Posts By: First Nations Drum

Education is Failing Aboriginal Students

By Chuck Tobin

Yukon aboriginal leaders have called for a detailed examination of the territory’s education system.

Grand Chief Ed Schultz of the Council of Yukon First Nations said Thursday chiefs are concerned over what they believe is an education system that’s continuing to fail aboriginal students.

“Some of the initial data that I have seen strongly indicate there is some inequity in the distribution in the public education system for our citizens,” the chief said in his monthly press conference following this week’s meeting of the CYFN leadership. “And that has to be addressed.

“We want to work within the public education system and make it work but … we have our officials coming to us saying it is not working properly.”

The chiefs, said Schultz, are concerned with the drop-out rates of aboriginal students, and the low grades being registered by others. Schultz said it’s necessary to do the detailed research to identify the heart of the problem.

“While first nation leaders prefer to remain within and fix what they believe ails the mainstream system, what will happen in the end has not been determined,” he said.

“The examination may result in recommended changes to the Education Act, or it might mean rerouting education dollars the Yukon government receives from Ottawa directly to first nations, as provided for in self-government agreements,” he said.
“But that will be determined at a later date.”

The grand chief said the Yukon’s education system is seen as a contributor the number of aboriginal street people and the social conditions they live in. The system, he said, does not affirm and uphold their identity as a first nation member.

Schultz said the school curriculum continues to be largely based on western European culture, which is fine for those of western European descent who are receiving affirmation of their roots.
But if you are of aboriginal descent, there is no such affirmation nor recognition of the significance of aboriginal society, he said.
If a student is of Northern Tutchone descent, or Kaska, or Gwich’in or any of the Yukon first nations, he said, they’re faced with going through school learning more about foreign cultures than their own.
“You begin to subconsciously feel that you are not equal,” he said.

Schultz said the situation is improving from the days when he was in school, when there was nothing said about aboriginal culture.
But the Yukon chiefs are nonetheless concerned and have instructed the central aboriginal organization to immediately begin the detailed examination of the situation.

The grand chief said it’s been suggested to the aboriginal community that such a detailed look into the current system would cost too much, and take too much time. “But for every suicide I see, and for every street kid I see who is ruining their life, I do not think it is going to cost too much.”

Education Critical to Moving Forward

By Doug Cuthand

This week the FSIN will host a major education conference in Saskatoon. The conference will include guest speakers from the United States and across Canada and will address a number of issues crucial to the further development of First Nations education.

Saskatchewan has no trouble attracting top aboriginal educators and speakers for a forum on education. Saskatchewan First Nations have a long history of placing a priority on education and today we have some of the most outstanding First Nations educational institutions in the Americas. Saskatchewan is the birthplace of the philosophy of Indian control of education.

In 1972 the revolution began and over the next decade the battle would rage. It all began when the Saskatchewan Chiefs endorsed the document declaring Indian control of Indian education. For the next decade education was identified as a political priority and the change began. Up to this point the federal policy on education had been to integrate First Nations children in the local schools and transfer the responsibility to the provinces. First Nations parents wanted a say in how their children would be educated but instead it was a one-way street that went nowhere. Also at that time there were no institutions that would support further development of First Nations education.

The FSIN received funding for a cultural education centre and it became the focal point. The cultural centre was located in Saskatoon on the university campus; it was a beehive of activity with committed First Nations educators and political animals joining forces to advance the cause.

I remember Ida Wasacase was put in charge of academic programming and the development of a post secondary institution. That was her job description. She would go on to head up the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in Regina.

Osborne Turner was put in charge of skills training and his work resulted in the development of the Saskatchewan Indian Community College, which later became the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies.

All this work didn’t fall under the mandate of a cultural centre and the rules were routinely bent and broken much to the dismay of the funding agency, the Department of Indian Affairs. It was poetic justice that the very department that funded the boarding schools and was pushing for integration also held the key to our future education plans.

Meanwhile, the reserve schools were rapidly developing and school strikes were rampant. Numerous First Nations withdrew their children from the local off-reserve school and established clandestine institutions on their own land. These band-controlled schools were a jumble of portable classrooms and trailers but in the end they persevered and became the elementary and high schools we have today. The band-controlled schools were the institutions that drove the larger institutions.

I remember in 1981 attending a graduation for 50 students that received their teaching certificates at Pelican Narrows. The Federated College held an extension program to assist the Peter Ballentyne First Nation to develop its own teachers. Some went on to teach in the band schools and others came south to complete their degrees. It was an example of a program that catapulted the community into controlling their own education program.

While Indian control of education has been a success it is also a race against time and our population growth.

Back in 1972 there were around 40,000 First Nations people in Saskatchewan; today there are over 100,000. Today the province’s aboriginal (Indian and Metis) population is 161,000 and will reach 204,000 by 2011, 250,000 the following decade and 400,000 by 2041. Today one-third of students entering Grade 1 are aboriginal. Thirty-eight per cent of the province’s total student enrolment including university and trades training are First Nations. Close to half of the regional budget of Indian Affairs is allotted to education. This is where Saskatchewan’s future lies.

People who complain of the Indian Affairs budget are not looking at the long term and the good that an educated First Nations population will do for the province. Many Saskatchewan residents also don’t realize the important role our First Nations have made, not only for our development but for the well-being of the province as a whole. The conference will be held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Agreement Solidifies Ties Between Valley Schools and First Nations

By Christina Martens

May 16 will be a historic day for the Cowichan Valley School District and the area’s Aboriginal population. During a presentation to teachers and teacher’s aides at the Cowichan Community Centre Wednesday, members of the Hwulmuhw Mustimhuw (HM) Education Advisory Committee (HMEAC) unveiled the aboriginal education improvement agreement framework.

“This agreement is the turning point in that it formalizes the joint communication between the District and the Aboriginal community,” said Cowichan District Teachers Association (CDTA) representative Jeanne Berryman.

Made up of representatives of the School District, First Nations and Metis Nation representatives, the committee was formed to find out how Aboriginal students were functioning in District schools. Formed in the fall of 2000, assessments and surveys were done in January and February, which involved speaking with teachers, teacher’s aides, students, staff, parents, elders and First Nations and Metis representatives. Eighteen schools were selected from the District with more than 400 students participating. Of those, 226 were Aboriginal students.

“The dominant message was that parents wanted their kids to graduate with an education and a knowledge of their culture,” said Glenn Goring, one of the two-person data collection team.

Goring noted that public schools are unable to serve the needs of Aboriginal students unless multicultural schools are developed and that issues related to racism, cultural identity and low parent participation are addressed.

“The importance of cultural identity has been a recurring theme,” said Goring.

Another recurring theme is the data indicating that as Aboriginal students progress through the grades, the numbers start dropping off until 68 per cent of the Aboriginal students enrolled in Grade 11 are not enrolled in Grade 12. That’s compared with 26 per cent for non-Aboriginal students. The Improvement Agreement Framework is designed to narrow the gap in performance between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students by two per cent while honouring and supporting the cultures and languages of the Aboriginal people whose territories are served by School District No. 79.

