Also Check Out

A Cree Family Affair

There are precious few opportunities to spend time deep in the boreal forest being guided to great fishing by a Cree family. That’s because outfitters like George Awashish are a rare breed. George’s family controls a huge segment of Quebec’s Rupert River and —working with his wife Jeanette and various cousins, nephews and uncles — he’s not only providing the opportunity to fish waters usually available only to tribe members, but the opportunity to learn about the lifestyle of the people who have inhabited this wild place for 5,000 years.

It’s impossible to describe the 12,000 square kilometers of the Rupert the Awashish clan fishes. It’s big, much bigger than any river we here in Maine. But along with quick water sections and waterfalls, it flows through five major lakes and into innumerable backwaters.
This variety of water types means that whatever type of fishing you want to do n a given day, it is instantly available to you. During my visit I trolled fro lake trout, jigged for walleyes, cast buzzbaits from northern pike and fly cast muddler minnows for brook trout.

So, how did I end up eating grilled sturgeon steaks? The Cree have retained the right to takes sturgeon in the Rupert River as part maintaining their native lifestyle, and it’s one of the wild foods he offers guests on the evenings when he serves up a traditional Cree meal. Anything that can be found along the Rupert could end up on the menu including, moose, goose, bear or beaver.

It was my good fortune that the native meal was sturgeon, a fish I never ate before. George is an excellent cook and the fish was delicious. Firm, white meat that tasted just like . . . sturgeon.
Awashish Outdoors offers lodging the equivalent of a spike hunting camp, with platform tents, but electric lights plus gas stoves and refrigerators. There is no bathhouse, so you use an outhouse and wash with lake water and you do your own cooking.

George has only five boats and motors, which means you are going to have vast areas to fish by yourself. Each day. But what makes the experience special is that George or other members of his family guide you. Without their experience to show you the way, you’d never successfully navigate to the best fishing. For one thing, the river is full of rocks. For another, there are so many hidden channels and side waters you would get lost sooner than later. Even access to some of the big lakes along the river is so obscure, you’d never find it on your own.

Then there’s the fishing. Although the Rupert teems with fish, they are not evenly distributed, and their location often during the season that runs from early June to September.

For me, spending time with the Cree is a primary reason to take this trip. George and his family live in Mistassini, a modern, rapidly growing village on the southern end of Mistissini Lake, which is Quebec’s biggest. At over 100 miles long this completely undeveloped lake forms the headwaters of the Rupert, which eventually flows into James Bay. The Awashish camp is 50 miles down the river and is reached by floatplane.

While the Awashish clan are modern people in their town, they return to the Rupert to fish, hunt and trap just as their ancestors did and they continue to be deeply spiritually tied to the wilderness.
Like most Crees I have encountered the Mistassini people are at first reserved among strangers. But George is a definite exception to that rule. He’s an outgoing personality who’s determined to make a success of his family’s outfitting business. A man of seemingly unlimited abilities, he’s outgoing and smiling.

A fact I find amazing is that most of the Cree in this area are trilingual, speaking their native language, plus French and English.
The brook trout fishing here is largely confined to rapids and side streams. The lakers, northerns and walleyes can strike anywhere although the lakes are best for lakers, the moving water for walleyes and the many shallow coves and backwaters for pike. Any given day you may take a grand slam.

Even better, you should be able to catch a great memory of time spent whose culture and heritage is so different from your own.
Who knows? Perhaps the moon will rise bright over the river as George slow cooks a surgeon steak for you too.

For more information, go to: awashish.com