Lac-John () is a First Nations reserve on John Lake in the

Côte-Nord Côte-Nord (Region 09) (, ; ) is an List of regions of Quebec, administrative region of Quebec, on the Quebec-Labrador peninsula, Quebec-Labrador Peninsula, Canada. The region runs along the St. Lawrence River and then the Gulf of St. Lawrence, ...

region of

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada, about north-east from the centre of

Schefferville Schefferville () is a town in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. Schefferville is in the heart of the Naskapi and Innu territory in northern Quebec, less than 2 km (1¼ miles) from the border with Labrador o ...

. Together with the Matimekosh Reserve, it belongs to the Innu Nation of Matimekush-Lac John. It is geographically within the Caniapiscau Regional County Municipality but administratively not part of it. The reserve is named after the adjacent John Lake. That name was assigned by the Labrador Mining and Smelting Company, which used it on one of its geological maps a little before 1947.

History

The region was the northern limit of the hunting and trapping grounds of the

Innu The Innu/Ilnu ('man, person'), formerly called Montagnais (French for ' mountain people'; ), are the Indigenous Canadians who inhabit northeastern Labrador in present-day Newfoundland and Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to ...

indigenous people, but they never had resided there permanently. Because of mining development in the early 1950s, the

Naskapi The Naskapi (Nascapi, Naskapee, Nascapee) are an Indigenous people of the Subarctic native to the historical region St'aschinuw (ᒋᑦ ᐊᔅᒋᓄᐤ, meaning 'our Clusivity, nclusiveland'), which was located in present day northern Qu ...

from Fort Chimo and a dozen Innu families from

Maliotenam Maliotenam (Mani-Utenam in Innu-aimun) is a First Nations reserve in Quebec, located adjacent to the city of Sept-Îles. Together with Uashat some distance away, it forms the Innu The Innu/Ilnu ('man, person'), formerly called Mont ...

arrived at

to serve as guides for geological exploration work, and help on the railway construction from Sept-Iles. In 1957, the Schefferville municipal authorities moved the Innu and Naskapi to a site on John Lake, where they lived in poverty without sanitation, electricity, schools, or a medical facility. A year later, the site was surveyed for the creation of a reserve. On June 7, 1960, the Government of Québec transferred to the Government of Canada that then formed the Lac-John Reserve. The Innu and Naskapi initially lived in tiny shacks, but by 1962 Indian and Northern Affairs had built 30 houses for them.Natural Resources Canada - Legal Surveys Division, Historical Review
Lac John land title history
Following the creation of the Matimekosh Reserve close to the town's centre in 1968, the municipality of Schefferville tried to annex the Lac-John Reserve. In 1972, most of the families on the Lac-John Reserve moved to Matimekosh, but a group of them decided to stay and new residences were built for them in 1975.

Demographics

Population trend:Statistics Canada:

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

census * Population in 2021: 21 (2016 to 2021 population change: -36.4%) * Population in 2016: 33 * Population in 2011: 21 * Population in 2006: 16 * Population in 2001: 23 * Population in 1996: 38 Private dwellings occupied by usual residents: 11 (total dwellings: 12)

References

{{authority control Communities in Côte-Nord Innu communities in Quebec