“Two per cent is reasonable and attainable and has been used by other districts with Improvement Agreements,” said Aboriginal education representative Eric McMahon. “Our challenge will be to measure this target.”

The goals of the five-year agreement are to increase success rates, developing the skills foundation in Grades 4, 7 and 10, increasing attendance rates, using measures to implement technology,language and culture studies in the schools. “We tried to keep the goals as narrow as possible so we could tack them,” said data collector Ted Cadwallader.

The plan will develop targets that are reasonable, attainable, represent meaningful progress and be “reassessed annually to determine at what rate did we hit the target,” said McMahon.

Berryman assured teachers that current programs will stay intact, unless future programs and opportunities present themselves. What will change, is the type of support front-line workers will receive.

“The agreement is a turning point in that in formalizes the joint connection between the district and the Aboriginal community. The signing of this agreement creates a pathway for us to move forward.”

Gwishalaayt – The Spirit Wraps Around You

A long, long time ago on the North Coast of British Columbia the Tsimshian people of the Skeena River began Chilkat weaving. It is said that a young woman and her grandmother were living in a small village, and there was not enough food to go around. The young princess started to fast. Through this process she had a vision of weaving. She took this piece of wool and wove it into a dance apron. The weaving then went north to the Tlingit in Alaska through a marriage.

Gwishalaayt – The Spirit Wraps Around You is a story told through the compelling lives of six Native weavers. They come from various places along the coast of British Columbia, into Southeast Alaska and the Yukon.

Directed by Barb Cranmer, her credits include writing and directing her first documentary, Lazwesa Wa: Strength of the River about the West Coast fishery for the Discovery Channel, which has won numerous awards. She wrote, directed and produced Qatuwas: People Gathering Together about the rebirth of the canoe culture on the Pacific Northwest Coast. This film won the first Telefilm Canada/TV Northern Canada Award, Best Documentary at the American Indian Film Festival, and was invited to the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. T’lina: The Rendering of Wealth about the traditional eulachon fishery won Best Documentary at the American Indian Film Festival, 1999. It was also nominated for a Chalmers Award.

“I have been involved in film and video for fifteen years. The inspiration for my work comes from our own people’s rich history. I am a messenger of this rich history. Our First Nations communities have entrusted me with these stories to bring to the wider public. The telling of our stories from our perspective and giving voice to our native communities is critical.”

“I feel fortunate to be able to live the history of our people through the films I make. I get my source of strength from my community, and most importantly from my family. They give me a strong sense of identity.”

Barb Cranmer is a member of the ‘NAMGIS First Nation of Alert Bay, BC of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation.

“What does Chilkat weaving mean to me? It means power – power of the people that own the rights to use it – power of the person that’s weaving it – the power that goes into the robe – that spiritual power that is put on it when you wear that robe. We believe that it comes alive.”
– William White, Tsimshian weaver

So speaks one of the six traditional Chilkat weavers featured in award-winning ‘Namgis director/producer Barb Cranmer and producer Cari Green’s moving new documentary, Gwishalaayt – The Spirit Wraps Around You. Each of these weavers shares their knowledge and personal experience of practicing an art form that has become a way of life for them, and a celebration of spirit and culture. Shot on location in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska, this film presents a stunningly visual interconnection between the living landscape, a rich cultural heritage, and the patterns woven by the weaver’s skilled hands.

Through their desire to learn the meaning and technique of an art once thought to be dead by some anthropologists, the weavers have come together. In the formation of the Weavers’ Circle, Chilkat and Northern Geometric traditions are kept alive. In the entire world there are only fifteen weavers that continue to practice an art form that is thousands of years old. By profiling six of these weavers the film offers a rare and valuable insight into the complex process of Chilkat weaving. We see them gathering cedar, making patternboards, dying wool, and weaving. One blanket can take years to make, and carries within it a living history that embodies the dances and ceremonies they were intended for.

In this film, we witness a historic event brought about by the formation of the Weavers’ Circle. The Tlingit keepers of the Chilkat tradition ceremonially return the Chilkat weaving to the Tsimshian people, originators of the art form. This event, catalyzed by the dedication ad spirit of the traditional weavers, is a powerful testament to the continuation of a living, breathing culture.

“Through our knowledge we will pass on the signs and symbols of our people; and through them we will work towards breaking down the artificial boundaries of colonial governments that have attempted to divide the Indigenous Nations and pre-empt traditional boundaries. The importance of traditional art as property to Indigenous people will not be underestimated.”
– Weavers’ Statement, August 1993

Ernestine Hanlon-Abel, Tlingit from the Tlie ne di Clan of Hoonah, Alaska. The clan represents Dog salmon, Crow, Raven. Ernestine has been the driving force for the weavers’ circle to make a statement about the weaving to share with the rest of the world.

Suzi Williams, Tlingit from Klawock, Alaska. She came to the weaving from a life changing experience when she was very young. She saw her first Chilkat blanket at the Burke Museum in Seattle and she knew that she was going to become a Chilkat weaver. This was the first step on the path back home. She is passing on this important artform to her daughter, Yarrow.

Clarissa Hudson, Tlingit from Hoonah, Alaska. She was fortunate to work with the last Master Chilkat weaver, Jenny Thlunaut. Clarissa shares the strong teachings left by Jenny. Clarrisa continues to teach weaving to the Tlingit women in Alaska.

Donna Cranmer, ‘Namgis from Alert Bay, BC of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. Her great, great, great grandmother Mary Ebbetts-Hunt was a Tlingit woman from Tongass Island, Alaska who was a Chilkat weaver. Donna’s direct family lineage gives her the right to weave Chilkat and to dance these beautiful pieces in potlaches today.

Ann Smith, Tutchone-Tlingit from Whitehorse. She feels that when she is weaving it is like being out on the land, and that connection is very important. She sees the strength of the weaving coming from the culture; it is who we are. She honours the past weavers by weaving a blanket called “Grandmother’s Time.”

Willie White, Tsimshian from Prince Rupert, BC is a young man with a big responsibility. There has not been a Chilkat weaver in his Nation for over a hundred years. Willie has made it a priority to take this weaving back to his people. Chilkat weaving started with his people on the Skeena River.

Debate Rages Over Native Alcoholism

Some argue a chief’s warning to sober up is welcome recognition of a problem. Others call it unfair stereotyping, writes Glen McGregor.

When Assembly of First Nations Chief Matthew Coon Come warned that native leaders must sober up, he was drawing on a long-standing and persistent stereotype of native alcoholism that never has been proved conclusively.

“Our people smoke too much and drink too much,” said Mr. Coon Come, Canada’s top elected native. “I think it does not give a good signal if a chief and council and anyone who is in Indian leadership is denying that he has alcohol problems.”

To many, Mr. Coon Come’s recent remarks came as a welcome recognition of a health problem endemic to Canada’s aboriginal communities.

But to others, it was an endorsement of an unfair stereotype that natives have tried to shake for years.

