Posts By: Danny Beaton (Mohawk)

Wendy and Alicja with the Beaton Family Nanaimo BC photo by Pat Beaton

In Memory of Alicja Rozanska

Woke up at midnight last month after sleeping four hours and was not sure if I had a vision or if I was thinking in my sleep or what, but I was having all these thoughts about my elders and who was praying with them and if they had said their last prayer.

We all need to share, communicate, work, create and heal to survive; if we find love we are lucky and if we learn to pray, then we can give thanks like all the old cultures did in the old days. Of course we are an extension of our ancestors, we are an extension of our elders and loved ones. We are the past, present and future generations; we are the light, darkness, the sun, earth, air and water. My old uncle Robertjohn says it is the old elders who have taught us as children how to give thanksgiving, how to honor life and Mother Earth; our elders teach us everything has a spirit. Robertjohn says everything is alive; if you are sitting on the moon looking down at Mother Earth, he says “alive or dead”.

When our old elders gathered up and we all stood in a circle around the sacred fire every year, our prayers got stronger and our love got stronger, but our people were getting weak from the negativity around us and we tried to keep our way of life alive, but everything was out of balance in the world, from losing our natural diets to forgetting to maintain physical, mental, spiritual indigenous lifestyle.

Robertjohn said the highest form of prayer is song. In the song is the melody, the harmony and the thought, the prayer. All the songs in the world have given so much love, joy, peace to the peoples of the world and their very spirit. Some songs are so healing we need to hear them over and over and over again. Some songs are sung every day, they are sung by the entire community, entire families, entire nations for respect, for peace, for harmony, maybe even for healing. Some songs are so powerful they are used for birth and crossing over. Some songs can be used for purification, cleaning of the mind, body and spirit. Some songs are for making happy, in giving thanks to Creation and Life and Life-giving forces. Rabbit Dance Song, Eagle Song, Fish Dance Song, songs that honor fish, birds, insects and animals bring us closer to our relations and our relatives. The songs are old, the songs are new, but they are songs that bring harmony, peace, humility, justice and unity. The song is a form of prayer, a form of respect, a form of healing. A song is from the heart, the song is from the spirit, the song can be with tears and laughter, peace and pain. Some of the most beautiful songs come from birds, animals, fish and insects, we just cannot hear some. The universe can be a place of prayer and song at times in Tibet, Mongolia, China, Africa, Greece, Turkey, Australia, Poland, Russia, America and the world. The world can be a breeding ground for peace, harmony, prayer, song and dance.

When I woke from my dream, I thought who was praying with our elders. I thought of Leon Shenandoah,  one of our most gentle Onondaga chiefs,  who was chief of the chiefs, Tadodaho, a leader of his people and culture, someone raised in peace, power, righteousness, respect and harmony. Then I thought who was praying with Austin and Hilba Two Moons when they were dissidence of his grandfather who fought in Little Big Horn and Austin always treated me like a son, the way most of our elders treated us when we attended sacred gatherings and councils. Every year our Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth/American Indian Institute would sponsor and organize our sacred councils somewhere in Canada or US, where a native community was in need of traditional native elders to help bring back their native ways and ceremonies with our help. Then I started thinking who is praying for my mom and is her apartment getting smudged and purified. I know Marcus and Priscilla Vigel had a strong community of Pueblo Culture and that their ceremonial life was strong among the families and people of New Mexico. They had two daughters, Margret and Vicky, who were like clan mothers keeping the family and community positive with prayers and good energy. Also I knew Tom Porter, our spiritual leader of the Mohawk people, was being looked after because he was always out in the community boosting people’s spirit with his wisdom and teachings of The Good Mind, of the respect needed for any family or community to find tranquility, harmony, equality, justice and peace. When I think of the love and gentleness from Ann Jock for all Indian people and all people of the world and her own family with her husband Corn Planter, I realize there is hope in the world if such love can exist on the planet! Who taught us how to pray, who taught us how to give thanksgiving, who taught us how to purify ourselves. Priscilla used to say to me, Danny you pray for me and I will pray for you in the most beautiful way. It was like a blessing just to be talked to in that gentleness and peaceful manner.

