Category Archives: Indigenous People After Contact

Webanaki: from Odanak

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

As we travelled in eastern Canada we drove through many territories of various First Nations. I enjoyed that. It was part of my learning experience on our drive through eastern Canada.

The Webanaki people, another First Nation in Eastern Canada,  originally occupied a territory from land south of what is now Boston all the way to the St. Lawrence River. This was a vast territory. Christiane and I travelled through part of that territory on our trip to Eastern Canada in 2024. Specifically, we drove along the southern shore of the St. Lawrence after we crossed from the north shore near Quebec City and then through a large part of New Brunswick before we arrived in Prince Edward Island. The part we drove through is extremely well settled. In fact, as I said when we were driving, often it seemed like one very long town. While the north shore from Montreal to Quebec is more densely populated, there were a lot of people here too.

 

Historically, the Webanaki occupied all the land along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River from Levis to Rimouski and south to Maine. That was a huge territory. Currently the Webanaki occupy a mere 6 sq. kilometres in what they call Odanak. It is a tiny community hemmed in by Quebecois on all sides.  It is very close to the Wolastokuk. As Matthieu O’Bomsawin, who is Abenaki from Odanak said, “this makes it very difficult for us to access our traditional hunting grounds, which are almost non-existent. 98% of our territory has been privatized.”

 

As one member of the First Nation said, “When the Europeans arrived we occupied 100% of the territory. Today reserves [in Quebec] occupy only 0.06% of the entire Quebec territory.” Another member said, “constantly having to look at walls destroyed us.” This is understandable, as they were mainly a nomadic people. Another member said, “I saw the end of the nomadic life. I like living in a house, but the land is where my heart is.”

 

Wolastokuk or Wolastoqiyik

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties

On our way to Prince Edward Island, Christiane and I traveled through the territory of another first nation. This was the territory of  the Wolastokuk or Wolastoqiyik who had ranged over much of Quebec and New Brunswick in around the neighbourhood of Rimouski where we had been in September and October of 2024. Their territory was huge. Yet the reservations they were “given” under the authority of the Indian Act were puny in comparison.

On the CBC show Telling Our Stories, which I had watched, one of them said it was equivalent to “my backyard.” According to Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Wolastoqew Wahssipekuk, the band council that was created under the scheme imposed by the Indian Act was not surrounded by a community that could stimulate the culture of her people. As she said, “the flag is there but we don’t have a community.”

 

One of them told the story of how members of her family each fall would gather into groups to disperse across their territory to hunt and when they returned they found the government had sold their land to European farmers. As one of them said, “They sold our land without our consent.” Is that not what theft is all about? This is not that uncommon. The same thing happened in Manitoba with indigenous people around Petersfield. In exchange they were given much poorer land. White farmers yearned for their land and persuaded the government to do their bidding.

This “Indian problem” is found on many all First Nations. It is not limited to Wolastokuk or Webanaki. It is part of Canadian history which lately Canadians have been celebrating.  This one is not so easy to celebrate.

Mi’Kmaq: A foundational disagreement

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy

 

Chief Donnacona was the Iroquois Chief of the village of Stadacona when Jacques Cartier arrived on his second trip to Canada as it is now called. It was located at the site of what became Quebec City, which Christiane and I passed by on our way to the east coast of Canada on our own personal voyage of discovery in 2024.

In 1536 Cartier arrived a little deeper into Canada.  He arrived with a ship and landed in Île d’ Orléans, an island in what we now call Quebec. 11 of his men were very sick. They were basically dying of scurvy.

While Cartier and his men were in Canada, Chief Donnacona and his people prepared  tea for the Frenchmen who had landed on their shores from the leaves of 2 conifers that were rich in vitamins. That cured the men and they survived.

As so often happened in Canadian history, the First Nations of North America helped these Europeans survive in the Western hemisphere. They helped because that is what they did. They did not ask for payments.  But they did expect that if they were in need some day the newcomers would help them out if they could. Reciprocity was an important value among the First Nations of North America. This is how civilized people act.

Cartier, on the other hand, concluded that second voyage by kidnapping Donnacona along with 9 other Iroquois captives, and brought them all the way to France as curiosities for the people of France to see. That act showed the true meaning of European arrival in the so-called “New World.” That is not how civilized people act.

In the CBC story Telling our Stories, Edna Manitowabi an Anishinabe woman from Wiikwemkoong said, “We helped them. We were kind to them. We were generous and yes we agreed to share. We will share but we didn’t give up. We agreed to share.”

