Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Thursday, September 27
In the early morning, several Esgenoôpetitj First Nation (EFN) Rangers reported to CPT that there was heavy Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) activity on the reserve. The police were stationed at the highway, and had pulled over numerous people.

Friday, September 28
There were several verbal encounters between Mi'kmaq fishermen and Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) officers on the bay. The fishers attempted to get a clarification from the DFO on the exact location of the boundary of the fishing zone dictated by the DFO but were treated with contempt and threats of arrest for obstruction (see October 4 release, "Drawing the Line.")

At 9:00 p.m. a community member called CPT to report that while fishing in his small dory, he had been chased by a large non-Native commercial fishing boat which eventually left him alone and returned to the Neguac wharf.

CPTer Doug Pritchard called the Neguac RCMP detachment to report the incident, but was met with intense questioning of the native fisherman's activities. "Are you taking this seriously, or just harassing me?" Pritchard asked Constable MacAvoy. The officer called back 15 minutes later to report that the RCMP had intercepted an incoming boat at the wharf, but the operator denied chasing anyone.

Monday, October 1
Janet Shoemaker and Barbara Martens attended the court in Miramichi for the beginning of the trial of Leigh Morrison, a white fisherman from Burnt Church charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon on six young Aboriginal men. Angry that Morrison had been part of a large demonstration in which all of the community's traps were destroyed by non-Aboriginal fishers on October 3, 1999, the six men had gone to Morrison's property seeking traps as compensation for their loss. Morrison was charged with ramming their truck onto its side with his van, and then beating two of the injured passengers over the head with a baseball bat. Before jury selection began, there was a hearing to decide whether additional questions aimed at weeding out racist jurors could be allowed in the selection process. The judge ruled in favour of the questions. The jury finally selected was all white.

Tuesday, October 2
The team received a call from the RCMP that the DFO did have a fishing vessel on radar the previous Friday night at the time that the EFN fisher reported being chased. The officer said there was no second vessel spotted on their radar.

Thursday, October 4
Shoemaker went to the Morrison trial and listened as four of the young men who had been injured in the incident gave their testimony. The driver of the truck told how, while his head was caught between the ground and the frame of the truck, he saw Morrison come at him with the bat and felt it come down on his head. The prosecutor allowed them to give their accounts of what they remembered, but then focussed in on the quantities of drugs and alcohol each had consumed in the 24 hours beforehand. He then proceeded to read to the court each man's record of offenses since they were teenagers.

Sunday, October 7
The team attended a community potluck at the school with a visiting guest elder as speaker. There was storytelling on Mi'kmaq history and language, and a talking circle after the meal.

Tuesday, October 9
Shoemaker and Lena Siegers went to Miramichi to attend several court sessions. Siegers watched a video of Morrison's statement to the RCMP in which he admitted ramming the EFN members' truck with his van, but would not answer whether he had hit the two men on the head with a baseball bat.

Shoemaker attended the trial of EFN fisher, John Dana Ward, who was charged with assault for spitting on a DFO officer's face shield. DFO officers had pepper-sprayed and clubbed him, and then pulled him on to their boats on August 29, 2000, after Ward's boat had been swamped and run over by DFO boats. Video footage of this incident taken by a friend of EFN and by CPT was shown around the world. The three DFO officers testifying against Ward denied any knowledge of the ramming or the video footage. As the judge withdrew to consider his verdict, an RCMP officer reminded the prosecutor of the existence of the videotape. The prosecutor informed the judge who then withheld his verdict so Ward could enter this additional evidence.

Another EFN fisher, Leo Bartibogue, pled guilty to an obstruction charge in exchange for dropping an assault charge against him allegedly for touching a DFO officer in July 2000. Bartibogue was fined $1000 or community service and oneyear's probation.

Wednesday, October 10
CPTer's on watch noticed a buildup of DFO and RCMP activity on the bay and the edges of the reserve in the afternoon. In the early evening, DFO boats attacked an EFN fisher and confiscated his boat, the last of the larger, noncommercial boats in the community (see CPTnet release, "DFO stages another assault"). EFN members who gathered at the Neguac wharf expressed much anger at the DFO officers staging such an attack so near the end of a relatively quiet fishing season.

Thursday, October 11
The newspapers announced the acquittal of Leigh Morrison on all three counts of assault against EFN members.

Saturday, October 20
Most of the EFN fishers removed their traps from the water for the end of the fishing season.

Sunday, October 21
The DFO appeared at sun-up to remove all traps remaining in the bay.

Wednesday, October 24
The team closed up camp for the year and prepared to leave.