Our circle is still going, but it is not what it used to be. Our elders are being replaced by their children and it’s a new generation and not that it’s not a strong generation, but the ones who carried their fathers’ and grandfathers’ Sacred Pipes are a different breed, because you had to see the open space, freedom and cleanness of  Mother Earth to know that power and quietness of 100 years ago, even the stories that were told two hundred years ago by their elders. I remember teachings twenty-five years ago: our elders said prepare yourself for what’s coming because everything is falling apart. Even when my partner/wife was diagnosed with cancer and I tried to save her, I learned that the trees were a nation to themselves and that the plants were a nation too a part of  Mother Earth and I prayed to them to help Alicja and I prayed to the Grandmother Moon to help Alicja, but then in the end I learned I had to give thanksgiving for all the years we had together and not ask for more.

All of this stuff happening tells me how Sacred Life is, how beautiful life is all around us. Sure we can see destruction and the rape of Mother Earth by negative people and corporations, but there is natural beauty all around us, even gardens, forests, mountains and lakes to heal in and energize ourselves. Like Janice Longboat says, our teachers are all around us ready to teach, but we as people have to want to see, hear and feel the gifts that the Universe, our Great Creator has blessed us all with. Like Mac McCloud says, what Mac says has to be said, what Mac says is the truth. The way I see things is we need to give Thanksgiving ourselves, we need to be mindful of Creation and be thanksgiving people.

Danny and Alicja in Nanaimo BC photo by Pat Beaton

When I was coming home from work the other day, I thought what if all the electricity shut down, what if all the hot water stopped getting hot, where would our energy come from, what’s going to power the cities if things collapse. What happens if the oil and gas run out. This world or society is built on security and refreshments and we are forgetting the Sacredness of it all. Even though my wife is gone and even though my mom is so far away, I love them more than anything I know or can see or feel; only the moon and my grandchildren can take their place now. We are living in a fragile time with our oceans being destroyed so fast; with machinery nothing seems to be sacred any more in this world, but it all is. I am honored to be sitting here at my computer with all these memories and thoughts and I pray that we all find time to bring back the Sacred and Respect for Mother Earth and Creation and we give thanks for all those who have forgotten to be thankful.

One of my best friends and elders crossed over not long ago: Wilmer Nadjiwon was 97 years old, a chief of his people for fourteen years. When we spent time together it was like hearing the legends of the past. Wilmer was a hunter and fisherman, he could feed his family and people and he did. Wilmer went to war for Canada like many other native people when we were at war. Our ancestors are as noble as the old days but wounded and broken from residential school like my uncle Wilmer. As long as I live I will smoke my pipe for Wilmer and my wife because we were happy all together, we did ceremony together, we worked for Mother Earth together and we ate together. We were the truest extended family. Wilmer was an Ojibway hero and leader. We cannot forget our elders! Wilmer was angry but he was gentle like many native people, he was gifted and blessed to be a Sacred Artist carving, writing and painting.

Chief Oren Lyons said our Sacred Pipes belong to the Creator. We pray for all people and give thanks to Creator and Mother Earth for all the gifts from The Great Mystery.

To feel the warmth of the earth and life around us is a blessing from the universe and powers that the Great Spirit has given Human Beings. Our women and children are the biggest gift Creator has given to man to protect, honor, and celebrate creation with. So much abundance of life in so many forms, species, and the ecosystems, the circle of life and creation in all their forms. Our elders say our ancestors are waiting for us on the other side, the Buddhists say we are reincarnated, and Christians say we go to heaven.

The Navajo teach their children that there is beauty below us and beauty above us and beauty all around us, and that all Creation can hear us. When we talk to them, the plant life, rivers, lakes, mountains, stones, flowers, insects, animals, fish, birds, air, fire, and water are powers that can hear us too when we give thanks by prayer.