Those words tell us a lot about Indigenous philosophy. It was a profound way of thinking. The actions of Cartier tell us a lot about European philosophy.  Their philosophy embodied “taking” rather than sharing.

According to the doctrine of discovery, initiated by the Roman Catholic Popes, anyone who was not a Christian was a savage. And savages had few rights. And their land could be taken from them.

But I ask, “Who were the savages? And who was civilized?’

However, this fundamental misunderstanding between Indigenous people and the new arrivals from Europe proved very costly. As a result of that misunderstanding, Canada has suffered through decades of discontent by their partners who resented being treated as people who had sold off their inheritance to Canada.  While indigenous people remained unable to successfully assert their rights the newcomers enjoyed nearly a century of apparent quiet possession of Canada, but this fundamental misunderstanding still meant the “root of title” to use a concept of the common law of England which became part of the common law of Canada after Confederation was in doubt.  In time, the Supreme Court of Canada has turned back Canada’s easy assumptions that all of Canada had been ceded to Canada by Indigenous people.

Eventually, the Canadian courts kiboshed this idea. That does not mean the Canadian courts have accepted everything that Indigenous people argued, but it confirmed that Indigenous people had a lot more rights than Canada had believed. The extent of those aboriginal rights which have not been ceded is still being worked out by Canada’s courts and this has made law in Canada such an interesting thing. It is one of the reasons that an old teacher of real estate law in Canada—me—has had so much enjoyment out of practicing law.

What was once certain has become shaky.

 

Mi’Kmaq: The Doctrine of Discovery – A long-lasting Misunderstanding

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact

 

The relationship between Indigenous people of Canada and the European powers who occupied parts of it has been checkered with misunderstandings.

The doctrine of discovery is the basis of a fundamental and long-lasting misunderstanding. Jacques Cartier from France arrived in Gaspe in 1534. Many Canadians see that date as the beginning of Canada.  Not many indigenous people see it quite that way.  Canada—the land of Canada and its native people—were of course around long before then.

Some Europeans had this notion that they had “discovered the New World” and this gave them the right to do whatever they wanted here. They owned it because they discovered it. Frankly, this is a very peculiar idea.  No Europeans would have accepted it if the Indigenous people of the western hemisphere had imposed such a doctrine on them. It was absurd. But sometimes Europeans were absurd.

The inhabitants of Canada had a very different view of nature and land than the incoming Europeans had. As Quenton Condo, a young Mi’Kmaq man, from the Gaspe Peninsula, said on the CBC series Telling Our Story, on Gem, “We understood that land was not something that we owned. Land was something that we shared and occupied.”

In eastern Canada the St. Lawrence River where Cartier landed in Gaspe, and which Christiane and I had just driven through, was a major river used by many different First Nations. Many of them wanted to reach the fishing resources beyond the mouth of the river.  Europeans when they “discovered” them realized how stunning they were. Some of the Europeans said you could fish by dropping a basket into the water and pulling out fish. Lots of fish. That may be legend, but has at least an element of truth, as legends often do. It was a bountiful resource. As Condo said, “It was a resource shared among many different nations.”

When Cartier landed and installed a large cross, the Iroquois Chief Donnacona quickly understand what Cartier was doing with that cross. He made it clear to Cartier and his sons that this was not acceptable. This land was not Cartier’s for the taking. It wasn’t anyone’s land for the taking.   Of course, to make matters even worse, Cartier showed him what Europeans were really like. Cartier and his 2 sons kidnapped him and took him to France as a captive souvenir. That was not very nice.

Cartier was not even the first European to arrive. Basque fishermen had been fishing in the area for year already, and centuries earlier Vikings visited. Cartier did not discover anything at all.

As Condo said,

“When Cartier arrived, he did not discover anything. We discovered a bunch of people on a boat starving and lost. We saved them, because that’s who we are. We are not savages. We saw other humans who were in a bad position. We took them in and fed them.”

 

This happened over and over again in Canada in many encounters between Indigenous People and different First Nations.  The newcomers had amazing technologies but they had a very poor understanding of what was needed to survive in Canada. First Nations, over and over again, rescued the newcomers from impending starvation. Added to that the newcomers failed to understand that the Indigenous people expected reciprocity. That was part of their spiritual lives, That was how they did things and it was what they expected of the people they helped.  They helped others and in turn expected to be helped when needed. Really, that w as not an unreasonable expectation. Who thinks otherwise?

