James Bay Ethnographic Resource

Digital Collections of James Bay Photographic Archives

George Legrady: Fort George269 photos

Fort George, population of approximately 4000, was the first town where the photographic project began. We had received a federal Opportunities for Youth grant written by my brother Miklos and friend Albert Sevigny to fund the travel of 4 photographers to James Bay. The photographers included Louise Turner, Lillian Sly, Miklos Legrady and myself. We arrived at the end of May 1973 when the ice was still breaking on the river. We were given a tipi to stay in, but after a few nights we had managed to find homes where we rented rooms as the tipi was too cold for us. The purpose of the project was to create a photographic record of everyday life in the Cree villages. Our approach was to socialize, visit with people, attend public events, just hang out and photograph what we saw and who we met. Each of us approached the documentation differently. I was interested in recording houses, nature, rituals and indigenous activities, portraits, industrial detritus, social infrastructure such as the churches, stores, schools, etc. We were invited on a number of trips which got us out into nature. Due to the flooding of the lands around the La Grande River for the James Bay Hydro-electric project, the Fort George community was resettled off the island where these photographs were taken and relocated to a new town, Chisasibi, a few miles' distance from the island. There are still some structures remaining today on the Fort George island, and community members will visit graves of ancestors. The Grand Council of the Cree representing the Cree villages was created in 1974, the year after our documentary, as a legal entity to negotiate with the government over Cree rights. I stayed three weeks after which I went to Eastmain.