The Innu of Labrador, Canada are a small group of  First Nations Indigenous people living in two communities on the coast of Labrador, Canada. They call their homeland, Nitassinan and it spans the Quebec-Labrador peninsula. In 1927 a border between Quebec and Labrador granted Labrador to Newfoundland and divided the Innu into separate political divisions.

Sheshatshiu is home the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nations and is location near Goose Bay in central Labrador. Natuashish is on the north coast and home to the Mushuau Innu First Nations.

For thousands of years the Innu have lived and roamed on this land following the great caribou herds and are the last of the nomadic hunters in North America. They only came to settle in fixed communities in the 1950s and 60s due to pressure from European colonizer’s, churches and governments using economic and legal coercion.

Today they are working to regain and rebuild their culture and society through economic and land claims agreements with provincial and federal governments. The caribou still play a major part of their culture as it is the basis of their mythology and origin. They are a people of the caribou.

I have been covering stories of the Innu, both academically and journalistic, since the 1980’s. Today, in the summer of 2026 they are still fighting for their rights and recognition with the provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador …who once said they didn’t exist. For thirty years their political organization, Innu Nation,  have been in land claims negotiations. The government of Canada already signed off on this and recognize the Innu under Section 35 of the Canadian charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

Newfoundland and Labrador continue to stall and drag out negotiations and do not acknowledges the Innu’s Section 35 rights under Canadian law.  This has been called out in multiple reports from the Canadian Human Right Commission. 

Today, The Gammy Bird has released a story with many of my photos which gives a good overview of the current conflict which ignited over the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador cancelling a major Innu cultural exhibition on National Indigenous People’s Day. 

See, The Messy Business of Erasing Innu History.

Also for more photos of the Innu, see my photo gallery, INNU – The Last Nomadic Hunters. 

For more on Innu culture and history visit https://tipatshimuna.ca/

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