Hollow Water First Nation Barricades Highways to Protest Cottage Development on Traditional First Nation Territory

The people of Manitoba, and an ever expanding number of folks around the world, are hearing of the current blockades happening on the traditional territory of the Hollow Water First Nation, 2 hours north of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

It is the desire of Chief Ian Bushie of the Hollow Water First Nation that information be disseminated to the general public that properly and accurately portrays the current situation of events and issues.

As a member of the Hollow Water First Nation, Little Black Bear is the community's servant in providing information that will bring light to the issues from a First Nation perspective and that respects all parties involved to the best of our ability.

Background:

The Province of Manitoba, of its own volition, constructed a roadway along the shores of Lake Winnipeg that enabled cottage development on the traditional territory of the Hollow Water First Nation (see the map).

Over the past several years, the four surrounding communities of Hollow Water First Nation, Aghaming, Seymourville, and Manigotagan have been seeing an increasing number of people move onto their lands by cottagers eager to establish their second home. For most of these cottagers, this is a luxury they can certainly afford and some of the "cottages" are reportedly in the $2 million+ range in terms of their cost. Essentially, the Province has accommodated the cottagers by building an access road and surveying the area to make it ready for settlement. They have paved the way for cottagers to move into the area with no thought for the local people. All benefits derived from taxes and selling of the lots, which ranged from $7000 - $47,000 each, was to be forwarded to the Province. No services, no benefits to the local communities of Hollow Water, Seymourville, Aghaming, or Manigotagan.

Indeed, throughout this entire process, so-called consultation with the local four communities has consisted of sending out faxes and letters to "tell" the people that development would be forthcoming, not to involve them.

In fact, the entire story requires a quick look back in history to the 1870's. When the federal government wanted to settle the west; they sent out Commissioners to sign treaties to pave the way for settlers to move in. They accomplished this in devious ways that eventually allowed for the occupation of the west, primarily by french and english people. There was a constant influx of Europeans that pushed the First Nation people further and further away into the northern lands of Manitoba.

First Nations understood the treaties to be sacred and living documents that were witnessed by the Creator. The land could not be given away any more than the air could be given away. First Nations were not presumptuous to believe ownership of the land could be asserted in what is understood today as a common law or legal right. The right to the land was not bestowed upon First Nation people by man, but by the Creator. That right included occupying and utilizing the resources of the land by the people for their survival and for thriving.

Small parcels of land, called Reserves, were eventually designated through the treaty making process and doled out to the "Indians" back in the 1870's; and the First Nations have survived ever since through incredible and insurmountable odds: small pox and TB epidemics, abuses of every kind, poverty, injustices, pestilence, and so many other adversities. The survival of the First Nation Peoples of Canada is a testament and an inspiration for their determined strength and resilience to remain as one with this beautiful land we call Mother Earth.

Fastforward to our current situation: the Provincial government didn't bother sending in Commissioners to talk about settling the Hollow Water First Nation's traditional territory, because they believed their laws gave them every right to do so. This dredges up in one's mind the ingrained belief of "terra nullius" that Columbus and his crew believed as well as successive colonists to Turtle Island (North America); it said, "this land is not inhabited". Didn't matter that there were "creatures" they thought resembled human beings staring at them along the shore, the land was empty and "no man's land" as far as they were concerned. And so, the Province of Manitoba, in like manner, viewed the traditional Hollow Water, Seymourville, and Manigotagan area as empty and free for development. Wrong move.

After watching these developments over the past several years, Chief Ian Bushie took a strong leadership stand and actions that say: "enough!" Enough of our resources of trees, wood, fish, various species of plant and animal life, being taken! Enough of our resources being negatively affected and destroyed altogether by greed and lust for coveted places like beach front properties! Enough assaulting the dignity of the people and of Mother Earth, which the First Nation people hold in sacred regard! Enough usurping our rights to economic benefits! Enough watching the cottage lots get developed with its roads and infrastructure while the local people are forced to drive on rutted, muddy roads that are literally killing our young children! Enough being ignored by successive governments and a bureaucracy that has no heart or soul but surely possesses an unrelenting determination to run roughshod over Aboriginal people and to deny their rightful place in society!

Enough!!

And so, here we stand today. Cottage development is halted. The road access to the cottage development area is blocked by the people of Hollow Water and some people from the surrounding communities. Nothing further will happen - not one more tree to be cut down and not one more moose or fish to be taken without the consent of the local people. No movement forward until the Province pays its due respect to the authority and autonomy of the Hollow Water First Nation people on its own traditional lands and territory.

Although, there have been some miscommunications and misunderstandings in the beginning, the other communities of Seymourville, Manigotagan, and Aghaming are starting to realize Chief Ian Bushie is right. Some people in these communities are beginning to acknowledge that if something is not done now, when will it ever be done?


(Note: The signs are going up that read: "Private Property" - on land that First Nations have left untouched and undeveloped, to be enjoyed in its natural state. Where freedom to walk once existed, "stay out" is now displayed)