Uncle Robert John says that the Milky Way is a home for the Spirit World when we cross to the other side. He says our job is to help our loved ones to cross over so they can have a good journey. Carlos Santana says it is our responsibility to bury our relatives. Tom Porter said our Great Creator is The Great Mystery and The Great Spirit; many elders say Tom always has a different story to tell to inspire, to empower his Mohawk People of the Pines, the People of the Longhouse, the People of the Flint.

Ceremonies with Elders and Youth. Photo Credit: Danny Beaton 2015

When we gathered in Utah this September for the Religious Parliament, the Mayan shaman said our bones are in the same structure as the constellations and the cosmos. They also said the fire in our hearts is connected to the fire in the sun and all the planets in the universe. Then the Mayan couple, husband and wife, lead our elders through a sacred ceremony to honor and give thanks to Mother Earth and the universe.

We like to say we have a Way of Life, and it is not a religion. Natives believe we are on a spiritual journey with the natural world. But many of our people are becoming unnatural as the people of the world are falling asleep spiritually; many people of the world have become spiritually bankrupt. Father Thomas Berry the eco-Christian theologian said Human Beings have drifted into the fantasy world and the real world is being lost to the fast pace of society.

There is a divorce taking place with the natural world. This fantasy has not been positive; it is killing all the life force and species. So when Dr. Reed Noss, Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Florida, spoke at the University of Toronto in June this year, he spoke of the life species being destroyed in Florida all the way to Georgian Bay and being invaded by urban sprawl. This gift, our Mother Earth that the universe has trusted us humans with to honor and respect, is connected to us Human Beings physically, psychically and spiritually—why are we killing ourselves? We need to prepare ourselves and our families for the New Year coming and the generations that are unborn.

When my partner/wife and I returned from Walk for Water in Atlanta, Georgia, Alicja said to me we should have a walk to Stop Dump Site 41, and we did. The Walk for Water was a huge success and Steve Ogden was never happier once it went on Dale Gold Hawk with hundreds of thousands of listeners tuning in. After Alicja’s walk to Stop Site 41, Maude Barlow had another walk that started in Springwater and ended at Art Parnel’s clover field where we were camped out already for 3 months.

What I want to say now is the people who showed up were the most peaceful and loving protesters I had seen in a long time. The spirit that day was so gentle and loving; it was a beautiful summer day. My wife and I had sat on the wagon, and the Ojibway drummers were being led by John Hawk, the camp’s Fire Keeper. These memories will last forever if we let them: the sun shining, the wind blowing, and all of us saying to ourselves, “This is an awesome day to be helping Mother Earth.”

We need to fill ourselves up with this kind of energy and activity that is positive and creative! We need to keep Simcoe County and Ontario clean and our sacred waters clean so that we and creation can live a good life! When Alicja and I used to drive from Toronto every chance we could to be in our home in Simcoe forest, we never stopped thinking of all the negative development and urban sprawl taking over the farmland and forests. Of course we have the Green Belt and the Green Party, but will this stop the fast pace of lawyers and money changing hands? We know the French Hill is being chopped up, and it is a huge hardwood forest in Waverly, Ontario. We need you to cry again. We need to organize ourselves for life and the future. We need to honor our relatives in the Spirit World and never forget them.

In Memory of Alicja Rozanska

Photography and Story by Danny Beaton, Turtle Clan, Mohawk

www.dannybeaton.ca

After we become human beings again, then we see how creation, Mother Earth, the universe, the cosmos, and our children carry the purity of life around us. The sacred teachings of our ancestors are peace, justice, unity, righteousness, respect, and harmony. Our grandmas and grandpas passed on everything they could after colonization, and the ones who were not touched by colonization know the law of the natural world. Many of the indigenous peoples of the world are carrying the spiritual teachings of their ancestors, the Good Mind, the Good Hearted People.

