The Kichesipirini And Ipperwash

The ACTivist magazine People of the Great River and Ipperwash Written by Stephen Salaff Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Artist Paula LaPierre is a principal Sachem of the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation, based in Pembroke, Ontario, and serves as the First Nation’s elected representative. LaPierre has been employed by the governments of Ontario and Canada in the delivery of social services, including employment and the development of human resources. LaPierre recently contributed to a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council research project with York University in Toronto, compiling and preserving oral interview information on family and lineage continuity in Aboriginal and Algonquin communities. She has volunteered for positions on the boards of directors of Renfrew County Children’s Council, Pembroke and Area Association for Community Living and Renfrew County Children’s Mental Health Services. LaPierre is the mother of three daughters and one son, and grandmother of five, and she is expecting two more grandchildren. In her spare time, LaPierre is writing a book on the history of Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation and their land base on Allumette Island. Salaff: Paula, the report of the Ipperwash Inquiry is imminent. Are there any similarities between your struggle in the Ottawa River Valley on the Quebec border and the Ipperwash community crisis in southwestern Ontario closer to the Great Lakes? LaPierre: The tragic events leading to the fatal 6 September 1995 shooting of unarmed Aboriginal protestor Dudley George, a member

of the Stoney Point Chippewa community, resemble those in the history of People of the Great River Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation. The Stoney Point Chippewa and Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation each asserts Aboriginal rights to land, which is surely valuable to us for economic purposes. We also cherish our lands for compassionate, deeply human motivations, bearing on individual dignity and respect for our members, alive or dead. Sacred Aboriginal community attachment to ancestors, lands and culture was observed and recorded by the earliest Europeans arrivals. Thus Aboriginal-origin University of Toronto law professor Darlene Johnston quoted to the Ipperwash Inquiry Day One, during her April 2004 invited presentation on “Great Lakes Aboriginal History in Cultural Context” Jesuit Father Baird : “[the Algonquin people] are very reluctant to be separated from the tombs of their ancestors; their graves and cemeteries and well-marked and well-tended.” (Volume One of Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents) Sadly, our peoples have been separated and dispossessed from scores of gravesites and burial grounds. Ever since early colonial settlement, Canada’s indigenous peoples were variously dispossessed of their lands, resources and culture, and often, their identities. To the Stoney Point community, the expropriation and disrespect of important gravesites symbolized this pattern of exploitation and somehow catalyzed their awareness of grievous territorial losses. The Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation experience strongly legitimizes Stoney Point Chippewa concerns. Due to the unilateral application of administrative policies, racist regimes, border shifts, jurisdictional shuffling and cultural corruptions, the Kichesipirini, as a

distinct Algonquin people, have fallen to the realm of “the forgotten people,” descended from “stragglers” in the Ottawa River Valley. Some of the main archeological sites in Canada, including one of the country’s most vividly recorded Aboriginal gravesites, and tangible connections to our past lay lost and silent under ‘private property’ and ‘recreational facility’ signs, within our view, but outside our touch. Salaff: What is the current status of your struggle? LaPierre: Our Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation seeks to gain full participation rights in negotiations on the Algonquin Land Claim. Representatives of Algonquin communities, Ontario and Canada are now meeting monthly to negotiate Algonquin historical and constitutional-based claims to ownership of the Ottawa River watershed in Ontario and its natural resources. Our community name means “People of the Great River.” We believe that a comparative cost analysis of the administrative expenses of running a “Reserve” versus an even larger community such as Pembroke, will demonstrate that the “Reserve” system has contributed to the poverty and deprivation of registered “Indians.” At the negotiating table, we will seek improved new models of Algonquin and Aboriginal governance. Although we function on opposite extremes of the imposed federal Indian Act system, in which Stoney Point Chippewa were federally recognized, and Kichesipirini Algonquins never were, both our communities live remarkably similar experiences as Aboriginal communities in Canada. We all recognize the moral obligation to ensure that the systems are critically examined and improved to ensure that the true frustrations of citizens like Dudley George do not require such desperate actions to win appropriate recourse and remedy.

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