Peter Kulchyski | March 1st 2010 | Canadian Dimenision

Early this fall, an event largely ignored by the mass media in Canada, took place in northwestern Ontario. A floatplane filled with equipment and staff from the Platinex mining company attempted to land on Big Trout Lake, known as Kitchenuhmaykoosib to the local Inninuwug. The chief and other members of the community got in their boats and played a game of “chicken” with the plane, maneuvering their boats in front of its landing trajectory to keep it from being able settle onto the lake. After making several attempts, the pilot turned around and returned south. A few months later the community heard the news that the Ontario government had bought out Platinex’s interest in the disputed territory (part of Treaty 9) and announced that the platinum mining development in the region would not proceed.

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It was below zero degrees Fahrenheit on the night of Dec. 2, 2002, when sisters and young indigenous mothers Chrissy and Bonnie Swain from the Grassy Narrows First Nation drove from their reserve, located in the southern fringe of the vast Boreal Forest in northern Ontario, to the logging road just a few miles from their home. The sisters felled trees over the road to protest unwanted logging on their land by Abitibi Consolidated. They then headed home, afraid their father would be mad at them. Instead, he was proud. Their protest was the spark that ignited their small community of 1,000 to launch a sustained direct-action campaign to stop logging.

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By BRYAN MEADOWS. Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Forest industry giant AbitibiBowater Inc. is pulling out of the Whiskey Jack Forest north of Kenora.  The company says it has more available and accessible fibre elsewhere, and that it can‘t wait four more years for the province and Grassy Narrows First Nation to come to an agreement on acceptable logging practices there. “We plan to discontinue the use of the Whiskey Jack Forest while the government and Grassy Narrows conducts their negotiations,” company spokesman Jean-Philippe Cote said Tuesday.

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GRASSY NARROWS SPEAKING TOUR

Saturday March 17th from 5-9 pm
Simon Baker Room, Aboriginal Friendship Center, 1607 East Hastings Street (at Commercial)

Members of the Anishnabek (Ojibway) community of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) will be speaking in Vancouver on Saturday March 17th as part of a speaking tour that aims to educate people about the longest running Indigenous logging blockade in Canadian history.

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Grassy Narrows Protesters Refuse to Plea to Charges. Kenora Daily Miner and News, February 6th. Dan Gauthier

Three Grassy Narrows First Nation women, charged with mischief in connection to a pair of highway blockades last summer, refused to enter pleas to the charges during a brief appearance in Kenora provincial court Monday. Adrienne Swain, 27, Bonnie Swain, 32, and Chrissy Swain, 27, told visiting Justice Thomas McKay, from Fort Frances, they neither had a lawyer, nor were they planning to seek one to deal with the charges.Each is facing two counts of mischief related to the July 13, 2006 roadblock at the Highway 17A Kenora bypass, and the July 26, blockade of the English River Road at the Separation Rapids Bridge.

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Separation Lake Bridge, Ontario – On Wednesday July 26th at approximately 9:30pm, nine people were arrested in a police raid of a logging road blockade.

On Tuesday, July 25th, a blockade was started at the Separation Lake Bridge, the border of Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory, at approximately 2:00pm. The blockade, led by Grassy Narrows community members Bonnie, Chrissy, and Adrienne Swain was peaceful, and was attended by around fifteen people, including four children.

At 9:30pm on Wednesday, approximately 30 police officers approached the blockade without warning, and arrested nine of the eleven adults who were present. All of the arrests took place in front of the children who were present: Shayne Swain, 6 years old; Robyn Swain, 14 months old; Tanisha Swain, 4 months old; and Corissa Swain, 5 years old. The only two adults who were not arrested were Adrienne Swain, mother of Shayne and Robyn, and Shelagh Pizey-Allen, who was taking care of the children. Chrissy Swain,
mother of Tanisha and Corissa, was arrested by the OPP in front of her children. Eight of the nine arrestees were female.

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