CREE COMMUNITY PAPER
The Nation marks 25 years in print
“We’re still alive,” said Will Nicholls, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Nation. The Montreal-based bi-weekly newsmagazine is celebrating 25 years of reporting on issues concerning the Cree communities of the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region. No small feat for an independent publication in an era when even mainstream media conglomerates are struggling. “I think I’ve got one of the best jobs there is,” said Nicholls, who hails from the Cree Nation of Mistissini. “There’s always something new, I’m always learning, imparting information and knowledge that people need to know, as well as entertainment. We’re doing all the things a community paper does. This is something extremely important for the Aboriginal population. “It goes right back to when Hydro-Québec did the La Grande Hydroelectric Complex (a.k.a. the James Bay Project, in the 1970s) in Eeyou Istchee — we all learned about it through a newspaper. Having our own newspaper now means we can go out and find these stories and get the information to our people on a timely basis.” Nicholls has a long history with Hydro- Québec. He fought against the public utility’s Great Whale Project in the U.S. in the early ’90s, as a representative of the Grand Council of Crees. When the protests succeeded and the project was shelved, Nicholls found himself back in Montreal with information to pass on to communities in the North, but no clear way to do so. He turned to friends Catherine Bainbridge and Ernest Webb, and The Nation was born. Bainbridge, who had worked at the Winnipeg Free Press, crunched the numbers. “She said, ‘OK, it will cost us $980 to put a newsletter in everyone’s mailbox in Eeyou Istchee,’ ” he recalled. Nicholls made some calls and within 24 hours, he had rounded up the money; but suddenly they weren’t satisfied with a one-off mail-out. “We said, ‘Why are we doing this just once?’ ” Nicholls recalled. “We decided to see how far this could go. We took that $1,000 and started off with everyone working for 10 months for no salaries. Now it’s 25 years later, and yes we have salaries — it’s not the largest pay, but it’s sufficient to survive.” Bainbridge and Webb moved on to form Indigenous film company Rezolution Pictures, located in the same Clark St. loft building as The Nation, while Nicholls has stayed the course, guiding their publication through successive waves of transformation. The Nation today is a smartly designed, glossy magazine teeming with ads from car and truck companies, law firms, insurance and mining companies, colleges, hotels and longtime sponsor Air Creebec. Which brings us to the secrets of The Nation’s longevity: advertising. “One, we’re a niche market,” Nicholls said. “Two, the Cree — people are increasingly realizing — are an important market for anything from automobiles to companies like Goldcorp Inc. that want to be part of that community.” Another secret is the heroically hardworking staff: a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, editors and others, collaborating for a common cause. “I don’t care what your background is,” Nicholls said. “I care about what gets delivered to Cree readers.” He points to Lyle Stewart and Martin Siberok, “two non-natives, our copy editors, who have been here forever it seems, and are incredibly good. They work for peanuts. Thank god they’ve got other jobs.” The Nation publishes 7,000 printed copies every two weeks. But with online readership via nationnews.ca, and social media, it reaches 105,000 people per month. The 25th anniversary edition, dated Nov. 9, revisits some of the top stories in Nation history, including: Poison Neglect, looking at the Ouje-Bougoumou mining contamination, coverage of which won national and provincial news awards in 2005; and the fallout from the Paix des Braves agreement between the Parti Québécois and the Grand Council of the Crees in 2002. It also features a whimsical look back at The Nation’s beginnings by photographer and columnist Neil Diamond; and the return of Nicholls’s popular Will on the Grill cooking column, including a recipe for hunter bannock. The Nation is throwing a 25th anniversary party on Friday at 9 p.m. at La Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent Blvd. There will be musical performances, a photo booth, a raffle for tickets to a Habs game (with proceeds going to the Native Women’s Shelter), and there will be much rejoicing. “We’re known for our parties,” Nicholls said. “It’s part of our philosophy: work hard, play hard. Work for 25 years, play really hard.”