DAILY MINER & NEWS

Highway blockade breaks up after dark

July 14, 2006

Protesters blocked the Trans-Canada Highway near Airport Road until 10 p.m. Thursday, then packed up allowing traffic on the highway to slowly regain its flow after midnight.

By Shelley Bujold (with files from Canadian Press)

Protesters blocked the Trans-Canada Highway near Airport Road until 10 p.m. Thursday, then packed up allowing traffic on the highway to slowly regain its flow after midnight.

Activists from the Rainforest Action Network and members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation gathered on the highway to demand clear-cutting stop near the First Nation in order to protect the boreal forest. They were able to keep the road closed with a number of people holding banners, by erecting a 10-metre tripod in the middle of the roadway with a woman suspended from it and chaining themselves to barrels.

They also commandeered a transport logging truck with one protester laying underneath, chained to its axle, for the majority of the day. It left Willy Reid, a Kenora-based trucker, stranded at the scene, but no injuries were incurred.

The protesters accuse logging companies Weyerhaeuser Corp., and Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., of clear-cutting on traditional native lands near the Grassy Narrows reserve — despite opposition from reserve residents.

The work has made it harder for the residents to engage in hunting and other traditional activities and animal habitats have been destroyed, said Grassy Narrows spokesman Joe Fobister.

‘‘It’s destroying our way of life, it’s destroying who we are, period. It has to stop,’’ Fobister said.

‘‘These companies clear-cut large amounts of our land and we receive no economic benefits.’’

Former grand chief Leon Jourdain was at the protest and said it’s the type of society the government created which has led to desperate protests like these of First Nation people.

“It’s just not about clear-cutting, it’s about the rebirth of the nation,” he said. “This is not about negotiations, it’s about respecting indigenous people, it’s about respecting the land.”

The demonstration was put together Wednesday night by North American environmental activists holding a week-long workshop in the Grassy Narrows area to draw attention to long-simmering debates on logging practices in the region.

Transport trucks and highway traffic heading west was being re-routed through Kenora on Highway 17 to get around the blockade. Traffic heading east was backed up at first but eventually headed through Kenora via Redditt Road to get around the blockade.

Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Ramsay said that talks with the First Nation have been ongoing since 2004 but that the province hasn’t made the progress it had hoped.

Ramsay said he was in Kenora two weeks ago to meet with Grassy Narrows Chief Simon Fobister and Treaty 3 Grand Chief Arnold Gardiner to discuss new ways of resource management. He said the issues surrounding the Grassy Narrows reserve weren’t raised at that time.

“The road block is a bit of a surprise for me,” Ramsay said from Niagara- On-The-Lake, in Southern Ontario.

“I guess a lot of outside groups have come in to support their demands for a different type of forest management in the area.

“We are determined to work with them and find a way that we can work together in managing the forests.”

Ramsay said the development of a Northern Table established two months ago is centering discussions around sharing the benefits with First Nations communities in the region that accrue from resource development.

“We want to find ways that we can better share employment opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities, training opportunities as well as revenue from the development of those resources,” Ramsay said.