The Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation is located in the province of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. This

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

band government In Canada, an Indian band or band (french: bande indienne, link=no), sometimes referred to as a First Nation band (french: bande de la Première Nation, link=no) or simply a First Nation, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subjec ...

is centred on the community of

Sheshatshiu Sheshatshiu () is an Innu federal reserve and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The reserve is approximately north of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Some references may spell the community's name as Sheshatshit, th ...

. The current chief of the Sheshatshiu

Innu The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period ( French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the ...

First Nation is Eugene Hart, who succeeded Andrew Penashue in 2015. The First Nation had a registered population of 1,805 people as of September 2019. Labrador's Innu became status Indians under the

Indian Act The ''Indian Act'' (, long name ''An Act to amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians'') is a Canadian act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still ...

in 2002 and "Sheshatshiu 3" became a

federal reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

in 2006. In October 2019, the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation declared a suicide crisis after 10 suicide attempts were reported within the community in a matter of days. As of 2020, according to

Innu Nation The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period ( French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the ...

Grand Chief Gregory Rich, Sheshatshiu and Natuashish have a collective population of about 3,000 with about half of that being youths, of that 167 of them are in the care of the Manager of Child and Youth Services. In 2017, the Innu Nation stated that there are 165 Labrador Innu children in foster care, 80 of whom are placed outside their home communities of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish.

References

External links

Government of Canada's Department of Indian and Northern Affairs First Nation profile
{{NLDivision10 First Nations in Newfoundland and Labrador First Nations governments in Atlantic Canada Indian reserves in Newfoundland and Labrador Innu