Paper short abstract:

Since 2008, the Wendat Nation has been working on a conservation area project that holds a strong cultural importance to them. It has become a political stance in which the Wendat value the protection and transmission of their culture while asserting their governance on their ancestral land.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2008, the Wendat Nation has been working on a conservation area project, called Ya'nienhonhndeh (literally meaning "where medicinal plants are gathered"). This territory is located north of Québec City, in the heart of the Nation's ancestral and customary land, called Onyionhwentsïio' (literally meaning "our magnificent territory"). In addition to being composed of the last remaining intact forest in southern Québec, the territory covered by the conservation area project holds a very strong cultural importance for the Wendat, as it is littered with many traces of the past and present occupation by Wendat people.

The story of this "project that won't die", as nicknamed by the Wendat, is fascinating. Without funding and in the face of Québec's institutional inertia, the Ya'nienhonhndeh conservation area project stalled until 2018. A media release has since prompted Québec institutions and the local community to take an interest in the project. By promoting an inclusive approach and intercultural dialogue, the Wendat Nation succeeded, in early 2021, to make the Ya’nienhonhndeh conservation area project a pilot project to help Québec implement a new kind of conservation area, the “protected area with sustainable use.

Through this long and winding political process involving many layers of power relations, the Wendat Nation constituted itself by transforming the modes of subjugation to which it was submitted into modes of political subjectivation. More importantly, the Ya’nienhnonhndeh conservation project has become a political stance in which the Wendat Nation values the protection and transmission of its culture and heritage to future generations.