Apartheid and the Poisoning of the Earth

The sound of sirens can be heard for the third time in two days as the lone firetruck heads to quench the blazes. One woman got drunk and didn’t notice her house burning down around her. A trailer was burnt down by young girl over a dispute with her parents. Arsonists set a truck on fire.

Meanwhile, there is a housing crisis here.

Last summer there was a flood. Many people were forced out of their homes. Some were sent to Cochrane and are still there. When asked recently what he planned to do about the people here still living in teepees because there homes were flooded out, the Indian Affairs minister said that they were all living in comfortable new homes. Not true. Winter is coming and they are still in their teepees. Not teepees covered with hides like their ancestors built - more like a tarp wrapped around some poles. Why did Indian Affairs minister lie? The truth is no secret. The Indian Affairs minister isn’t supposed to help First Nations people but to make sure that at little as possible is done to help them. The federal government wouldn’t have in any other way - they still use the word “Indian:”.

The community is not built on its original site. The people were forced to move to this site by the government. This site is far too close to the river and flooding is common especially in the spring, when the waters rise several metres above their usual banks.

Ironically, this is a “dry”  community, meaning there is a prohibition on alcohol. An organization called the Peacekeepers is supposed to check baggage and mail coming into the community for alcohol. The Peacekeepers were discontinued last week. Is it still a dry town? Yes, but that makes very little difference. The town bootlegger is known by everyone in town. Obviously keeping the right people paid off and probably in good supply. Alcoholism is rampant even though a twenty-six ounce bottle of vodka runs as much as two-hundred dollars. People will pay that much, which means alcohol comes before food in a lot of families.

At least they’re not sniffing gas. Well, some people are, but that’s another story.

This isolated community near the shores of James Bay can only be reached by plane except for a few months in the winter when there is an ice road. It is surrounded by swampy, peaty land called mushkeg.

Cree people have lived here as long as they remember. But now, for many, this is not the home their ancestors knew. The change likely started around 1976 when Catholic missionaries came to convert the people. There were those that fled the Catholics and those that became the Catholics.

In the 1970, there was a diesel spill near the elementary school. Thirty years later, students were removed from the school because they were getting sick. Now that school has been torn down and an array of portables was set up to take its place. The portables are a stone’s throw away from the contaminated area, which still smells of diesel. The portables are right beside the airport and the fumes of fuel are a common smell. Last year, students missed a lot of school over the discovery of more contamination right under some of the portables currently used as the school.

In the year 2000, they tore the old school down. The government promised a new school then. Nine years and three Indian Affairs ministers later, they are still waiting. The government says there are places worse off than here.

This is but one of the health concerns here. There is a diamond mine up river from the community on traditional hunting grounds. The mine is leaking mercury and other heavy metals into the river. The area around the mine is prime hunting grounds for caribou. But with the poisoning of the river comes the poisoning of the fish and the caribou. People go thirsty because they can’t carry a water jug to the high school to get drinkable water. This is especially true for a multitude of large families that have several children living with their aged grandparents because there is no room at their parents’ home.

Research on the mercury contamination is being done with a grant from Health Canada and Sick Kids Hospital. Apparently, Health Canada tried to tell researchers not take fish and water samples from near the mine. Fortunately, the credibility of this was called into question by Sick Kids and other involved researchers.

Nonetheless, the damage has been done. The water and the traditional foods have been poisoned, forcing many people to buy food from the Northern store at ridiculously high prices. The Northern store has three aisles that have food in them. One of those aisles is dedicated to junk food. Far too often, people choose the cheaper junk food over the healthier, more expensive option. Diabetes is common even though the elders know which plants will cure it. Soon, this knowledge will be lost. The mine is already forcing these people to become consumers of the processed byproducts of the capitalistic diet. The mine is just a tool of the government that allowed it to be there, just another tool to sustain this apartheid system.

South Africa based its apartheid system on Canada’s reserve system. At one point, South African children took up arms against the government because their parents were all in jail. Nelson Mandela and others spent decades in jail before they finally were listened to. South Africa changed its system. Canada did not. It is an apartheid system.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of apartheid in Canada is the effects of the residential schools. There are many people in the community who were in these schools. Most of these people are parents and/or grandparents now but the damage is being done to the children of today. Multiple generations missed the parenting of their own children and thus, traditions and parenting skills were not passed on. From a young age, children run free around the community, doing as they please, throwing rocks, starting fires, breaking into houses, stealing from the Northern store because there is little else to do. There are too many of them. Many families have upwards of ten children and parents that are so emotionally scarred from experiences with residential schools, apathetic governments and local tragedies, that hope only comes in bottles now. There is some respect for the elders but it is not enough to bring back the traditional ways. It is difficult to teach a child who doesn’t respect adults to respect the community elders and have that respect be anything more than lip-service. The adults are outnumbered and the community is under youthful control.

Watch out for rocks.

Some families are still trying to live in traditional ways. This essentially means that they still hunt and fish. Surely there is some tradition, wisdom and hope passed on that is not so clear to those observers who have themselves lost it.

What purpose will be served in staying here if the land is poisoned? A sense of tradition, a sense of hope, the inability to leave? Is the goal of the government to intentionally displace First Nations people? Continuation of the genocide?

Perhaps, the government wants to make reserves unappealling and uninhabitable, forcing the displacement of First Nations peoples into cities and suburbs. More than likely, the federal government is trying to break their spirits. The government knows what happened in South Africa could very well happen here (or on any reserve).

-AJ Fletcher