Yet repeatedly the newcomers proved ungrateful and failed to reciprocate. Instead, they tried to take over.  I have heard this described like this: what would you think if a stranger appeared at your door in a winter storm and asked to sleep in your house for the night to save his life and then, after the storm was over, refused to leave. And not only that, the stranger then assumed control of your house and started to tell you what you had to do?  The answer is obvious. We would not tolerate that. We would certainly not consider the other civilized!

 

Savage of North Cape, P.E.I.

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

Our second major stop in Prince Edward Island was for the North Cape Lighthouse. This lighthouse can be found at the northern tip of P.E.I where a dangerous 2-mile reef can be found in the waters from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait. It is found in an area where there has been extensive coastal erosion of Prince Edward Island. The lighthouse has already been moved back on the shoreline 6 times because of coastal erosion.

This lighthouse was really a disappointment. We made a long drive to see it, and frankly it was not great. To us it looked like a lighthouse in a prison camp.

Before I left on this journey, I watched an old CBC television program on Gem which consisted of a “Land and Sea” episode originally broadcast on February 19 2023. It revealed to me, what most people probably knew already, that the coast of P.E.I. is constantly eroding.  Erosion is relentless, inevitable, and irreversible. The only thing constant around the sea, is change. On the show, the CBC interviewed 2 locals from this area, Dan and Brian McCaskill, who owned property here  and they said their 3 acre property was now only 1.5 acres thanks to erosion. That is a pretty big loss. As well, 40% of other property they own is also under water. They lose more every year and acknowledge they cannot stop it. They are wistful but realize there is nothing they can do about it.

 

The ocean has immense power which is expanding with climate change as water levels rise. Added to the rise in levels, the storms being experienced around the world, including our precious Maritime provinces, are getting more severe. It is a shame that a lovely province like Prince Edward Island is slipping away.

 

The McCaskills have living in the region for more than 60 years. Their family has property in Savage Harbour—a fitting name perhaps. Actually, the harbour was not named after storms and had nothing to do with climate change. It was named after the savages who lived there, namely the Mi’kmaq who no longer take kindly to the name. That is hardly surprising since not many people like to be referred to as savages. They see it as an insult and have asked it be changed. Yet, of course, others consider this needless woke attitudes. It reminds me of the people who resist changing things named for our first Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald who notoriously thought indigenous people were savages.  They are not to keen on seeing MacDonald honoured.

 

After one storm their sand dunes shockingly disappeared. Hurricane Fiona took 25 feet of their shoreline in 2022. As Dan McCaskill said, “the sea takes what it wants all we can do is try and slow it down a bit.”

The north Cape lighthouse warns mariners about a natural red rock reef that juts out for 2 km from the point. It is the longest natural reef composed of sedimentary rock in North America. At low tide I was told one could walk out to the reef and explore the tidal pools and watch seals relaxing. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. What else is new?

 

The First Nation community on a small nearby island is also worried about the erosion causing the loss of their land. The Chief Bernard of the First Nation said she recently saw “whitecaps” in her backyard.  They lost a causeway to their small island settlement in 2020. Needless to say, this woke up the First Nation to the reality of climate change. Something many American conservatives and their Canadian fellow travelers think is a hoax. The Indigenous people from the island don’t think that. They know better. They worry that a storm could destroy their oyster fishing off the island and cause the loss of their road access. Losing the link is a real possibility for them. They built an artificial reef to protect it as they feel preserving their ancestral homeland is important. It is their home.

 

Another lighthouse in the area that was standing for 180 years recently had to be moved in 2000. Scientists have said that 1,000 homes in the region are at risk of falling into the sea along with 45 sq. km. of roads. Even wind turbines are under threat. Climate change is promiscuous when it doles out damage.

 

That is a young woman from Steinbach on top of those red rocks. She kept following me around on this trip.

Erosion is a major problem on P.E.I. Some of the islanders want to haul huge slabs of concrete to hold back the sea, but this solution is controversial. One person spent $40,000 to armour her shoreline with concrete and rocks and 6 months later a storm blew the armour away.

