By Eileen Hanson
I’ve just returned from a month in Canada, working with Christian Peacemaker Teams, the same group that I was with in Palestine a couple of years ago. You might be thinking, what’s the conflict in Canada? Why are there peacemakers working there?
Christian Peacemaker Teams’ (CPT) work in Canada is focused around Aboriginal Justice, that is justice issues in relation to the Native people of Canada. (In Canada, the words Aboriginal and First Nation are used rather than Native American, which is more commonly used in the US.)
In broad strokes, the history between Native people and European settlers in Canada is similar to the history in the U.S. It is a story of ever expanding European settlement, Native land loss, treaties signed and treaties broken, forced assimilation and racism. As in the US, the outcome for many Aboriginal communities in Canada was massive displacement from traditional lands, disconnection with traditional life and culture and confinement to small areas of marginal land known as reserves.
One issue that is lesser known in the US, but is also an important part of the history of Native people in North America is residential schools. In Canada, this issue is more widely known because in 2008, the Prime Minister issued an official apology for the government’s role in the residential school system.
Residential schools were essentially tools of cultural genocide, their stated aim was to “kill the Indian in the child”. Beginning in the 1920’s, the removal of Native children from their families to live in residential schools run by churches and the government, was mandatory. Children as young as four years of age were forcibly removed from their parents, stripped of their traditional clothes, their hair shorn in European style. They were forbidden to speak their language or practice their religion, and were routinely beaten for doing so. Many children did not see their families for years. The residential school system which also forced many Native children to do menial labor in lieu of real education, continued into the 1960’s in Canada. Physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the residential schools and many Native people are still struggling with the effects of years of trauma and abuse. Needless to say this history has had a devastating effect on families and communities, and remains and important part of the struggles facing Native people.
One of the reasons I was drawn to the Aboriginal Justice part of CPT’s work is because my time in Palestine made it abundantly clear to me that I needed to confront injustices not only in far away places, but also closer to home. In a practical way, that means raising my own awareness of the history and my own involvement in the dispossession of Native peoples in North America. Although it may seem that the injustices at the root of many of the conflicts stretch back hundreds of years, Native communities are struggling very much in the here and now. CPT’s Aboriginal Justice team seeks to support First Nations communities as they seek justice today. I want to share a few stories of how dispossession from the land has impacted one Native community, and some of their struggles for justice and healing.
Grassy Narrows First Nation
Healing with the Land
In August, I visited Grassy Narrows First Nation, an Anishinaabe community about 80kM from Kenora, ON, just north of Lake of the Woods. (Anishinaabe is the Ojiway word meaning, the people. Many Anishinaabe communities traditionally lived throughout what is now Northern Minneosta, Wisconsin and eastern Canada.)
In the longest running logging blockade in Canadian history, the Grassy Narrows community has successfully halted the practice of clear-cutting on their traditional territory, which comprises about 2,500 square acres surrounding their reserve. This land has been the primary source of food, shelter and medicine for them for thousands of years. In treaty, the Anishinaabe people retain rights to hunt, fish and trap on this land. However, the Canadian government sells logging rights to multinational companies, who use the land to supply massive pulp and paper factories. Since the practice of clear-cut logging became common in the 1980’s, it has been nearly impossible to sustain a traditional life on the land.
In December of 2002, two young Grassy Narrows women took their dissent to the woods, made by blocking the logging road to prevent further clear-cutting. Their community soon joined them, and a nonviolent blockade was born. It has been seven years since clear-cutting on Grassy Narrows traditional territory (although the forests in the nearby area are still being devastated by clear-cutting). The blockade may seem like a success, but for the Grassy community, the struggle is far from over. Many people in Grassy Narrows speak now of the need for healing, as one might recover from a deep wound. The connection between the people and the land has been broken, and that is where the healing needs to begin
In reconnecting with the land, the Grassy Narrows community is beginning to heal in their physical bodies. So many of the historical traumas experiences by Native communities are evidenced in the physical health of the community. The reservation system has trapped many Native people in a cycle of poor diet and sedentary life. As with many Native communities, diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity are common in Grassy Narrows. They can begin to heal by returning to a diet based on the foods provided by nature such as fresh game and the abundant local fish. Several of the elders are actively engaged with the youth in the community, teaching them the traditional ways of hunting and trapping, so that they can carry on these ways.
