‘We didn’t sign that treaty’: in Canada, the Anishinaabe fight for land they never gave up

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While Indigenous nations fight the crown for compensation owed from an agreement signed in 1850, one nation fights a different battle.

When he was growing up, Duncan Michano dreamed of one day retracing the route his Anishinaabe ancestors travelled in birch-bark canoes, from the dunes of Lake Superior’s northern shoreline to the community of Longlac – a journey through more than 200km (125 miles) of wilderness

Years spent on the land in northern Ontario kindled a deep desire to also traverse those forests, exposed bedrock and frothy rapids that elders spoke of.

So, in 2016, he did just that.

Travelling with his granddaughter, he hunted for the route, much of it overgrown and fallow. At one point, he found himself standing between rushing water on his left and a steep hill to his right. There was only one possible path forward.

“I’m standing, thinking: ‘Jesus, my grandfather walked right here.’ He was here,” Michano later recalled.

“Knowing your ancestors followed the same path gives you a spiritual connection. It gives you a sense of ownership.”

Ideas of land, ownership and rights have been the focus of an intense, multigenerational battle between successive Canadian governments and a collection of Anishinaabe nations that have long called the place home.

Last week, Canada’s highest court weighed in on the issue, ruling that the crown had made a “mockery” of a key 1850 agreement by failing to adequately compensate First Nations for the riches extracted from their ancestral territories.

The court victory could pave the way for billions in compensation and highlighted why Indigenous communities across the country are increasingly revisiting agreements signed by their ancestors, arguing that in some cases, the terms of those agreements have been broken.

The community of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, on the northern shores of Lake Superior, are waging a different battle, however.

The community, also known as the Ojibways of the Pic River First Nation, are considered signatories of the Robinson Superior treaty at the centre of the recent court battle, and as such they would be eligible for an eventual payout. But for decades, the community has been saying their ancestors never signed any agreement with the crown. Instead, they argue that they retain title over the land and the right to determine how the land and resources should be used. If victorious in this claim, the Biigtigong Nishnaabeg community could be entitled to a far greater payout.

Michano, now 78, recalls how when he was young, Canadian police would come every year to hand out cheques to members of the nation: an annuity owed from the Robinson Superior treaty for the use of their lands by successive generations of settlers, industry and government. Each year, the payment was just C$4 (US$2.90) – a figure Michano said “wasn’t worth my time … Why would I go there and collect four bucks?”

That yearly rhythm was upended in the 1970s by a chance discovery. Michano was waiting at an airport, and purchased a book, first published in 1880, about the history of treaties in Canada. Thumbing through the pages, he was startled to see that Biigtigong Nishnaabeg wasn’t not listed among the signatories of the Robinson Superior treaty. He recalls it as his “holy F” moment: “We didn’t sign that treaty.”

Treaties between First Nations and the crown have largely underpinned the government’s claim to territory in much of what is now Canada and are the basis of its settlement and exploitation. In exchange for control of land, nations were promised the right to hunt and fish, the support of the crown, and a lump sum or annuity payment.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... ada-treaty