This reminds me of Buffalo Point First Nation, where Christiane and I  have a cottage. Our local chief tried to armour the shore to protect his golf course and was stopped by Fisheries Canada because those actions were harming fish stocks. As well, we learned at Buffalo Point that arming one part of a shoreline can harm another part. In other parts of the shoreline erosion seems to be getting much worse. Though the golf course seems to be protected, at least for now. Mother Nature always bats last.

In P.E.I. people have learned to recognize that the shorelines are changing whether we like it or not. As Marcel Gallant said on the CBC program,  “We gotta enjoy it while we can.”

On the CBC show the host of the show said, “experts say it’s time to rethink our love affair with living right on the water.”  It doesn’t take an expert to understand that.  Brian McCaskill, who was losing his beloved homeland said, “You have to accept Mother Nature and what she can do.”

But us humans should not be making things worse, which is what we are doing.

 

Mi’Kmaq:  Cooperation or Competition

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous People before Contact, Indigenous Treaties

 

As I said earlier, much of eastern Canada was Mi’Kmaq territory when Europeans first made contact.  And as I have already mentioned, the Indigenous people of North America have a deep attachment to the land they occupied. The attachment was so deep it is not an exaggeration to say it was, and is still, a spiritual connection. This is a critical difference between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. A friend of mine said the attachment of Mennonites was the same. I have not noticed such a strong connection, but try to keep an open mind on the issue. I invite people to correct me.

 

According to Quenton Condo, a Mi’Kmaq  member on that CBC Gem series I already blogged about, the treaty of 1752 negotiated by the Mi’Kmaq and the British Crown was by the Mi’Kmaq intended to make sure that no one would interfere with the Mi’Kmaq way of life. The problem is, according to the Mi’Kmaq, that the non-indigenous people were not taught about the treaties in Canada and now react in anger and hate when they learn what it means. This is a failure of the Canadian educational system, he says.

“After all, how much did any of us learn about treaties in school? Frankly, in my case, even in Law School, I learned almost nothing about treaties. Now I know that treaties are very important. They have constitutional significance. And treaties are fundamental to learning about Canada.”

If we know nothing about treaties, we know nothing about Canada!

 My goal on this jaunt across Canada is to learn more about Canada. Therefore I have to learn more about treaties and will blog about them.

Although, that is their [Mi’Kmaq] interpretation, it has the ring of truth as far as I am concerned. Those treaties did not give them the right to hunt. They already had those rights which they inherited from their ancestors. That of course, follows from them being part of the land, which is a fundamental principle to most indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere.

The Innu territory and Naskapi overlapped as well as Inuit and Cree. As one Innu woman said,

“At the time of our ancestors there were no borders. Our ancestors did not use measuring tapes to say, ‘This is yours,’ and ‘this is mine.’ The territory was shared amongst all the nations. And we shared it well.”

 

Indigenous people have always been willing to share.  Non-indigenous people were more aggressive. They started out willing to share, but then wanted to take over and impose their will. That is exactly what they did, and ever since Canada has had problems. The Innu woman also said that at one time there were plenty of caribou in their territory. Some said there were so many “it moved the mountain.” That would be a lot of caribou.

An unidentified woman on the CBC show said “Nations were intertwined in all aspect of our lives and in our approaches to sharing. This insured the survivals of our peoples.”

I don’t want to suggest that Indigenous People of the region were perfect. No one and no people are perfect. Not even Mennonites. Yet stories like this show the truth of those who say, people who live in places where survival is very difficult, like the Canadian north, have found that sharing works best for survival. This is what the traditional knowledge of the people of the region tells us. I can’t argue with this. This is a fundamental principle of survival.

As one Anishinabe man, Andrew “Stitch” Manitowabi, said about his people, “As an Anishinabe people we don’t go by boundaries. We use the language of speaking Anishinabe which extends into the United States in the Quebec area and northern Ontario.” This is a very different approach to determining territory.

The Anishinabe, like most Indigenous people used the language of sharing, not the language of boundaries. Non-Indigenous people did not always realize that, resulting, sometimes, in serious misunderstandings between the parties. In this country we still live difficultly with that misunderstanding. It has never gone aay.

Mi’Kmaq learned to cooperate.  Non-indigenous people must also learn.

 

 

Mi’Kmaq:  Cooperation or Competition

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous People before Contact, Indigenous Treaties

 

Mi’kmaq are among the many First Nations that inhabited the Atlantic region in Canada, and inhabited the coastal areas of the Maritime Provinces including Gaspé and most of the land east of the Saint John River. This traditional territory is known as Mi’gma’gi  (Mi’kma’ki).  Mi’kmaq people have occupied their traditional territory, Mi’gma’gi or , since time immemorial (at least 10,000 years) and continue to occupy much of this land including Newfoundland as well as parts of Northern New England as far as Boson.

