Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

"There's my father-in-law's house," said my guide, pointing to a small log cabin on an island at the edge of the rain-swept English River. "All the other families had similar houses on the river. There's where we built our community hall. There's where we kept a common herd of cows. Over there we had a common cellar for storing the produce of our gardens."

We had come by boat to visit the "old reserve" of Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishnabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation), 80 kms north of Kenora in NW Ontario. The Anishnabek had invited a CPT fact-finding mission to come and learn about the latest threat to their community posed by clear-cut logging. But this threat is set against a backdrop of several other traumas experienced by the community. The story of the old reserve is part of that backdrop.

In 1963, Indian Agent Eric Law announced it would be "better" if the Grassy Narrows people were relocated to a new reserve five kilometres away on the road to the town of Kenora. He promised the people the "civilizing" benefits of government housing, electricity, water, sewage and a school staffed by white teachers. When the people resisted the move, he threatened to cut off their Family Allowance checks.

The Anishnabek families were relocated and, 20 years later, the "benefits" did eventually all arrive. But their community was almost destroyed. The new reserve was on a small, stagnant lake away from the big, wide-open river. The new houses were too close together and many lacked access to the water. The soil was too poor to support kitchen gardens. The Indian Agent assigned houses heedless of family ties and friendships. The road to Kenora lured many into trouble.

The people of Asubpeeschoseewagong still treasure their memories of the old reserve and the strength of its community. Some visit it frequently to tend gardens or their memories of a better time.

Indian Agent Law had insisted it was "impossible" to provide a road or school for the old reserve and so relocation was imperative. But the old-timers reply, "I say, look here...you white people built a highway right across Canada, a big highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. You built a railroad too, coast to coast. Now tell me, why couldn't Indian Affairs build a road, just a few miles to the old reserve from the Jones Road? Why? No, they moved the whole reserve instead."

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative among Mennonite and Church of the Brethren congregations and Friends Meetings that supports violence reduction efforts around the world.

Christian Peacemaker Teams
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