Our children must be protected, defended, and loved by these sacred teachings and the way of life that nourished our ancestors when Mother Earth was once clean, fresh, full of fertility and power—when our plant life, rivers, lakes, oceans, and all creation was pure and clean! The four-legged, the fish life, the insects and winged ones are still our relatives. This way of life is for our children to know and experience.

My brother Kenn Richard is a founder of the organization Native Child and Family Services of Toronto. This article is about how Native Child and Family Services began with the wisdom and spirit of our people, who knew things had to change for our children and our people in order for us to survive in a better way. This story is dedicated to the staff and parents who seek healing and protecting for Native children and life!

KENN RICHARD SPEAKS OUT

Kenn Richard, Founder of Native Child and Family Services of Toronto

My name is Kenneth Denis Leo Fidel Richard. I guess I got saints in there, and my grandfather’s name was Fidel. My first name Kenneth is not a French or Métis name, it’s Scottish. That kind of tells you that I am from Winnipeg, Manitoba. I was born in St. Boniface hospital, pretty much at the forks of the Red and Assinaboine rivers in St. Boniface. My father is a Richard, my mother a Morrissette, both big names up and down those rivers from the days of the Pembina Territory. My father was born in the house of Cuthbert Grant, the famous Métis “Warden of Plains” responsible for what they called the Seven Oaks Massacre, so this Manitoba history is infused in my blood. All this I became aware of later in life, as we never grew up talking about the history or our place in it.

My mom was a housekeeper at the Fort Garry hotel. My dad was a construction worker all his life. It was a good life but a rough one back in that day. Five people in a one bedroom “wartime” house. I guess I owe the Jesuits for my education. For about ten seconds I thought of becoming a priest, but snapped out of that at puberty. Not only am I the first generation to live in the city, I am also among the first to graduate from university.

I lived in days before Indigenous issues were talked about. For the first twenty years of my life, I was relatively unconscious, just enjoying the sixties, playing drums in a band called the Sugar and Spice. Then I got a social work degree, and that changed everything. I eventually became a child protection worker, although I never had any inkling to do so.

I worked for the Children’s Aid Society of Winnipeg, one of the most oppressive of all children’s aid societies. It was an apprehension machine, and there I am, a young guy trying to understand what’s happening. I carry a caseload of Native families and kids who by the standard of the day were at risk, terrible poverty with inadequate everything, and addictions blowing it all up. While the conditions of the families were dire, I rarely saw the benefit of apprehending the kids. I worked my ass off to keep the families together, which I mostly did.

In that process, I appreciated that it was really complicated, Child Welfare and the Sixties Scoop. Kids were in distress back then, and their parents were not only poor, they were carrying a lot of trauma as well. It was not talked about in those days; the residential school stuff came out in addictions and bad behaviours.

The services provided were not effective. Truly, they did not resonate with the people they were serving. It was mostly children’s aid workers apprehending kids, probation officers keeping kids restrained, that kind of social control stuff. My consciousness grew, and I wanted change for a multitude of reasons, mostly because I could see myself in these children. I could feel a resonance there, though my life was not so bad. I formed myself in the sixties. I was a musician, and it was a gift to have that lifestyle because it helped deliver me to the place where I am now. From there, working in child welfare in the bad days set me on a path of working as a children’s advocate, a path that I travel today.

I did some work in Winnipeg, but it really came to fruition when I joined my girlfriend in Toronto. In the early stages of my life in Toronto, I worked for the Children’s Aid Society but eventually met a guy name Gus Ashawasege. Gus is passed now. He was a residential survivor. He was one of those guys that was everywhere, doing everything. When you look back at Anishnawbe Health Toronto, Aboriginal Legal Services, Native Child and Family Services, guess what? Gus was the president of all those boards in the early stages, and he became a real mentor. When I got to know him, he asked me to join a group that was looking at child welfare issues. They needed someone who had experience. I joined the committee, and that was the beginning of the development of this Native Child and Family Services here in Toronto in the mid ’80s.