It would be nice if Canadians and Americans could get rid of their supremacist attitudes. Too often they think they have a monopoly of spiritual and economic insight. If we did that, we could have a true pluralist country, where all types, or races, or cultures were welcomed.  By that I mean a society in which many states, or groups, and principles coexist. For example, including religious pluralists where not one group benefits from claiming it is the fount of all wisdom. That would be a tolerant society. Then we could all benefit from each other’s knowledge and would not feel threatened by it. We would not concern ourselves with delusions of supremacy that we all have. These are delusions which we must learn to avoid.

According to Quenton Condo, speaking on the CBC Gem show, Telling Our Stories,  the treaty of 1752 negotiated by the Mi’Kmaq and the British Crown was according to the Mi’Kmaq intended to make sure that no one would interfere with the Mi’Kmaq way of life. The problem is, according to the Mi’Kmaq, that the non-indigenous people were not taught about the treaties in Canada and now react in anger and hate when they learn what it means. This is a failure of the Canadian educational system, he says.

After all, how much did any of us learn about treaties in school? Frankly, in my case, even in Law School, I learned almost nothing. And treaties are fundamental to learning about Canada. If we know nothing about treaties, we know nothing about Canada!

Although, that is their interpretation, it has the ring of truth as far as I am concerned. Those treaties did not give them the right to hunt. They already had those rights which they inherited from their ancestors. That of course, follows from them being part of the land, which is a fundamental principle to most indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere.

The Innu territory and Naskapi overlapped as well as Inuit and Cree. As one Innu woman said,

“At the time of our ancestors there were no borders. Our ancestors did not use measuring tapes to say, ‘This is yours,’ and ‘this is mine.’ The territory was shared amongst all the nations. And we shared it well.”

 

She also said that at one time there were plenty of caribou in their territory. Some said there were so many “it moved the mountain.” That would be a lot of caribou.

An unidentified woman on the CBC show said “Nations were intertwined in all aspect of our lives and in our approaches to sharing. This insured the survivals of our peoples.”

I don’t want to suggest that indigenous people of the region were perfect. No one and no people are perfect. Yet stories like this show the truth of those who say, people who live in places where survival is very difficult, like the Canadian north, have found that sharing works best for survival. This is what the traditional knowledge of the people of the region tells us. I can’t argue with this.

As one Anishinaabe man, Andrew “Stitch” Manitowabi, said about his people, “As an Anishinaabe people we don’t go by boundaries. We use the language of speaking Anishinaabe which extends into the United States in the Quebec area and northern Ontario.” This is a very different approach to determining territory.

The Anishinaabe, like most Indigenous people used the language of sharing, not the language of boundaries.

 

Indigenous People of the East Coast: territory and spirituality

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous People before Contact, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy

 

 

In and around Rimouski we began our journey into Indigenous territory in eastern Canada. Before the trip to Eastern Canada started, I had been watching a television series on CBC Gem that I found very informative and interesting.  I came to appreciate, as I did not before, and certainly did not appreciate in 1967 when I traveled to Quebec with my buddies, that there are many interesting stories to tell about Indigenous peoples.   And until recently, they were not able to tell those stories themselves. Thanks to this series at least some of those stories have been told.

This film series begins with an admonishment that the stories of the indigenous people who live in eastern Canada, as it is now called, were not told by them but by others. They want us to hear their stories from themselves. Otherwise, we won’t hear the truth. So you will be hearing these stories second hand, from me, but you can go to the series and get the stories straight from them without my interpretation. I do not want to appropriate their stories, but as Niigaan Sinclair, a professor of Indigenous studies, and an Anishinaabe of Manitoba  once told me, I should consider telling my friends what I know because they are unlikely to listen to him or any other indigenous person. So that is what I am doing. But the key point is these are there stories which I have heard.

This series lets them tell those stories so we can understand who they are. And obviously, they wanted to tell their own stories. We should let them do that. We should not stand in their way.

They have been called, savages, Indians, aboriginal, indigenous, First Nations, First Peoples, native Americans, or native Canadians, but as one Innu man said, if you are not sure what to call them, the best thing to do is ask the person you are talking to what is the name of his or her group and he or she can tell you. Use that name.

