Marchers reach capital

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After 19 days of walking, a weary group of Stoney Point First Nation members reached Parliament Hill with tears in their eyes after completing a 700 kilometre march to protest the taking of their land.

The 20 protesters arrived at the nation's capital with mixed feeling of jubilation and solemnity, embracing each other as they ended their journey Sept. 30. The group undertook the march to draw attention to their 50-year struggle to reclaim their land

from the Canadian military.

Led by two staff bearers, a pipe carrier and two elders, the group made their way through Ottawa, cheered on by passerbys. "We are here today to remind them that we have not forgotten, we are still here, we're alive, we exist. They have forgotten us," Stoney Point Chief Carl George said.

Chief George was commenting on a 1981 decision by the federal government to pay $2.5 million to the Kettle Point Band as compensation, saying the Stoney Point Band no longer existed.

In 1942 the federal government seized the band's eight square kilometre reserve on the shores of Lake Huron to build a paratroop training base. The land was taken over the band's protests in the name of the war effort, with promises it would be returned at the end of Second World War.

Houses were jacked up and dragged to the nearby smaller reserve at Kettle Point, those that could not be moved were bulldozed. After their settlement was demolished, Stoney Point was renamed Camp Ipperwash. Today it is still serving the military as an army cadet training camp for six weeks during each summer. The rest of the year the camp remains vacant and unused.

Clifford George says he has been hearing the line that his people would be getting their land back for 50 years.

"I went overseas in 1941 as an anti-aircraft gunner," he said. "In 1942 I got a letter from my father saying our land is gone but 'don't worry son, we will get it back as soon as the war is over.'

"Our Grand Chief Mercredi said, 'Cliff you'll get your land back.' I said I have been hearing that for the last 50 years - when's it going to materialized?" he said.

In May many of the families returned to Stoney Point to reoccupy their land after negotiations failed to return their land. Living in a collection of tents and some trailers, they are preparing to stay the winter.

But Tom Siddon, present minister of National Defense has said that the land is still important to the military and will not be returned. As Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, a post he held for four years until June, Siddon had called on National Defense to return the land, saying it would right an injustice and help improve the lives of the people from Stoney Point.

For many, the march to Ottawa was more than a protest to reclaim lost land. For them it was an exercise in community building and a spirit quest.

"Nineteen days on the road and it has not been easy," said Jim Bacchus, of the Stoney Point First Nation. "There has been some conflict, there has been some personalities, there has been some differences of people."

But something these people can teach anyone here is how to build a community, Bacchus added.

"I have never in my life seen a people who were so devoted to each other, to pull together and dedicated to family and with a tremendous love of laughter," he said.

The Stoney Point protest was only the first of many slated for Parliament Hill in the next few months, to remind the federal government that little has been done for Canadian Natives during this International Year of Indigenous Peoples.