Our Long Struggle for Home by Aazhoodenaang Enjibaajig

Author:Aazhoodenaang Enjibaajig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Moving Into Ipperwash Park

There had been talk of taking over the park [Ipperwash Provincial Park] as far back as May 1993. Maynard T. George had even drawn up a notice advising the person receiving it “not to resist or willingly obstruct the legal seizure and repossession of the identified lands” as a lawful part of the Stoney Point Reserve. It was signed by Carl George, who was our first chief, along with a number of our councillors, including Rose Manning, Janet Cloud, and Clifford George. Maynard got the bailiff, Scott Ewart, to serve this notice to the park’s superintendent, Les Kobayashi, to make it official. We found out later that he ended up serving it on one of the summer employees when he couldn’t find Kobayashi. We had also talked to Kobayashi about us co-managing the park with them, the people at the Ministry of Natural Resources, and our people putting on some programs to educate the public.

It wasn’t just that the land had been so-called sold but mostly swindled away from us back in the 1920s when the treaty had promised us the exclusive use and enjoyment of all the land set aside as our reserve. It was the burial grounds that were in there too.

Rose: “My father, he was the chief and a councillor there and continued to be a councillor in Kettle Point. And when I was looking in the archives, I recall seeing my dad’s name in several places, and he was saying: ‘We have to put a fence around those burial grounds.’ And I remember him talking about them too. He seemed to know exactly where the burial ground was because he wanted it fenced-in separate from the park because they were desecrating that burial ground when they camped right there after the park was established there.

“They said there were some people [buried] that were facing west … and they buried them with all what they needed for their travel … That was the people that were travelling through, because we had our own burial ground. This was supposed to be the visitors that would stop in. They would stop in for flint – trade for flint or whatever,” and healing.

On the day the bailiff went in (May 18), Maynard led a few of us in too, to do a ceremony, hand out pamphlets, raise awareness. Some of this came to light during the Ipperwash Inquiry. There were notes from phone calls Kobayashi had had with Chief Tom Bressette at the time.

Tom Bressette: “I told him basically, I felt, you know, that trespass charges should be laid against him and leave it up to the appropriate authorities … I told him, get the OPP to charge him. That’s what I told him.”

Kevin: “It had been made clear before, when we’d taken over the army base, that we weren’t going to … that our people would be staying within those boundaries … the lands that were taken in 1942.”

Still, the idea of taking back the part of the reserve that had been turned into the provincial park had never gone away completely.

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