A bunch of community members concerned about kids, getting together and saying what are we going to do? It’s corny to hear that phrase “let’s get together,” but this was that in action! There was Priscilla Hughit, Gus Ashawasega, Maryanne Kelly, Reva Jewel, Emma King, Nelly Ashawasega, Wilson Ashkwe, people from the old Indian community of Toronto some would call them. They were the first to kick off this kind of development, and I wanted to help. Not only because I wanted to help—this is what I started in Manitoba. Gus’s offer was a gift to me because this was all about the social justice I wanted to address since having those experiences in child welfare back home.

We had an elder on this board named Wilson Ashkwe. Wilson was very gifted. His day job was a bureaucrat for the Feds, otherwise he was an herbalist; he could doctor, and he knew his stuff. We all went to Stony Lake with Jim Dumont for a visioning event. Wilson checked that lake all day, waiting. I asked about that, and he said he was expecting a certain root to pop up that he needed. Soon he was dragging what looked like a tree behind him saying he could eat now, and that’s what we did. He knew things that I didn’t know, that’s for sure! He was on our hiring committee. We went through lots of resumes for people applying for the first executive director’s position, and we were disappointed. Wilson said, “Why don’t we just hire this guy in the cowboy boots,” referring to and pointing at me. That was, for me, a magical intervention. In that moment, Wilson charted my whole life. I owe both Gus and Wilson, old time residential school survivors, both traumatized I am sure, but both having sufficient strength and resilience of spirit to do the work that they did. They basically gifted me with this position and I have been here since 1988.

by Dr. John Bacher and Danny Beaton, Turtle Clan Mohawk [www.dannybeaton.ca]

On June 17th, 2015 Dr. Reed Noss, Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Florida, the author of seven books and 304 articles, gave an impassioned talk in the Debates Room of the University of Toronto’s Hart House. Noss spoke on the need to rescue and connect natural habitats before they are chopped up by urban sprawl. Isolated habitat islands are becoming “biological sinks”: leading to species extirpation and extinction.

Reed Noss Environmentalist and Danny Beaton Mohawk Clan. Photo by Andrew McCammon.

Noss was introduced by Shelly Petrie, Program Director of the Greenbelt Foundation. She stressed his rescue of the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Niagara Escarpment from development cuts.

Noss exploded debate through maps. These indicate areas that should be “re-wilded”, (meaning restored to natural habitat). During the late 1980s his dissertation supervisor, told him, “Don’t publish these maps.” Noss gleefully recalled how, “I did publish the maps, and they soon dominated the front pages of Florida’s newspapers. “

Noss finds that, “There are a minority of around twenty-five per cent of the population who disagree with the natural areas networks the maps propose. They attempt to use the maps to organize opposition to conservation. They do not however, succeed in changing public opinion. Most people are inspired by maps that show more wild lands”.

Noss recalled how, “For twenty-five years Florida funded land acquisition based on the corridor concept at a guaranteed level of $350 million annually. This continued until the last six years. It only ended because of the domination of state politics in Florida by the factional group known as the Tea Party. The majority of the population however, do not support the Tea Party’s antics. This was shown by a successful referendum for an amendment to the Florida state constitution to restore funding for the acquisition of natural areas. “

Although retarded by the Tea Party, Noss’ efforts during the quarter-century that they were funded in Florida have had a major impact on rescuing critical threatened species, notably the Cougar and the Black Bear. Before the program began to have an impact in the 1990s the Florida Panther, ( a popular name for the American Cougar in Florida), was on the verge of extirpation. Since they were trapped in a few protected areas such as Everglades National Park, the Cougars were suffering from genetic uniformity, causing a high rate of mortality from heart disease.