Had it been anyone but Mr. Coon Come who said it, they suggest, the remarks would be vilified as bigoted and uninformed.

Indeed, former Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin was publicly castigated last year for saying pretty much the same thing as Mr. Coon Come when he suggested many aboriginal leaders in Labrador are “themselves abusers of alcohol and themselves in need of help.”

His remarks set off a rage of controversy, with Phil Fontaine, Mr. Coon Come’s predecessor at the AFN, denouncing the comments as “a stereotypical image of our people that’s so completely wrong.”

Today, the idea that natives are more susceptible to the mind-bending effects of alcohol remains so tenacious that even some natives believe it.

In her book Firewater Myths, anthropologist Joy Leland reported that many American Indians believe they have a physiological weakness to the effects of alcohol and that alcoholism is “in the blood.”

Ms. Leland concluded that young natives used the heredity explanation as an excuse for their own abuse of alcohol, even though studies show aboriginals do not metabolize alcohol much differently than people of other races.

In Canada, social-scientific data suggest that aboriginal communities are hit harder by substance abuse than non-aboriginal communities. But the data are far from conclusive.

In a major study of existing research, Health Canada admitted it is difficult to measure alcohol and drug use on reserves because of poor response rates and cultural differences that complicate surveys. This makes direct comparison to non-aboriginal populations difficult.

Instead, epidemiologists who study native alcoholism rely on data that show why natives get sick or die.

Injury and poisoning are leading causes of mortality and morbidity in aboriginal communities, both of which are consistent with alcohol abuse.

Few would argue, however, that alcohol is not a problem in Canada’s aboriginal communities.

A 1984 survey of First Nations communities in Manitoba found that 86 per cent rated alcohol as either a “serious problem” or “major problem.”

A study in Ontario the following year found that alcohol consumption was as much as 35 per cent higher in counties that have native reserves than those that don’t.

But other data assembled by Health Canada show that a lower proportion of aboriginals drink daily (two per cent versus three per cent of non-natives) and fewer drink weekly (35 per cent versus 46 per cent) than non-aboriginals. Also, almost twice as many aboriginals count themselves as teetotallers. About 15 per cent of aboriginals say they abstain from drinking, compared with eight per cent of other Canadians.

“There are indications that drinking is more tenacious among young people on reserves,” said Gary Roberts of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

“But there’s not a lot of good information.”

He says figures show that aboriginal youth are between twice and six times as likely to have alcohol problems as non-natives of the same age.

Mr. Roberts says another test of drinking problems, the rate of fetal alcohol syndrome, has also been tested in aboriginal communities, but it is difficult to compare to non-native rates because of a lack of data.

The perception of high rates of native alcoholism is partly grounded in reality, he says, but has been embellished by non-aboriginals who have limited exposure to reserves.

Non-natives are likely to form their opinion on native drinking from the people they encounter on city streets, he said.

“It comes from people’s perceptions, noticing that particularly off reserves in Western Canada you will find individuals of aboriginal descent living on the street.’

Off-reserve natives are believed to have a much higher rate of alcohol and drug dependency, but again, there is little reliable information to back up this theory. Data collection in urban centres has been even less rigorous than on the reserves.

Mr. Roberts said there is nothing but anecdotal evidence to support Mr. Coon Come’s assertion that there is an alcohol problem among the aboriginal political leadership.

“But if it does occur, it is going to limit their effectiveness to become active on the alcohol-abuse problems in their communities,” he said.

Bankers Call Shots on Manitoba’s Peguis First Nation, Say Upset Band Members

By Scott Edmonds

WINNIPEG (CP) – A bank is calling the financial shots on one of Manitoba’s largest First Nations, claims a group of dissident band members who blame unaccountable leadership for the problem.

After years of trying to get financial information out of Chief Louis Stevenson, the Concerned Citizens of Peguis finally managed to obtain an audit and other material earlier this year.

They found a $27 million current and capital debt. There was also a deal with the Royal Bank of Canada to borrow almost $12 million to keep the wolves at bay, with strict conditions on what financial decisions the band may now make. Nevertheless, band leadership is now busy delivering new furniture and appliances to band members on the eve of council elections, complains Herb Hudson.

“They give out furniture to select people,” he said Tuesday.
“This is how they obtain their votes.”

Hudson is seeking a seat on council in Friday’s band elections. His nephew Glenn Hudson is running against Stevenson for the position of chief of the reserve, which has an on-and off-reserve population of 7,000.

Off-reserve residents will be eligible to vote for the first time. But Hudson denies the release of the financial information is directly connected to the election. And he says despite the revelations, band members are reluctant to openly oppose Stevenson.

“There’s a lot of fear. People don’t want to speak out.”

The 300-square-kilometre reserve is located on rocky soil between Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg. Unemployment runs around 85 per cent and some residents complain of poor housing and an administration that looks after itself first.

Stevenson earns a tax-free salary of around $96,000 and racked up a personal travel bill last year of about $70,000, say the financial documents obtained by the dissidents.

Stevenson, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, has said the band’s money is well invested and the reserve has $90 million in assets, a claim Hudson says is ridiculous.

This isn’t the first time Stevenson as been accused of being autocratic and secretive. Last year he had the publisher of an aboriginal newspaper ejected from a meeting on the reserve with Premier Gary Doer when the publisher tried to raise questions of accountability.

Stevenson also led a group of protesters who attacked the Manitoba legislature in 1999 and were rebuffed with pepper spray by police.

The complaints about Stevenson occur just as MPs were set to discuss a resolution in the House of Commons that would shed a little light on the financial affairs of all Canada’s First Nations.

A Canadian Alliance motion would compel government to release First Nation audits currently kept confidential under a 12-year-old Federal Court ruling. The governing Liberals have said they will support the motion.

First Nations get about $7 billion annually.

Thomas Prince: Canada’s Forgotten Aboriginal War Hero

By Lloyd Dohla

The ten war medals of Canada’s most decorated aboriginal war hero Sergeant Thomas George Prince, a veteran of WWII and the Korean War, returned to the Prince family after being lost for over 30 years. Thomas Prince

“I was out in Halifax for the AFN meeting when I got the call that the medals were coming up for auction. We re-organized our committee and began to write letters for a fundraising media campaign and I did some radio talk shows,” said Jim Bear, nephew to the late Thomas Prince.

Money and pledges poured in from across the country. Bear, a prominent member of the Winnipeg aboriginal community has been after the medals since 1995, when the medals first re-surfaced after eighteen years after the death of Tommy Prince in November 1977. The medals were auctioned off by a Winnipeg coin dealer for $17,500 in 1997.

The ten medals were bought by the Prince family at a London, Ontario auction for $75,000 on the third bid.

The medals from WWII includes the King George Military Medal and the US Silver Star, which was presented to Prince at Buckingham Palace by King George VI, for his five years of outstanding service as a member of the First Special Service Force, a combined Canadian-US elite airborne unit that came to be known as the famed “Devil’s Brigade”.

