Traditionally, the Eeyou people are nomadic, and live in close harmony with nature. They hunt, fish, trap, and travel across a large territory. The traditional land of the Eeyou in Quebec is called Eeyou Istchee, which means the People’s Land. Today, it comprises 11 Cree communities. This territory coversan area of over 400, 000 square kilometres, which is two thirds the size of France, is located primarily in northern Quebec and includes the lands on the eastern shore of James Bay and southeast of Hudson Bay.

Cree language, iiyiyuu ayimuun, is very much alive and spoken by almost 20,000 people in Eeyou Istchee. It is part of the Algonquian family it is taught in homes and schools. Within Eeyou Istchee, we distinguish two major dialects: the “northern dialect,” spoken in the northern and coastal communities, and the “southern dialect,” which is spoken inland and in the more southerly communities. Often written in syllabics (i.e., a writing system in which each symbol represents a consonant-vowel combination, or sometimes a single consonant or vowel).Cree is one of the most commonly spoken Indigenous languages in Canada.