MONTREAL - Some 150 Aboriginals from five Quebec-based Innu groups are exercising land-rights claims by embarking on a week-long caribou hunt Saturday that will take them across the provincial border into Newfoundland and Labrador.

The hunt serves as a statement against the New Dawn Agreement, a contentious deal that has split the Innu community.

"It draws a line between the Quebec Innu and the Innu from Labrador," said Armand MacKenzie, an adviser with the La Romaine Innu community on Quebec's Lower North Shore.

"And it draws a map of where the Innu in Labrador will always be considered first in Labrador, leaving the Quebec Innu out of the loop."

The New Dawn Agreement offered the Labrador Innu hunting rights within 34,000 square kilometres of land, plus $2 million annually in compensation for flooding caused by construction of the Churchill Falls dam 40 years ago.

In 2008, its signing was hailed by Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams as a new era of partnership and co-operation between the Innu people of Labrador and the province.

Last week, the Innu Nation and the province signed an agreement in principle that brings Newfoundland a giant step closer to developing the Lower Churchill hydroelectric megaproject and gives legal weight to New Dawn.

It was hailed by Innu Nation Deputy Grand Chief Peter Penashue on his Twitter account as "an historical day for us, Innu people of Labrador. After 20 years, we resolved all outstanding issues with the prov. of NL."

But MacKenzie said the deals have driven a wedge between the communities.

"The border was not even an issue a couple of years ago," he said. "We were a nomadic people going from one place to another without taking into account the provincial border. For many, many years we were one people."

MacKenzie contends Quebec Innu may losing a litany of privileges in the neighbouring province because of the deal.

"It's all the constitutional rights, dealing with economic development, hunting rights, cultural rights, all of those rights that belong to Innu as a people," he said.

The Innu Strategic Alliance, an organization that represents a number of Innu people in Quebec, released a statement Saturday that slammed the proposal.

"Our ancestral land, which ignores all boundaries imposed by non-Aboriginal governments, is largely located in Labrador where we have always hunted caribou and we will continue to do so," said Real McKenzie, chief of the Matimekush-Lac John community.

Neither Penashue, nor provincial authorities, were available for comment Saturday.

But Mackenzie said the Quebec Innu were left with no choice but to ramp up the action through the courts, international pressure or civil disobedience.

"It leaves us with no other options but to assert those rights on the ground, in the trenches, by asserting our Aboriginal right to hunt in Labrador and by using all legal recourse we might have," he said.

"It's a first step for further actions in the future."

The hunters are expected to speak to the media upon their return next week.