Many in the Grassy Narrows community also suffer the effects of mercury poisoning, a result of decades of mercury contamination of area lakes and rivers by industrial wood pulp processing. Unfortunately the high mercury levels still mean that people should limit their consumption of local fish. One woman from the Grassy Narrows community is conducting a study to investigate other effects of the mercury contamination, including how high levels in the water might affect moose and other game that make up a large part of the traditional Anishinaabe diet.
Clear-cut logging practice also includes the planting of mono-crop tree plantations for future harvest. These plantations are sprayed regularly for years with chemicals to inhibit competing plants. This practice has devastated many of the native plants that Anishinaabe people rely on for medicine. Perhaps as the land around Grassy Narrows heals from the clear-cutting in time the traditional medicines will return and be able to offer healing to the people once again. And as the waters gradually recover from the toxic mercury poisoning, the fish might again provide a healthy source of food.
Native people are also seeking healing of their political and communal spirit. Decades of displacement, the legacy of the residential schools and dire poverty have left many First Nations communities shattered. In acts of vision and resistance, some are finding their way to wholeness.
Chrissy Swain, one of the youth leaders of the original blockade, has decided to walk for the protection of the Sacred Mother. Last year, she and 22 other young people walked hundreds of miles from Grassy Narrows to Toronto to bring their concerns for Native communities and the environment to the political powers. She plans to make the walk again this year.
One woman spoke to us of what a communal healing might look like. She told us about her grandmother’s vision, that one day the sands around Trout Lake would be filled with the tracks of Anishinaabe children. For so many years, with all the children away at residential school, she remembered the land was quiet; there were no sounds of running and playing in the woods, no footsteps of children in the sands by the lake. For her, healing meant to see and hear the signs of children on the land again.
Her granddaughter is committed to making that vision a reality. In order to reconnect to the land, she has built a cabin for her community, especially the children, to gather on their traditional territory. She hopes that this place will be a space for people to begin to renew their relationship with the land; to rebuild a sense of community, to have a space to pass on traditional ways of hunting and trapping to the youth; a place to learn about the animals and plants and their meaning in Anishinaabe culture; to have a place for adults to gather or just be with the land. It could be a place from which to begin a healing journey.
It was a great privilege to hear these stories and meet these courageous people. It is a sacred and intimate project they are engaged in, trying to heal and recover from so many historical and personal traumas. Their hope lies in nurturing their connection to the land and in maintaining their culture and traditional ways. Their stories and their struggles are inspiring.
Closer to Home
My time in the North Woods felt familiar with sights of pine and birch woods surrounding deep, clear lakes. But, having begun with a motivation to address injustices closer to home, these experiences in Canada have left me with more questions than answers.
What is the history of the land and the people here in Winona? How did this land come to be a European settlement called Winona? Who made the decision about how the land and the river would be used? Who has benefited from the resource rich land here? What happened to the original inhabitants of this land? And where are their descendants today?
Most importantly, I wonder about the struggles for justice facing the people displaced from this land that I now call home? How can I as a person who benefits from all that they had taken from them, support them in their struggles?
We are blessed to have a number of people in Winona that have taken the time to ask some of these very questions. The Winona-Dakota Unity Alliance has actively been trying to build relationship and nurture reconciliation. The annual Great Dakota Homecoming has been an important time for Dakota people to reconnect to their traditional land, and for non-Natives to come to know the Dakota people. I hope for the sake of people and the planet that these efforts continue, and that we can find ways to heal in our relationships with one another, and with the Earth