On October 6, 2020, Innu Nation filed a $4 billion claim against Hydro-Québec in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador as compensation for the illegal taking of their land in Labrador in 1969 to build the Churchill Falls Generating Station.
The flooding of Labrador Innu lands caused by the construction of the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project caused irreparable damage and immeasurable grief. Listen to two community members talk about the impact it had on their lands and their lives.
The damming of the Churchill River to create the power station caused more than 6,500 square kilometres of traditional Innu territory to be flooded, destroying their land, hunting grounds, traditions, and way of life.
Our first experience with industrial development was with the Churchill Falls power project. We were never consulted or compensated for this use of our land — in fact, we were never even told that below the dam the Churchill River would be reduced to a trickle, that Churchill Falls would cease to exist, and that our canoes, camps, trap lines, hunting grounds and our ancestors burial sites would be drowned forever by the Smallwood Reservoir…