Innu Nation axes exhibit, says N.L. government believes 'fringe theory' about history

University student Bailey Andrew is shown in this handout photo holding up an artifact at The Rooms provincial art gallery in St. John's, N.L., on Jan. 28, 2026, in preparation for the Innu Pakassiun cultural exhibit. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout-Innu Nation-Greg Locke (Mandatory Credit)

ST. JOHN’S — The Innu Nation has cancelled a cultural exhibit about its history, accusing the Newfoundland and Labrador government of interfering based on its belief of a “fringe theory” that the Europeans arrived in Labrador before the Innu.

Jodie Ashini, a cultural guardian with the Innu Nation, said she received a call from executives with the provincial art gallery just days before the “Innu Pakassiun” exhibit was set to open in Labrador on National Indigenous Peoples Day.

The art gallery team relayed the wishes of the provincial government that the exhibit not include an Innu timeline, nor make any links between the stone tools on display and the Innu, Ashini said in an interview Monday.

“I knew in my heart I couldn’t go back to all the elders and all the knowledge keepers and Innu historians and everybody that worked so hard collaborating on this exhibit and tell them what they knew was wrong because the provincial government didn’t believe it,” Ashini said.

“They’re really erasing our history.”

Ashini said the government opposed the timeline of Innu history that was to be included in the show because it subscribes to a “fringe theory” that Innu have been in Labrador for about 300 years. She said this theory is incorrect, and the government is essentially erasing thousands of years of Innu history in Labrador.

In a statement, Lela Evans, the provincial minister of Labrador affairs and Indigenous relations and reconciliation, said her team previously met with the Innu Nation in hopes of finding “a solution that respects all points of view.”

“I understand that this approach has caused concern, and I am sorry for the impact this has had,” Evans said.

Evans did not elaborate on what “points of view” needed accommodation. She said she hoped her government could still work with the Innu Nation so the exhibit could go ahead.

The Innu Nation represents about 3,200 Innu in Labrador, most of whom live in the communities of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish. The name of the exhibit, which was supposed to open Sunday, is “Innu Pakassiun,” which means “Innu tools for survival.”

The Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage website, which is housed at Memorial University, says “Innu people and their ancestors lived on the Quebec-Labrador peninsula for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.” Because they lived deep in the interior and had little contact with traders, explorers or settlers, a number of “historical fables” have arisen about the Innu, the site says.

“One of these fables was that they were recent arrivals to Labrador and eastern Quebec,” it says.

A 2008 article on Memorial University’s Gazette website details work by the school’s Labrador Institute setting up an archeological field school in Sheshatshiu, which unearthed tools dating back 3,000 years.

Ashini said provincial officials seem to have first raised the idea of Innu being in Labrador for just 300 years during a recent trial examining Innu rights to hunt caribou. She said nobody from the provincial archeology office has contacted the Innu Nation to discuss the issue.

“We’ve had so many anthropologists and different people just come in and talk about us and write about us, and we’ve never been able to tell our own story,” Ashini said.

The Innu Pakassiun exhibition was the Innu story assembled and told by Innu people, she said.

On Sunday, the chiefs of the Innu Nation in Quebec expressed their solidarity with their counterparts in Labrador.

“The history of the Innu cannot be rewritten, minimized or interpreted according to contemporary political considerations,” said their statement, which was posted to Facebook. “It is based on (millenniums) of occupation, governance, knowledge and inseparable links to the territory.”

Ashini said she and others from the Innu Nation were scheduled to meet with Evans and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham on Monday night.

She said she hoped they change their stance and acknowledge the harm they’ve caused. And she hopes the Innu Nation will then be able to open their exhibit, the way it was intended to be opened.

It would be especially important for Innu youth, Ashini said.

“This was a way to see themselves in a provincial building, and to really gain that pride and knowledge in who they are as Innu people,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 22, 2026.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press