In response to the Cougars’ plight Noss soon showed the importance of the new scientific discipline he leads so ably, Conservation Biology. Cougars from Texas were brought in to increase genetic diversity in the population. This was combined over the a quarter century with an aggressive program of purchase of habitat including linkages that allow the Cougars to expand their range northwards. Noss told the wowed audience, “We are seeing increasingly the success of the network of corridors stretching northwards from the Everglades. Cougars are expanding .their range to where they were displaced in the past. We are increasingly seeing Cougars from the Everglades roaming north to Georgia.”

While Noss told the Hart House assembly that the Ontario Greenbelt’s connected corridors of natural habitats resembles the system built up in Florida over the past thirty years, the province has not adopted Florida’s efforts to build wildlife crossings to reduce road mortality. Some of the most significant photographs he displayed were of underpasses in Florida to encourage Cougars and Black Bears to move safely under highways. These he stressed have been monitored and are being used successfully. Another contrast to Ontario came out in his description of the community where he lives, which is organized to help wildlife move through it. Unlike Newmarket where bears are shot, it is honoured to have a few passing through annually.

Georgian Bay, Ontario. Photo by Danny Beaton.

Noss is pessimistic about improving wildlife habitat west of the Niagara Escarpment. “I have been to Rondeau and Pelee parks, but I don’t see great opportunities for linking and expanding habitats there.” While in the rest of southern Ontario he uses larger species such as Moose and Deer to expand ranges through corridors and bigger habitat tracts, here he see micro scale strategies for limited ranges species such as Blanding’s Turtle.

Noss’ pessimism about the corn belt illustrates the limitations of efforts to improve the environment which do not attempt to mobilize native communities and their treaty rights. This situation is most evident in the part of Ontario with the least natural habitat, Chatham-Kent. (former Kent County) It has only 4.5 per cent of its landscape in forest cover. This is rapidly shrinking as corn prices soar and trees are razed.

Much of the tiny area remaining in forest cover in Chatham-Kent is found on the predominately forested 13 square kilometre reserve of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation. The community’s leader, Chief Greg Peters has termed the situation an affront to their “aboriginal right to hunt and fish”, since wildlife cannot survive where there are no forests. He has also attributed deforestation to the siltation of the Thames River, which kills fish.

It is to be hoped that Noss’ ideas will be strengthened by work with native communities, using treaty rights to restore a degraded landscape. In such a situation moose might again swim in the Thames River. It flows through a landscape which ecologist Thomas Beaton, has found contributes to “the highest rates of hospitalization due to cardiovascular disease, stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease” in Ontario.

Danny Beaton says, “When we destroy Mother Earth we destroy ourselves. We humans have the Sacred Duty to be a voice for all life Species, so that means we are the voice for the Cougar, we are the voice for the Bear, the Turtle, moose, deer and everything that moves on this Sacred Mother Earth. We are the voice for plant life, the rivers, lakes and great oceans.”

I was moved to hear in the longhouse of the Six Nations Confederacy an effort by the revered Cayuga environmentalist, the late Norm Jacobs, to have the courts defend treaties and the land. He explained that if treaties that protect the land are not enforced, Native rights will simply be ground into the dust by those who seek to exploit our traditional territories for profit.

During the last days of the deep cold winter of 2015, one of the worst examples I have seen of Jacobs’ warnings took place. Fifty acres of forest were ground into sawdust in defiance of our treaties that seek to defend the land. A great refuge for deer and their natural predators, the coyote, in the heart of the built up area of greater Toronto was chewed into a mess by chipping machines. Trees that were donated by Ontario government nurseries for reforestation became sawdust for the schemes of a development company: Corsica Developments.

Author Danny Beaton (second from left) protesting the desecration of the Dunlap Forest.