The various Indigenous Peoples reflected in this CBC documentary are as follows: Innu, Atikamekw, Naskapi, Inuk, Kanien’kehákka, Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik, Anishinaabe, Wendat, Eeyou, and Mi’Kmaq.

The various territories of those people are called: Nadakina (for Abenaki), Mi’Kma’ki (for Mi’Kmaq), Innu (for Nutshimit) Nionwntsïo (for Wendat), Maliseet (for Wolastoqiyik), Nitaskimant (for Atikamekw), Nunavik (for Inuk), (for Kanien’kehákka), Eeyouistchee (for Eeyou), Wiikwemkoong (for the Anishinabe territory). I hope I got these names right.

As one Indigenous person on the series said, here is a fundamental fact:

 

“To understand who we are you need to understand our special relationship with the land. It is an intimate and powerful bond that we want to keep alive.”

 

As was said by the narrator, “Since the time of our ancestors we have always shared our territories between our different peoples.” That is important too. The Indigenous people were always willing to share. They were never militantly exclusive.

Added to that, the Indigenous people who were interviewed, said, “Our territory is our identity. It is impossible to survive without your territory.” As a rule, Indigenous people have an identity that is tied to the land. The people and the land cannot be severed from each other. I don’t think the rest of us can understand anything about the Indigenous People if we don’t understand this fundamental belief.

 

As Stanley Vollant, an Innu physician eloquently explained,

“My story and that of my nation are written within the territory. They are written with its rivers and the toponomy of its lakes. I am the territory and the territory is me. It is a sacred relationship. For us it’s impossible to be indigenous, Innu, without Nitassinan.”

 

As one indigenous young Wendat man, from Wendake, Brad Gros-Louis.  put it:

“At one time, First Nations people lived solely off of harvests. And the meats for which we hunted and fished. The territory served to feed you and your family. Today, for me, being indigenous means being a champion of nature, speaking in the name of animals, speaking in the name of the forest, being a guardian of the sacred, of the territory. What makes a good hunt, is that the moose you kill, the moose that you harvest, you will care for it as if it is your baby. Its meat is the priority. We use every part of the animal. When I go hunting and harvest an animal, I take the time to thank it, I take the time to treat it with respect, to do things properly. Everything around us is alive. Everything around us deserves respect.”

 

As Joséphine Bacon, an elegant Innu woman, from Pessamit said

“When I say Assi in Innu, I see the earth, but if I envision “Nutshimit” I see a lot mor than that. I see everything: the forest, the lakes, the rivers, moss, lichens, the horizon, and the animals that feed me. We do not own the land because Nutshimit takes care of us. It is where our identity lies, where our soul lies.”

 

I have heard others, like Chief Seattle say, “we do not own the land, the land owns us.”

 

Charles Api Bellefleur an Innu from Unamen-shipu said this:

 “the forest ensures our well-being. Look at how beautiful it is [he was standing in Innu territory]. It feels good to be here. I know the name of every tree, birch, aspen, white spruce. I know the legends of this land, the stories which have enfolded here, this is where I feel alive. Its where I still live today.”

 

 

As Matthew Mukash, Eeyou (Cree) from Whapmagoostui, said,

“Every valley, every part of the winding river has a name Every mountain, every hill, every hill has a name here, and those names are for reminding us how our ancestors survived so that we can have life today. The land tells the story of your ancestors.”

 

The connection between the land an ancestors is also considered sacred.

From Ancient Indigenous People to Resistance Against American Intrusions

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, History, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

Brockville is a city in Eastern Ontario in the Thousand Islands Region, one of the most beautiful places in Canada. We did not venture into that area this area, as we decided, unusually for us, to explore the city rather than the surrounding countryside. We had visited the Thousand Island region in the past and loved it, but today it was time to explore the city.

Brockville was previously inhabited by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and later the Oswegatchie people. The St. Lawrence Iroquoians established a cluster of palisaded agricultural villages in the vicinity of what became Brockville from about 1450 until the 1500s. They were farmers! Before that the Point Peninsula People, as they are now called, inhabited the upper St. Lawrence River from at the least the Late Middle Woodland Period.

