By Sonal Gupta, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Canada’s National Observer
In the foothills of Quebec’s Appalachian Mountains, a woman with Métis heritage is working to return a parcel of land to a nearby First Nation, marking a step toward restoring Indigenous stewardship over ancestral territory.
Since 2006, Françoise de Montigny-Pelletier has owned the land at the border of Sainte-Perpétue and Tourville in southern Quebec. She bought it to protect its ecosystems as a tribute to her Indigenous heritage and the former owner who protected the land with the same concern for biodiversity.
She doesn’t see it as private property. “We don’t own the land. It’s our mother,” said Montigny-Pelletier, who considers herself a guardian of “Mother Earth.”
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“I am here to protect it.”
For almost two decades, the forested land in her backyard has been a living classroom. Montigny-Pelletier hosts workshops with schools, community groups and Indigenous elders on ecology, plant medicine and sustainable forestry. Access is reserved for referred groups, such as mental health programs. Smoking and alcohol consumption are not allowed. A community greenhouse also supports low-income residents without garden space.
Now retired and worried about real estate speculation, she is transferring the property into a nonprofit land trust called Fiducie d’utilité sociale (FUSA) under Quebec law that will secure its ecological and social uses well into the future.
“I spent my life doing organic gardening, protecting forests and the fields and when I will be dead, who will do that after me?” Montigny-Pelletier said.
Her vision is that the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk Nation in the region will eventually take primary stewardship of the site.
The Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk people were forcibly expelled from their ancestral lands in Quebec during the 19th and 20th centuries when much of the territory was transferred to large forestry companies. Government policies permitted settlers to occupy these forested areas under the condition they extensively logged the land for industrial purposes.
The Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation is the only Wolastoqey nation in Quebec, with six others found in New Brunswick. The Wolastoqey nation’s main base, Montigny-Pelletier said, remains in New Brunswick, and their presence in Quebec is small today. She hopes the land can become a cultural hub and gathering place for the community — “places that don’t yet exist for the nation on this part of their traditional land,” she said.
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Her efforts are emblematic of a broader movement among the Wolastoqey people, whose stewardship and title over ancestral lands outside of Quebec have long been contested. In 2021, six Wolastoqey Nations in New Brunswick claimed Aboriginal title over about half the province, arguing their land was never surrendered. The case is still winding its way through the courts.
Montigny-Pelletier said the idea and motivation for her land protection and transfer project was not influenced by the Wolastoqey land claim. In fact, she was unaware of it at the time.
Her decision to give the land is a response to the actions and impacts of the colonial system over many years, the refusal of governments to accept Indigenous rights as per United Nations declarations and the broader context of Indigenous struggles. “I have been driven by all these events, all these stories,” she said.
Raised in a Mohawk territory near Montreal, she witnessed first hand the devastating impact of expropriation when her grandparents lost their land in the mid-20th century. Her mother’s family had maintained a self-sufficient farm and orchard in Kahnawake along the banks of the Kaniatarowanen, commonly known as the St. Lawrence River. In the 1950s, the federal government backed the expropriation of these lands by the St. Lawrence Seaway Company and the International Telephone & Telegraph — a corporation later known for its controversial role in the 1973 Chilean coup. This was justified by claiming the construction of the Seaway would flood the area and submerge homes, barns, gardens and orchards.
“But this was a lie.” she said. The St. Lawrence Seaway’s shipping channel, which allows large vessels to bypass dangerous rapids and access the Great Lakes, is actually no wider than Highway 132 in Quebec. Despite this relatively narrow width, a large amount of land — including homes, barns, gardens and orchards — was destroyed during the project. Much of her grandparents’ land was taken over by the neighboring town and converted into an industrial park. The area, deeply tied to painful memories of land loss, is now one of the most polluted sites in Montreal, she said.
When she purchased her own parcel of forest 40 years later, her decision to protect it was tied to these memories. By placing it in trust with a mandate that centres stewardship, she hopes it can never be lost in the same way her family’s farm was.
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The process, however, has come with its own challenges. Transferring the land involved costly legal and notary fees, and the taxes triggered by the change in ownership were assessed at speculative market values, rather than existing property rates. “[It is] strange that you have to pay in order to give,” she said.
Moreover, the county’s zoning classifies the forest as land designated for potential residential or industrial development, rather than protected space.
While the formal agreement for Wolastoqey guardianship is still underway, Montigny-Pelletier remains hopeful it will soon secure protection for the land for future generations. What she is doing now, she said, is a modest personal contribution to protecting land and inspiring others across the country to do the same.
“All my life, I dreamed I wished to do something… maybe I could save some place,” she said.
Sonal Gupta / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
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