The wartime experience of Sergeant Tommy Prince is the stuff of legend. He was a quiet ordinary man who had greatness thrust upon him by the force of one of the greatest conflicts in the history of Western civilization. It’s as if he was born and bred for one great task and then cast aside by the very society he fought for. He was a true son of his people and a great warrior.

His life story is told in the publication Manitobans in Profile: Thomas George Prince, 1981, Penguin Publishers Ltd., Winnipeg, Manitoba. It’s a fascinating piece of Canadianna.

Thomas George Prince was the great-great-grandson of the famous Chief Peguis, the Salteaux chief who led his people to the southwestern shore of Lake Winnipeg in the late 1790’s from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. One of eleven children, Tommy Prince was born in a canvas tent on a cold October day in 1915. When he was five, the family moved to the Brokenhead reserve just outside of Scanterbury, some 80 kilometers north of Winnipeg, where he learned his father’s skills as a hunter and trapper. As a teenager, Prince joined the Army cadets and perfected his skill with a rifle until he could put five bullets through a target the size of a playing card at 100 metres.

When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Prince volunteered at 24, and was accepted as a sapper in the Royal Canadian Engineers, which he served with for two years. In June 1940, he volunteered for paratrooper service. The training was hard and very few successfully completed. Prince was one of nine out of a hundred to win his wings from the parachute school at Ringway, near Manchester, England.

It wasn’t his ability to “jump” that made him a good paratrooper. Prince had a natural instinct for “ground”. He would land, creep forward on his belly with the speed and agility of a snake and take advantage of small depressions in an otherwise flat field to conceal himself from view. He was a crack shot with a rifle and crafty as a wolf in the field.

p. 19, Manitobans in Profile

Prince was promoted to Lance Corporal as a result of his impressive skills and in September, 1942, flew back to Canada to train with the first Canadian Parachute Battalion and was soon promoted to sergeant. It merged with the United States Special Force, the airborne unit known as the “Green Berets.” The First Special Service Force was an experiment in unity that was composed of 1600 of the “toughest men to be found in Canada and the United States.”

All the men were qualifies paratroopers and received training in unarmed combat, demolition, mountain fighting and as ski troops. They were described as “the best small force of fighting men ever assembled on the North American continent” and the “best god-damned fighters in the world and a terror to their enemies.”.

This combined elite force was first called into action in January 1943, when the Japanese occupied Kiska, an island in the Aleutian chain of islands near Alaska in the Pacific but the Japanese had already withdrew. They went to the Mediterranean, followed by the Sicily landing. By a daring maneuver, it captured strategic Monte la Difensa, an extremely difficult piece of ground. Fighting side by side with the US Fifth Army, it maintained an aggressive offensive throughout the Italian campaign. The liberation of Rome was the culmination of its daring exploits.

A natural hunter, Prince’s fieldcraft was unequalled and in recognition of unique abilities, he was made reconnaissance sergeant. At night, Prince would crawl toward the enemy lines, mostly alone, to listen to the Germans, estimate their numbers and report back to his battalion commander.

Before every attack, he was sent out to reconnoiter enemy positions and landscape formations that could provide cover for an attacking platoon.

Prince’s most daring exploit was on the Anzio beach-head where the Special Service Force had fought for ninety days without relief on the frontlines.

On February 8, 1944, Sergeant Prince went out alone on a voluntary assignment to run a radio wire 1500 metres into enemy territory to an abandoned farmhouse where he established an observation post. From his post, Prince could observe enemy troop movements unseen by the Allied artillery and radio back their exact locations. Armed with this knowledge, the Allied artillery could lay down an accurate barrage and successfully destroyed four enemy positions.

When the communications were abruptly cut off, Prince knew what had happened. Shellfire from the opposing armies had cut the line. Without concern for his own safety, Prince stripped off his uniform and dressed in farmer’s clothes left behind. At that time, many Italian farmers persisted in remaining on their farms despite the war that raged around them.

Acting as an angry farmer, Prince went out into the field shaking his fists and shouting at the German-Italian line and then to the Allied line. Taking a hoe out into the field, he pretended to work the field in plain view of the enemy line while he secretly followed the radio line to where the break had occurred. Pretending to tie his shoe, he secretly sliced the line together and continued to work the field before retiring back to the farmhouse where he continued to relay enemy positions. With the positions of the enemy revealed to the Allied artillery, the enemy soon withdrew.

Only then did Prince return to his CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Gilday who recommended Prince for the Military Medal for “exceptional bravery in the field.”

It was at Anzio that the Force earned the name “Devil’s Brigade.” In the diary of a dead German soldier was a passage that read, “The black devils are all around us every time we come into the line.”

The passage was a reference to the Force’s tactic of smearing their faces with black and sneaking past Axis lines under the cover of darkness and slitting the throats of enemy soldiers.

Following the capture of Italy, the Devil’s Brigade took part in the seizure of coastal islands during the invasion of southern France. The Force gained the mainland and proceeded up the Riviara until they reached mountainous defenses held by German forces.

To break the impasse, the Force would have to launch a surprise attack, destroy the enemy defensive line and quickly capture the reserve battalions before they could be brought up as reinforcements. To accomplish this daring move, the Force needed to know the exact location of enemy reserves and details of roads and bridges.

With only a private, Prince breached the enemy line and located the reserve encampment.. On the way back to report, Prince ands the private came upon a battle between some Germans and a squad of French partisans. From a rear position, the pair began to pick off the Germans until they withdrew as a result of high casualties.

When Prince made contact with the French leader, the Frenchman asked “Where is the rest of your company?” Pointing to the private, Prince said “Here.”

“Mon Dieu. I thought there were at least fifty of you!” said the astonished Frenchman.

The French commander recommended Prince for the Croix de Guerre, but the courier was killed en route and the message never reached the French Commander-in-Chief, Charles de Gaulle.

Returning to his own line, Prince was again sent out to the action on the frontline, despite his fatigue. Then, the enemy line was breached and an attack was launched on the German encampment reported by Prince. When the battle had ended, Prince had been without food or sleep for 72 hours, fought two battles and covered over 70 km on foot. For his role, the Americans awarded Prince the Silver Star.

One of his proudest moments and most cherished memories was when King George VI pinned on the Military Medal and the Silver Star, on behalf of President Roosevelt, and chatted with Prince about his wartime experiences.

Sergeant Thomas Prince was one of 59 Canadians awarded the US Silver Star and one of three who were awarded the King George Military Medal.

In December 1944, the Devil’s Brigade was disbanded. The war in Europe ended while Prince was in England. He returned to Canada and was honourably discharged on June 15, 1945.

Prince returned to civilian life on the Brokenhead reserve and found that few things had changed. He worked in a pulpwood camps and was a heavy drinker on weekends. In 1946, at a dance a woman attacked him with a broken beer bottle and badly cut his right cheek requiring 64 stitches.

It was a major turning point for Prince. He resolved to leave the reserve and get a job in Winnipeg.

With the assistance from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, he established his own cleaning service with a half-ton panel truck and cleaning supplies and, for a time, prospered.