 

In the archaeological cultures of North, the Woodland period spanned a period from about 1000 CE until European contact in the 16th century. The phrase “Woodland Period” is a term used to describe prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers to the Mississippian cultures.  The Eastern Woodlands cultural region covers what is now Eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region, the Eastern United State, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It was a period of constant development in stone and bone tools, leather crafts, and textile manufacturing. The people also cultivated the soil and constructed shelters. Many Woodland peoples used spear and atlatls until the end of the period when they were replaced by bows and arrows. The southern Woodland peoples also used blowguns.  I was not aware of any of most of that before this trip.

Increasingly the people used horticulture and developed what has been called the Eastern Agricultural Complex that consisted mainly of seed plants and gourd cultivation. They also became less mobile over time and in some places constructed and occupied villages and even cities. The period from 1000-1400CE was a period of what has been called “intensive agriculture,” which was likely continued until about 500 years ago. The people also made use of pottery that arisen earlier during the Archaic period in some places. The forms of pottery were widely diversified.

During the period of 1000-200 BCE the Early Woodland period, included times when people engaged in extensive mound-building, regionally distinctive burial complexes, and traded exotic goods across a vast part of North America that involved substantial interactions with other Indigenous peoples of North America. During that time, many people relied on both wild and domesticated plant foods and mobile subsistence strategies to take advantage of seasonally available resource such as fish, shellfish, nuts, and wild plants with which the people were intimately experienced.  Pottery then was widespread across North America.

By 1751, the Oswegatchie people had occupied much of the north shore of the St. Lawrence in the region we travelled. They withdrew from the North Shore of the St. Lawrence after negotiating with the British in 1784

Later it was settled by United Empire Loyalists and the city of Brockville became named by one of Britain’s most famous Generals, Sir Isaac Brock. English settlers first arrived in 1784 when thousands of refugees arrived from the American colonies after the American Revolutionary War. They were often referred to as United Empire Loyalists because they continued their allegiance to King George III.  They struggled with the American colonies in the years 1776 to 1783 and these skirmishes seriously divided the loyalties among people in some of the American colonies such as New York and Vermont.

 

The British capitulated to the Americans in 1782 and when the six-year war, which ended with the Americans who remained loyal to the British crown being treated harshly by the Americans who saw them as traitors. Many of them lost their properties in America.

Many Loyalists chose to flee north to the British colony of Quebec and Great Britain opened up the western regions of Canada at the time called Upper Canada and later Ontario. In fact, the British crown purchased land from the First Nations so they could allocate land to the loyalists in compensation for their losses and then helped them to establish settlements.

The first settlement by loyalists in the area arrived in 1785 and the first settler was William Buell Sr. Christiane and I walked on a street named after him in Brockville.  Later in the evening we dined at Buell Street Bistro. Buell was an ensign who left the King’s Rangers in the state of New York. Locals called the first settlement Buell’s Bay in his honour. Later, in 1810, the name was changed to Elizabethtown and then even later, Brockville.

 

General Isaac Brock was a celebrated as a hero in the area and even a saviour by some in view of his success in repelling Americans and securing their surrender of Fort Detroit during the War of 1812. He was fatally wounded while leading troops up the heights near Queenston.

Brockville became the first incorporated self-governing town on January 28, 1832, two years before the town of Toronto.

A patent medicine industry developed there around 1854 and features such illustrious products as Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills, Dr. McKenzie’s Worm Tablets, and later Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People. Those must be good.

Brockville along with many other towns in Canada West [now Ontario]  were targets of the threatened Fenian invasion after the American Civil War ended in 1865. In June 1866, the unruly Irish-American Brotherhood of Fenians invaded Canada! The raids were launched across the Niagara River from Vermont into Canada East (now Quebec).

Those unsuccessful raids were a significant catalyst to the confederation of Canada as the people of what became Canada saw their neighbours to the south as lawless ruffians who must be resisted.  Not that differently than today in other words. A year later, in 1867 the new Canadian Prime Minister John A. MacDonald called upon volunteer militia in every town to organize to protect the country from these American rabble rousers. That led to the organization of the Brockville Infantry Company and the Brockville Rifle Company (now called The Brockville Rifles).

Now in 2025 the American president is trying to lure, or perhaps bully, Canada into becoming the 51st state and make what he calls one big beautiful country.

Who ever said Canadian history is boring? Probably many, but not me.

