...and troublesome leftover of the past, a people without any rights and who could simply be moved around to accommodate so-called ‘progress,’” Cree Deputy Grand Chief Ashley Iserhoff wrote in a 2006 presentation to the committee assessing ESR’s environmental impact.

Changing Times

“Things changed when André Caillé was president of Hydro-Québec,” Iserhoff says now. “They had a new vision of how Hydro-Québec would operate.” Caillé was CEO from 1996 to 2005.

Hydro-Québec proposed the ESR project in the middle of Caillé’s tenure, but the Crees resisted. After the Grand Council flatly rejected it in July 2001, Québec Premier Bernard Landry proposed a peace to Cree Grand Chief Ted Moses. In February 2002, after intense negotiations, the province and the Cree Grand Council signed the “Agreement Respecting a New Relationship Between the Cree Nation and the Government of Québec.” Recalling an historic 1701 treaty between the authorities of New France and the Indian tribes, it is called the Paix des braves, or “Peace of the Brave.”

The historic agreement for the first time recognized the Crees as a sovereign entity on par with the province of Québec, renounced Hydro-Québec’s rights to develop a previously agreed hydroelectric project and provided for Cree participation in revenue collected by the province from development of the Cree region’s natural resources.

“The possibility of the Crees becoming involved in the development of the territory, rather than being compensated to step aside, was on the table for the first time,” wrote Brian Craik, the Grand Council’s director of federal relations, in a history of the James Bay projects.

Normand Béchard Project Director,
Cree companies have won $550 million of contracts.

The change has brought tangible benefits to the Crees, who have found employment in land clearing, services to the work camps and construction of the projects themselves. The Paix des braves and related agreements guaranteed Cree companies at least $181 million of contracts. Cree Construction and Development Co. has won nearly $100 million of contracts, says Normand Béchard, director of projects, and altogether Cree companies have won about $550 million of contracts since 2002, including the Eastmain-1 project. More importantly, Hydro-Québec is training Crees for technical employment at the hydroelectric plants after they begin operation. Iserhoff points also to the use of Air Creebec, the airline owned by the Grand Council, to transport workers to and from the project.

First Steps

The 2002 Paix des braves cleared the way for construction of the final echo of the original James Bay plan, the three-unit, 480-MW Eastmain-1 dam and powerhouse. Access-road construction began in July 2002, and by February 2007, the plant was commissioned. Construction began that month on the first work camp for the ESR project, the first to be launched after the Paix des braves.

The $1.2-billion, 768-MW Eastmain-1-A Powerhouse, the project centerpiece, will sit 500 m away from the Eastmain-1 Powerhouse, taking in water with 63 m of head from Eastmain Reservoir and discharging it into the Eastmain River below the dam. Three Francis turbines made by Voigt Siemens will generate 256 MW each.

Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin designed the powerhouse, including the cofferdam. Neilson-EBC, one of the ESR project’s principal contractors, began excavation in summer 2007 and has won most subsequent...