At the time, the Manitoba Indian Association had been seeking an influential spokesperson and on December 1, 1946 elected him as chairman. The federal government had recently announced the formation of a Special Parlimentary Committee to revise the Indian Act.

The Manitoba Indian Association were concerned about the slow encroachment on their hunting and trapping rights. They wanted better housing, roads and educational opportunities for their children and financial assistance to start up businesses.

Prince arranged for friends to run his small, but profitable business. As chairman, he consulted extensively with aboriginal communities across Manitoba. He developed clear, well-documented arguments that made clear the Manitoba Association’s concerns in a brief presented to the committee on June 5, 1947.

Prince was overcome and frustrated by the legalese government officials threw out to counter his arguments. The committee hearings dragged on for two months, Prince became increasingly frustrated. He tried to persuade other aboriginal representatives to travel to London and appeal to King George VI whom he had met.

While some changes were made the Indian Act, life for Canada’s Indians remained unchanged. Prince came to realize from the committee hearings that Indian people lacked prestige in the eyes of post-war Canadian society, who generally looked down on Indian people. To change this widely-held view became somewhat of an obsession with him.

He returned to Winnipeg with the intention of building up his business but instead found that his “friends” had wrecked his truck in an accident and was sold for scrap metal. With no recourse, Prince returned to the lumber camps a and worked at a local concrete factory in the summers.

Then, at the age of 34, one week after the Canadian government announced its involvement in Korea, Tommy Prince again volunteered.

As part of its UN commitments, the Canadian government formed and trained the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI), which Prince joined as a seasoned veteran. He and other veterans were re-instated at their former ranks, in charge of training fresh recruits.

Tom Prince exalted in the military tradition of the 2PPCLI, where he was the hard-boiled sergeant whose legendary exploits were held in awe by the fresh recruits.

Following basic training at Wainwright, Alberta, the 2PPCLI sailed across the Pacific on December 7, 1950 and was the first Canadian unit to land and to become part of 27th Commonwealth Brigade in Korea.

Prince’s service on the Korean frontline was intense, but brief. Second in command of a rifle platoon, the 2PPCLI were part of a commonwealth effort to push back the North Korean forces from hill and mountain strongholds.

In February, 1951, Prince led a “snatch patrol” of eight men into enemy territory and captured two guarded machine gun posts as part of a demoralization effort. The tactic was repeated successfully many times with Prince in charge. But his commanding officers felt that Prince took too many chances with the men’s lives and eventually assigned him fewer patrols.

Prince was with the 2PPCLI when, together with the 3rd Royal Australian Regiment, were awarded the United States’ Presidential Unit Citation for distinguished service in the Kapyong valley on April 24 and 25, during one of the toughest actions of the war. The Patricias were to hold a defensive position on Hill 677 so that a South Korean division could withdraw during an attack by Chinese and North Korean forces. Although at one point the battalion was surrounded and re-supply of ammunition and emergency rations could only be accomplished by air, the Patricias held their ground. The enemy withdrew. Ten 2PPCLI men were killed and twenty-three were wounded during the battle.

His knees were subject to painful swelling as a result of the constant climbing of the steep Korean country side. Following a medical examination in May 1951, he was hospitalized and then assigned administrative duties. In August, he returned to Canada.

Prince remained in active service as an administrative sergeant at Camp Bordon in Ontario.

His knees responded to the added rest and in March 1952, Prince volunteered for a second tour of duty and sailed for Korea in October with the 3rd Battalion PPCLI.

In November, the training of the 3PPCLI was interrupted by fighting on “the Hook”, a key position of the Sami-chon River that overlooked much of the rear areas of the UN forces.

When a Chinese battalion gained a foothold on the forward positions of another UN unit on November 18, the 3rd PPCLI was ordered in to help defend the sector. By dawn, of the following day, with the assistance of the 3rd Patricias, the UN unit recaptured the post. Five Patricias were killed and nine wounded, one of whom was Sergeant Prince.

He recovered from his injury, but began to have continual difficulties with his arthritic knees He spent several weeks in the hospital between January and April. In July, 1953, the Korea Armistice was signed and Prince returned to Canada. He remained in the army until September 1954, when he was discharged with a small pension because of his bad knees.

Unskilled and unable to fit into the post-war boom, Prince retained only menial jobs and was the subject of scorn from white workers ignorant of his wartime gallantry. His skills as a hunter that made him one of the best soldiers had no value in the urban centre of Winnipeg in the early 1950’s.

In many ways, Tom’s problems were typical of a certain type of returning soldier. These men had been unskilled workers prior to joining the army. From being in low socio-economic position, they suddenly became respected and honoured men who wore a uniform and commanded attention. Men like Prince were promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officers and had authority over others. When they were demobilized from the army, all the power and respect which their uniforms generated suddenly disappeared.

-p.44, Manitobans in Profile

Nevertheless, Prince met and married Verna Sinclair shortly after and had five children together. By the early 1960’s, nothing had really changed for Indian people. Prince still suffered from discrimination at the jobs he could get. Often he simply quit. His arthritic knees got worse so he drank more. All of this led to money problems and he and Verna separated in 1964. His five children had to be placed in foster homes by the Children’s Aid Society. Prince tried to keep in touch with his children but they were often moved to other foster homes. Only his daughter, Beryl, who remained in one foster home for seven years could he keep in touch with and he visited monthly and never gave trying to keep in touch with his other children. In the years before his death, Prince “was a truly forgotten man.” It was during these years that he pawned his prized medals.

Tommy Prince died at Winnipeg’s Deer Hospital on November 1977, at the age of 62. At his funeral, a delegation of Princess Patricias served as pallbearers and draped a Canadian flag over his coffin for the memorial service attended by active soldiers, veterans and representatives from France, Italy and United States, friends and family.

As the coffin was lowered onto the ground, Beryl and Beverly Prince, Tommy’s daughters, shed tears. When the officer in charge presented Beverly with the Canadian flag which had been draped over the coffin the flow of tears increased. Who were all these strangers, both military and civilian, honouring her father with apparent sadness and great respect? Where had they been these past years when her father, crippled from machine- gun wounds, was forced to do menial jobs to keep alive? Were the honour and respect given only after his death? Did these people really care or was this just a colourful pageant performed by white people for entertainment?

– p. 6 Manitobans in Profile

The ten medals of Sergeant Thomas Prince have been verified as the originals by the War Museum in Ottawa and will be held in trust for the Prince family at the Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg.

Matthew Coon Responds to the Burnt Church Crisis

Exactly six years ago, on September 6, 1995, Dudley George was shot and killed for defending his land at Ipperwash Park in Ontario. That action by government officials was called enforcement of the law. The courts later ruled that Dudley George was a victim if an official homicide, that he was killed by an officer of the state in violation of the law. The government of Canada lied and told the United Nations that Dudley George was killed in response to “armed natives firing on the police”. Canada refused to officiallyinform the United Nations of the legal judgement that Dudley George was unarmed when he was shot and killed illegally by a law enforcement officer. This great bug wealthy country is afraid – perhaps ashamed – of telling the truth about First Nations Peoples’ rights and the police killing of Dudley George.

