining they don't get enough.

It's not as though the Kluskus people are rich. The people - 100 Carrier Indians who live in the wooded high country of the Nechako plateau - are dirt poor. They live 20 miles from the nearest road. The only way in or out, aside from expensive airplane rides, is by snowmobile or horse-and-wagon. The people live in log cabins that should be condemned. There is no local industry. The local hunting and trapping resources have been stretched to the limit.

For the past five years the band leaders have been trying to improve living conditions. They've been working on long-range development plans. They've taken an active part in national Indian politics. And all along, they've refused to accept government money to pay for band salaries and expenses.

The central figure in the Kluskus story is Roger Jimmie. He's been the band chief for the last 14 years. He's just 33 years old.

The last time I saw him was a little over a year ago at the annual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations. He stood out in the crowd of well-dressed, well-fed Indian politicians. His tall, skinny frame was topped by a dirty black cowboy hat. He wore cheap running shoes, a t-shirt and his bony knees poked through the holes in his ragged blue jeans. The look on his hawk-like face shifted between a piercing glance and a toothless grin.

How he travelled to the meeting was a story in itself. Like the other chiefs, he received airfare and expense money from the Assembly of First Nations. But he travelled in a class all his own. He used the money to bring a carload of Kluskus men to the meeting. They all stayed in the same hotel room and ate sandwiches from home. They ended up saving money and using it to make even more trips on band business.

Roger Jimmie was not paid to be a chief. He used part of his meagre income as

a trapper to pay his travel expenses.

But things weren't always that way. The band used to receive funding in the 1970s. The band rejected funding six years ago, Roger Jimmie says, because it wanted the freedom and satisfaction that comes from financial independence. The band wanted to escape the government's financial straightjacket, he said, because the strings that government placed on the funding indicated what the band could and could not do.

The Kluskus chief says government money was also responsible for killing some

of his band members. With no roads and no electricity, Roger Jimmie says the people has nowhere to spend their money and almost nothing to spend it on, except for bootleg booze. So the death rate soared. In some years the Kluskus band buried three, sometimes four of their people - a staggering figure for a band with just one hundred members. Once the band rejected funds, though, Roger Jimmie says the death rate plunged.

The band decided to accept funding this year, he says, because it became just too hard to carry on without help. The band will get $300,000 this year to operate their own school, administer their own social welfare, build their own houses and run the band office. It isn't much, but Roger Jimmie says at least there are no strings attached this time.

Now that it has money, he says, the band intends to stretch it as far as possible. He says the band learned many valuable lessons from years of going without. As a result, the band is building two houses and renovating just one house. The band has also hired two teachers - a husband and wife team - in a two-for-one deal. People frm the community are even volunteering to clean the school.

The government funding has not solved the problems on the Kluskus reserve. The Kluskus chief is worried that the salaries and expense money will start killing his people once again. He says he doesn't want to take government money forever. He hopes the band will someday be financially independent and be able to reject government funding again.

The spirit of self-reliance still burns at Kluskus, however, and it's fueled by old-fashioned Indian courage. I don't expect any other band in the country to refuse government funding. My only wish is that the pride of the Kluskus people will spread across the land.

The story of Roger Jimmie and the Kluskus Indian band holds one another lesson as well. The next time you see some Indian dressed in raggy clothes- don't start feeling superior. It just might be someone with more real Indian spirit than most of us will ever know.