What makes the devastation so insulting to the good mind of traditional people is that the fifty acre forest to be razed (about half of a larger woodland slightly over one hundred acres, which may be later cut up for turf playgrounds) was created in order to compensate for some of the damage done by “pioneer” invaders of the land. Their greed saw the forest burned down to clear farms and to obtain quick cash for potash used to manufacture soap. The Oak Ridges Moraine just north of this forest was turned into a desert wasteland, and blowing sands threatened to bury Toronto. At the same time, the rivers that flowed into Toronto (notably the Don, which has its headwaters close to these lands) experienced massive floods. This led to 88 deaths in November, 1954 from Hurricane Hazel. For this reason, under the leadership of visionary astronomers such as Clarence Chant who used the restored forest as a barrier from light pollution from the newly built David Dunlap Observatory (where black holes were discovered), the site was gradually reforested from 1939 to 1980.

An environmental protection group, the Richmond Hill Naturalists, whose existence is now threatened by demands for an award of costs by the developer, went through three hearings to defend the land. This lead to a bill for expert witnesses fees and lawyers in excess of $500,000. At the most significant of these hearings, one by the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) on zoning, the Native band that considers these lands part of their traditional territory attempted to become a party to the hearing.

On July 21, 2013, Karlene J. Hussey (a Vice Chair of the OMB) issued a ruling that assaulted Native rights and ultimately doomed the land. In her decision, which put a residential official plan designation on close to fifty acres of forest, Hussey denied a request by Carol King, the authorized representative of the Mississaugas of the New Credit. King’s request sought an adjournment of the hearing on an “urgent basis,” so that the band would have time to develop a case to defend the threatened forest.

Hussey rejected the Mississaugas’ plea for the earth on the basis that it was “prejudicial” to the interests of Corsica. She also told the band to involve itself in the later “proper process associated with the zoning amendment necessary to implement this development.”

How Hussey cunningly misdirected the Ojibway nation to a dead end is seen by the subsequent decision regarding the zoning amendment. This was issued by OMB hearing officer J. E. Snienek on December 11, 2014, shortly after a protest walk around the perimeter of the threatened forest by the Toronto Field Naturalists.

In his decision, Snienek argued that no matter how compelling the testimony was from the various expert witnesses he heard who argued that more forest should be saved, it was all worthless. He ruled that the issue of forest protection had been decided by Hussey’s hearing and that further efforts to save it constituted inappropriate “re-litigation.” It is on this basis that the zoning hearings were irrelevant, and Corsica is attempting to recover $200,000 in legal costs from the Richmond Hill Naturalists. If even a small portion of these costs were awarded by the OMB, the organization that was worked for a half a century to protect the environment in Richmond Hill would be forced to disband.

In Hussey’s hearing, the naturalists hired an archeological expert to present testimony about traditional Native use of the land. This report was never defended by the expert witness, on the basis of the decision of the Naturalists’ legal counsel. Also barred from the OMB was a lengthy report by historian Dr. John Bacher, PhD. He is the author of the history of reforestation in Ontario: Two Billion Trees and Counting: the Legacy of Edmund Zavitz.

In his barred report, Bacher wrote that the David Dunlap Forest was one “of the most successful examples of an ecologically restored landscape” north of Toronto and south of the Oak Ridges Moraine. He explained, “Today, it is very important that historically, as well as functionally, this site remains as a legacy to the past and a reminder to our future of the importance to protect watersheds and give us all the benefits that trees bring to our communities.” To prepare his anticipated testimony, Bacher visited Boston to view the Arnold Arboretum, a forested park that provided the model for the creation of the David Dunlap Forest. He found it was part of a “chain of parks whose principal goal was pollution control through a network of settling ponds and constructed wetlands similar to innovative conservationist thinking today.”

Shortly after the barring of Bacher’s testimony, a massive flood of the Don River hit Toronto. Although past reforestation such as that of the Dunlap Forest helped to diminish floods by increasing forest cover, this wise legacy of the past is being undermined by spectacles such as the Richmond Hill chipper massacre. With the disruptions caused by climate change, the earth is posed to take a horrible flooding revenge for the destruction of one of Canada’s biggest urban forests.

~ Danny Beaton, Turtle Clan Mohawk [www.dannybeaton.ca]