Three weeks ago in Burnt Church I called upon the Government of Canada to respect its own laws, to call off the troops, and to enter into a relationship with our First Nations Peoples that is fair, equitable, and just.

The terrible, violent, repressive, and disrespectful behaviour towards our people that Canada has shown, in its disregard for our people’s lives over the past few weeks, demonstrates that Canada has not heard our voices or understood our determination.

Today I want to discuss with you what we have to tell Canadians in order to be better understood. But first I want to thank you for your patience and your good will. I want to thank you for maintaining reason and right in the face of violence and repression. You have waited patiently for 150 years to have your rights respected – all the while with Canada denying that you have any rights – and now the time has come to live our lives and have what is ours. We will not back down.

We will not back down in the face of government violence and repression. We will not give up our rights which we practiced and excercised long before there was any thought about the existence of Canada. We will not be beaten into submission.

First Nations Peoples are waiting and watching patiently all over this land. They see the behaviour and brutal attitudes of Canada. And they are asking a question: Can we finally have what is ours? Can we have a fair and equitable part of the great wealth that is in this land? Or will we continue to be made the poorest of the poor while all around us people use and exploit our resources to enrich themselves at our expense?

This is not solely about fish. This is not solely about lobsters or snow crabs. This is about life, and the land and resources that support our existence and well being. This is about Canada’s persistent policy of dispossession of our lands and resources. This is about a repressive government that finally showed its true face to the world in the past few weeks.

This is Canada’s hidden character. Our peoples’ patience is tested when they see their brothers and sisters under attack. How easy it is for a government to attack one First Nation while the other First Nations keep the peace and hold themselves in restraint. Our peoples display great patience in the face of such irresponsibility and provocation by federal authorities.

We have something to tell Canadians. No, enforcement is never “pretty”. What a sick and sorry excuse to say a thing like that. Canada was not enforcing the law. No, Minister Dhaliwal, you are not respecting the rule of law. You were continuing Canada’s policy of dispossession and denial of our fundamental human rights.

Mr. Dhaliwal you are responsible for attempts to harm, or perhaps even murder our people. Thank God that no one was killed. Your officials tried. That is clear for everyone to see. Nothing could be more obvious – running over our boats. Attacking people in the water. Sinking boats. What a wanton and sickening disregard for life your troops have shown.

Was that the rule of law? We waited 150 years for the Supreme Court to affirm rights that we have always had. Where was your enforcement when our boats were being burned? How did you protect us when our houses were set afire?

The old excuse that you did not want to provoke a confrontation – you show no such restraint when you officials decide it is worth risking killing our people to demonstrate the supremacy of your authority.

For 150 years you denied our right to fish, and you said that was the law. Donald Marshall Junior did not go to the Supreme Court of Canada of his own free will. You dragged Donald Marshall through every court in this land all the way to the Supreme Court over what? – a few eels. You said you were enforcing the law, but the Supreme Court said you were wrong. You should have been ashamed to put Mr. Marshall through another ordeal of law. He had already suffered enough from Canada’s so-called law. Where was Canada’s judgement and reason?

Canada was not prepared to lose the Marshall Case. That is the simple answer. Canada fought against the recognition of our ancestral and treaty rights for 150 years. the government expected to win in its own courts, and was not prepared to recognize our rights even when we won in court.

Canada made no preparations to respect First Nations Peoples’ rights that it has always denied and repudiated. Canada – as usual when First Nations Peoples’ are concerned – took a one-side view of the Marshall Case. It was not prepared to advocate for Donald Marshall. Not a single person in the whole Government of Canada was prepared to be an advocate of the rights of First Nations Peoples to pursue their livelihood. Such thinking, it turns out, is inimical to Canada’s whole approach to our rights.

I have already said – I want Canada to respect its own laws. I want Canada to respect its Constitution, which it says is the highest law in the land. Instead, what we have is the selective misuse of the law to deny the rights of First Nations. Canada picks and chooses the laws it wants to enforce, and those it wants to ignore or repudiate. For 150 years Canada said that we did not have the right to the fisheries resource. That was the law.

Mr. Minister, read the Marshall Decision. It does not give you the right to run over and sink our boats. It does not give your officials the right to attempt to kill our people. it does not allow you to continue to deny our right to fish and to continue to say “that is the law”. It does not give you the right to regulate our continued poverty and dependence.

The selective application of the law, and the denial of our aboriginal and constitutional rights has filled the prisons of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba with First Nations victims of the Canadian justice system. The wanton disregard of our rights in law enable the clear-cutting of our forests, the flooding of our lands, the desecration of our burial sites, and the continued dispossession of our land and natural resources.

Canada has a strange and distorted view of the law when it comes to First Nations. It is afraid of any recognition of our rights. It punishes us now for every assertion of our rights. Even when we seek legal redress through the courts it attempts to punish us for using its own courts. When we act to excercise our rights, it uses force and violence against our people without restraint or reason.

The world can now see this, and I commend the people of Burnt Church for having the courage to make the picture clear for all to see. Canada has acted irresponsibly and dangerously. Canada has not respected the Marshall Decision and other Supreme Court rulings such as Delgamuukw, Sparrow and Gladstone. It has not respected its own laws. It has chosen the arbitrary and capricious use of force to assert a jurisdiction that it does not have under law.

Canada is continuing after the Marshall Decision the same denial of our rights that it asserted for 150 years before the Marshall Decision. Canada still refuses to excercise its constitutional duty to give paramountey to our treaty rights. It prefers to fight us, rather than respect its fiduciary duty to defend and promote our rights.

Canadians are not being told the truth. They are told that our rights are race based. Canada fears to tell its citizens what is in its own Constitution. We have to tell the Canadian public; We have rights because we were nations here before there ever was a Canada. Our rights pre-date Canada. Our rights exist because we are nations and peoples. Our rights are based on original ownership of lands and resources. In simple terms – we were here first.

We never gave up these rights. And here is why Canada put up such a fight against Donald Marshall; the maritime treaties contain no surrender or extinguishment provisions. Canada fears treaties that are made nation-to-nation between equals. It insists on a relationship based upon its own supremacy and dominance. That is why it insists on extinguishment, even though the United Nations has condemned Canada’s use of extinguishment against aboriginal peoples as a violation of Canada’s obligations under international law of human rights.

Canada can not rely on extinguishment; instead it has chosen to rely on force. Canada can not pass the buck to the provinces as it likes to do, and say that the provinces has resource jurisdication, because these are clearly federal responsibilities – treaty rights of First Nations and federal fisheries.

So Canada has turned to the excuse of conversation. Canadians need to understand just how dishonest their government has been on the subject of conversation. Canada intnetionally and falsely told Canadians that the First Nations are destroying the lobster fishery.

Conservation is an embarrassment for Canada. The DFO is famous world over for its failure to protect the cod fishery until it was too late. It is also famous for political interference standing in place of legal responsibility. Canada is a very poor and incompetent guardian of the environment and its natural resources. We need only look at the sad conditionof Canadian forests and rivers to find out about conservation. Who is the government trying to fool?