 

Pluralism around the Sault

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Colonialism, History, Indigenous People After Contact, Moral Humility, Pluralism

 

 

The Clergue blockhouse at Sault Ste. Marie

 

The Clergue blockhouse was right beside the Ermatinger house and was part of the original North West Company post at Sault Ste. Marie. Both of which were right beside our hotel.  Of course, I don’t think too many elites stayed in this block house. That was for the lessers.

This area of North America where Lake Huron and Lake Superior meet, including Sault Ste. Marie, Ignace Michigan, the Mackinac Straits, and St Joseph’s Island, were vitally important in the fur trade. There were many varied First Nations, and the French and English, and later the Americans and Canadians. Barbara Huck called it “The Crossroads of Humanity.” Often they fought each other; at other times they lived together peacefully. As Huck explained,

“For a half-century. Michilmackinac [a little south of Sault Ste, Marie] flourished. Living at a crossroads of humanity, the people of the straits were at home with diversity, unfazed by racial, linguistic, or religious  differences. A multilingual, multiracial community evolved as French traders married local Odawa and Ojibwe women. Prefacing the Metis community that would grow up around the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in Manitoba a century later, their mixed blood children soon became the dominant population of the straits.”

In Manitoba as well the Métis people became dominant, for a while.  When Manitoba became a province of Canada in 1870, 80% of the people were Métis. A lot of Manitobans have forgotten this. Some of the Indigenous people had left and the hordes of European immigrants, including Mennonites were not yet there.

It was also interesting what happened after America declared its independence from England. As Huck said,

“In 1775 the New England colonies rebelled, and the British turned to their new-found native allies.  Weighing the situation, the Odawa, Ojibwe, Winnebago, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, and Sioux decided that as rigid and obtuse as the British might be, they were not as bent on clearing and settling the land as the American rebels were.”

 

Where many nations live together, they have to make serious efforts to recognize each other and not assume, that all wisdom resides in their own community. They did learn that in the area around Sault Ste. Marie. Sadly, such lessons are sometimes hard to learn and too often not passed on to the next generation. I am a great believer in pluralism. It breeds humility, something always in short supply. Live and let live. We can all learn from each other. None of us have a monopoly on the truth. Pluralism is not always easy, but it sure beats warfare.

As Sally Gibson wrote in a chapter of Huck’s book,

“Sault Ste. Marie has long been a stopping place for travellers. Once a seamless zone of trade, the area is now separated by the Canadian-American border and twin cities name Sault Ste. Marie on either side of the St. Mary’s River Rapids. The rapids drop almost seven metres over less than three kilometres, draining Lake Superior. Travellers today can enjoy the natural beauty of the area and find remnants of the fur trade that stimulated early European settlement.”

 

Of course, once European countries arrived on the scene it did not take them long to make claims on the land. That’s what Europeans (later Canadians or Americans) do.  As Gibson said,

“The territory around Sault Ste, Marie was claimed for France by Sieur de Saint Lusson in an elaborate ceremony…recognizing the importance of the location, New France granted a seigneury on the St. Mary’s River to Chevalier de Repentigny in 1751.”

 

Of course, Gibson did not say by whose authority France did that because none of the people from Europe had any authority to make such grants. Americans always claimed land by conquest, but the locals in Canada had never been conquered. And the locals had never ceded the land. So there really was no basis for the grants. France could have used some humility.

Chevalier de Repentigny farmed the property and fortified it but he left within 5 years as soon as the 7 Years War broke out between France and England. After the French fell in that war, the English took over, but they really had no authority either. Of course, that did not stop the English from granting exclusive rights to the land in 1765 to an English trader Alexander Henry. He was given authority to the Lake Superior area. What did mean? I would say, as a recovering lawyer, that such a grant would be void for uncertainty. What area was covered by the grant, if the grant was otherwise valid?

I have always wondered what would be the legal effect of the United States placing a flag on the moon?  Would that give the Americans ownership of the entire moon?  Half the moon?  The light side of the moon? A square mile? An acre?  Or no part? How can you make such a decision? When you get right down to it claims of “ownership” are usually dubious at their root. Once more that should generate some humility.

Take another example. Indigenous people roamed the North American continent for thousands of years. Many of them were nomadic. Others were more sedentary farmers. What part did each First Nation own? How can you tell? By what right?

Really all claims of ownership are dubious?  Whether you are talking about the jungles of the Amazon or the plains of North America or the city of Steinbach?  All of them are fundamentally dubious!

I taught real estate law at the University of Manitoba Law School for about 10 years and nothing I learnt or taught there gave me any more certainty.