The fact is that there are about 3 million DFO officially sancitioned lobster traps in the water in the Atlantic Fishery. The real number may be as high as 4 million traps, because the DFO has only a small budget for its very lax enforcement against non-natives. Against this reality we have to consider the actual number of First Nations traps in the water – maybe 100. Even if First Nations put in 5000 traps or more, this would represent. a miniscule proportion of the millions of traps on the coast – a tiny fraction of on percent, certainly no conversation threat.

No, here once again conversation is being presented to Canadians as justification for repression of First Nations peoples’ rights. Once the Canadian public knows these hidden facts about the size of the industry, the issue will be understood for what it is – Canada’s refusal to accept a Supreme Court decision that it doesn’t like.

Canada does not want First Nations Peoples to know that the United Nations has recognized that our right of self-determination and our right to benefit from the resources of our lands is protected by international law. Canada has failed to inform Canadians, the Courts, and First Nations Peoples of the UN’S decision – as it is stipulated to the UN it would do – meanwhile enforcing the denial of our resource rights in the forest, on the water, and in the courts.

The UN has told Canada that First Mations Peoples must be permitted to share the wealth of the land. That, we must explain to Canadians, is what this all about. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 5 year, $58 million Report confirmed this as the answer. The UN has told Canada to implement the RCAP, urgently. Canada does not want to implement the RCAP, and continues to mis-characterize it as unrealistic and impossible to do.

This government is dead set, from all we can see, against the recognition of our economic rights. The Canadian Atlantic lobster fishery is worth close to half a billion dollars a year. Billions of dollars worth of trees are taken from our lands each year. Our rivers produce billions of hydro-electricity dollars. Our lands are mined and flooded, but little of anything is returned to our people – and what little there is, is always characterized to the Canadian public as something we are being given, something that is not ours by right.

This tells us about the work we have to do. We have to explain to Canadians and to the world that our participation in the larger economy is a reasonable and desirable outcome of the recognition of our rights. Canada wants to avoid or postpone our emergence as economic and political paricipants. It continues to pursue policies of denial, repression, and actual violence against our First Nations citizens.

Canada takes an enormous risk in continuing with this policy. Its refusal to implement the decisions of its own courts or the recommendations of its own Royal Commission set the stage for other means to be used. Its refusal to respect its own international rights commitments, or to give credence to UN decisions and recommendations force us to consider all of our possible recourses. Canada is clearly moving away from respect for the rule of the law into arbitrary and capricious acts that engender disrespect for all authority.

Canada opposed Donald Marshall. It lost. It is now time to do the necessary work – the economic studies, the community consultations, the fisheries studies – to fully implement that decision. In the meanwhile there must be no arbitrary enforcement of a supposed Marshall Decision made up by the Minister and fisheries officials. No, our rights stand.

We will excercise our rights to fish in the interim. This will be an encouragement for Canada to act forthwith and with deliberate speed. Canada’s enforcement responsibilities are to assure respect for our rights. When we reach an equitable arrangement that fully implement our resource rights, we will have a solution.

Any solution which perpetuates the old denials and injustices will not stand no matter how many people insist upon it, or how many enforcement officers are brought down on our people. It simply will not stand.

Our people know that our survival as First Nations depends upon our access to lands and resources. Any threats against us that government authorities can devise look hollow and foolish indeed, against our needs to survive as peoples and nations.

I admonish the government of Canada once again – on the fifth anniversary of the unlawful shooting by the state of Dudley George, and as DFO boats are violently confronting our people on the waters off Burnt Church – to fully and equitably respect its own laws.

We First Nations Peoples are here to stay. We will do what we have to do to bring about respect of our fundamental human rights.

Working With the System Didn’t Work For Him

Three years ago, when Phil Fontaine strode confidently in to the Assembly of First Nations’ national conference as a contender for the position of national chief, his rival, then-chief Ovide Mercredi, was everything he was not: Filled with bluster and aggression, Mr. Mercredi had bullied his way on the national agenda, routinely blasting the federal government for various affronts to his people.

But Mr. Mercredi’s tactics – blockades and publicity stunts meant to draw attention to his causes – had become a concern for the chiefs with voting power. While Mr. Mercredi could grab headlines, he had provided little in the way of results – and along the way of results – and along the way, had soured his relationship with Ron Irwin, then the minister of Indian affairs, who eventually refused to meet with him. What the assembly needed, the voters reasoned, was someone who could mend fences with Ottawa.

They found their man in Phil Fontaine. Within 24 hours of his victory over Mr. Mercredi, Jane Stewart, the newly minted minister of Indian affairs, offered Mr. Fontaine her personal congratulations. A new era of native politics in Canada began. But just as his diplomatic grace won him favour in 1997, so too did it prove his undoing yesterday.

While Mr. Fontaine worked as the consummate negotiator, building stronger services for native people and presiding over increased budgets, some natives came to see him as part of the bureaucratic machine, rather than their representatives inside it.

“For some of the First Nations, that kind of talk got them wary, because you’re talking to the oppressor,” said Meo Litman, a professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in native affairs and government.

Alex Roslin, editor of The Nation, a national First Nations affairs magazine, said there were no clear moments in Mr. Fontaine’s career when he could have scored points with his constituents as a hard-liner, through his voice could have been heard more clearly on a host of recent disputes, including last year’s conflict over native rights to lobster fishing in the Maritimes, or when natives in British Columbia argued over logging rights.

Growing fears that the new Canadian Alliance party might have an interest in rolling back native self-government rights were met by Mr. Fontaine not with a public attack, but rather a private meeting between he and then-leader Preston Manning. It came down to a question of style, Mr. Roslin said – the same style that had served as so successful a foil to Mr. Mercredi’s hostility three years before.

“Phil’s argument has been that, because he’s close to the Liberal government, he has access to power and he’s able to negotiate a better situation, but others argue that that’s not the case,” says Mr. Roslin.

“Some people say that the AFN is too focused on administering services to First Nations, or it’s too focused on work related to the governing of First Nations, rather than standing up for First Nations’ rights.”

That ability to stand up for rights became a key element in the victory of his rival, Matthew Coon Come. While Mr. Fontaine built a reputation as a diplomat, Mr. Coon Come became known, Mr. Litman said, “as someone who’s been willing to take on the big boys,” referring to his successful campaign to derail a $7-billion Hydro-Quebec project for Cree ancestral lands in Northern Quebec in 1994.

Mr. Coon Come, a former grand chief of the Quebec Cree, has also taken the plight of Native Canadians outside the realm of national politics, to the United Nations. Mr. Coon Come’s victory appears to have been brewing for some time. Dan Le Moal, who writes for The First Perspective, a national aboriginal newspaper based in Winnipeg, recalls a recent debate between the candidates in the northern Manitoba town of Thompson, where, he says “you could really see the tide shifting.” Mr. Fontaine delivered an eloquent speech that touched on his priorities – of building bridges, of maintaining the momentum in Ottawa.

But it was Mr. Coon Come who stirred the crowd. “Before, it would have been easy to think that Phil had a lock on [the election], but when we heard the debate in Thompson, that kind of changed things. Chiefs were really applauding Matthew, and you could tell that people were really dissatisfied with Phil.

“In the end, he not going to try to upset the system so much as work with it, and some people saw that as a problem.”

Crisis Inspired Many Native People

A decade later, the 82-year-old woman hasn’t forgotten the clamour of a hot, angry summer afternoon. It sounded like a big thunder roll, she remembered, the sound of rocks striking the cars in a convoy of Mohawk elders, children and woman trying to leave the nastiest crisis between natives and whites in modern Canada.

“I can hear it still,” the woman said. Sometimes, when I’m laying down and I can’t sleep, I think about it.”

Sitting in her kitchen in the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, just outside Montreal, Mary D’Ailleboust recalled the day she and her daughter and Mona, 47, granddaughter Monica, 23 – who was seven months pregnant – and Monica’s three children, aged 7, 5 and 2, packed themselves into their Chevy.

It was during the 1990 Oka crisis and a convoy of children, elderly and weak residents were leaving Kahnawake. They didn’t know a mob of whites outside the reserve would bombard their cars with rocks, a hideous low moment in the country’s relations with its aboriginal people.

“People should not forget what happened,” Mrs. D’Ailleboust defiantly said. “They’re more savage than we are. Remember that we are a people. We owned this land.”

It was 10 years ago July 11 that the most acute aboriginal crisis in modern times in Canada began. The 78-day Oka crisis left lingering bitterness between Mohawks and their neighbours. But at the same time, Oka would become a turning point, hauling into a broader consciousness native grievances that had long simmered away from public attention.

“I look at Oka as a victory, a victory for native rights,” said Kenneth Deer, editor of the Mohawk newspaper The Eastern Door. “In the end, the governments had to listen to us.”

He mentioned recent native gains such as the unprecedented powers provided in the Nisga’a treaty or creation of the northern territory of Nunavut. “Look at Nunavut, there wouldn’t be a Nunavut, without Oka. We had to suffer for other people’s gains.”
Oka inspired aboriginal people all over Canada.

“It made me feel better to be native. I felt stronger,” said Barney McLeod, an Ojibwa sculptor living in Vancouver, who quit his construction job in Toronto during the crisis and drove all night to deliver canned food to Kahnawake. “A lot of people felt sorry for themselves for being native. But after Oka, native people became prouder and stronger.”

The crisis began in the scenic town of Oka, 60 kilometres west of Montreal, in a dispute over a planned condominium expansion to golf complex. The housing was to be built on land claimed by the neighbouring Mohawk community of Kanesatake and would have encircled the native cemetery.

Mohawk protesters set up barricades in the pine forest at the heart of the dispute. At 5:30 am on July 11, a Surete du Quebec (provincial police) tactical squad arrived in Oka and officers positioned themselves around the pines. Within an hour of the SQ’s arrival, in support of their fellow natives in Oka, hard-line Mohawks at Kahnawake south of Montreal blocked the Mercier bridge, a major thoroughfare used daily by 70,000 suburban commuters.

Caught between two hot spots, the provincial police rushed the Oka barricades at 8:45 am. A gunfight erupted, killing police officer Corporal Marcel Lemay. A surreal, angry summer had begun. For 78 days, armed natives would be in a standoff against thousands of police officers and soldiers.

It was a summer of anger because non-Mohawk residents in Chateauguay, the bedroom suburb that was cut off by the bridge blockade, became incensed that natives defying their police were blocking their commute to work.

During those torrid nights in the summer of 1990, mobs enraged vigilantes roamed the outskirts of the reserve, waving baseball bats. They roughed up anyone who looked native, they roughed up white people who tried to drive through their road blocks, they roughed up reporters. And then they turned their ire on the police, who tear-gassed them during several nights of wild rioting.

It could have been avoided, and not just because, as coroner Guy Gilbert’s inquest later established, the federal government failed to quickly settle the Oka land dispute or because the SQ launched its assault so hastily.

In the months before the conflict, Mohawk communities had been in turmoil, torn between supporters if the elected band councils, non-violent traditionalists, and so-called Warriors, armed, militant hard-liners.

The emergence of the contraband tobacco trade and gambling halls was pitting Mohawks against Mohawks, degenerating sometimes into furious gun battles. Kahnawake radio host Joe Delaronde, an outspoken critic of the Warriors, recalled getting death threats and finding a skinned cat on his lawn. So when the tactical squad arrived in Oka, it faced a volatile environment, full of short-fused, bellicose gunmen. “We were ready for them, but people in the pines were not fighting over casinos or cigarettes,” Mr. Deer said.

That’s because the stakes in the conflict were also numbingly familiar to all native communities, pitting aboriginal territorial claims against the business concerns of their non-native neighbours. Their land hemmed in, with little industrial or agricultural base, the Mohawks had for generations struggled economically. Generations of Mohawk men expatriated themselves to become iron-workers on the construction sites of the northeastern United States. More recently, they tried to cash in on their tax-exemption status by selling tax-free goods or opening gambling halls.

“In hindsight, you can see how all that fueled the social crisis among the Mohawks,” Montreal anthropologist Pierre Trudel said.

A month before the July 11 gunfight, Mr. Trudel had visited Kanesatake just after a police raid against the local Mohawk bingo.

The Mohawks that Mr. Trudel noted bitterly that the SQ no longer dared enter their sister community of Kahnawake because of the emergence of the Warrior Society there. The lesson was clear to Mohawks: Having guns was the best deterrent to what they saw as police meddling on their land.

Peaceful channels failed that summer and so “the machos won the day and got to shoot each other,” Mr. Trudel said.

After the barricades came down, anarchy reigned in Kanesatake for years. The new elected chief was weak, and lawlessness descended on the community. It is only recently that progress has been made in policing area. The golf course was never expanded but land talks with Ottawa are still ongoing and the Mohawk community remains deeply divided.

For months, Mohawks in Kahnawake did not want to go to Chateauguay. “Our economy was in shambles and Chateauguay also suffered because we stopped buying there,” Mr. Deer said. “You wondered if the person serving you was someone who had rioted or burnt us in effigy.”

Today, a decade later, the two communities are slowly emerging from the shadows of the crisis. Little-league baseball and pee-wee hockey teams from Chateauguay have even come back to play against Mohawk teams.

In Kahnawake, the Mohawks have more autonomy. Mohawk Peacekeepers are the sole patrollers on the reserve, after an agreement with Quebec. The province also held back from cracking down on past contentious areas such as gambling, extreme-fighting tournaments or liquor licensing, leaving them to Mohawk-run institutions.

It falls short of self-determination but, for now, “we’ll assert what we can get,” Mr. Deer said.

“There’s certainly some deep wounds,” Mr. Delaronde said. “But we have to realize that it’s not the entire non-native population that was against us. Nineteen ninety was going to happen somewhere. It just happened here.”