Aboriginal Issues in Canada

[Vile Atheist]

As this forum is a little more "American" than "North", I'm going to make it a little more North American. Allow me to set the story.

It's the fall of 1992 in the small town of High Falls, Ontario. A plan was put in place to develop a hydroelectric dam nearby in order to generate electricity and develop the local economy. After several days of heavy rains, a skull and two bones showed up in the ground. The site now took on an entirely different meaning for the nearby Poplar Point Ojibwe First Nation. Some Ojibwe believe that the wind and rushing water are essential for communication between the living and the dead. This dam would, in their view, block the voices of their ancestors. The question becomes: "Do you allow this project to go through?"

In essence, this one incident is a microcosm of many others where cultural conflicts between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in Canada cause friction, racism, and hatred. Considering my background, I'm very conflicted here and I was wondering your opinion on how you would reconcile the cultural differences. Here are my thoughts:

1. I unequivocally believe in universal freedom of religion, thought, belief, opinion, and expression and I am unshakeably opposed to any attempts to stifle any of the above, no matter how much I may disagree with it, so long as it stays within the confines of the law and does not inflict harm on others.

2. The notion that winds and flowing water are essential to communication between the living and the dead is demonstrably false. This alone is no reason to stop a multimillion dollar hydroelectric dam from proceeding.

3. I am willing to accommodate other cultures up to a certain extent. That extent is where it does not cause society undue burden, be it social, financial, or environmental. Other cultures must be willing to compromise with elements that are incompatible with our society (for example, honour killings).

4. I can sympathize with those who find "sanctity" in something I do not. I am not Catholic and am opposed to Catholicism, but I wouldn't want St. Peter's Basilica to be destroyed. Not only is it important to many others, it is important from a historical and cultural perspective. Simply because I do not value something does not mean it should be destroyed at my whim.

5. It seems that halting a multimillion dollar project for the sake of an obviously false belief is a huge waste and burden. While I would like to accommodate the Ojibwe culture, doing so for such a flippant reason on such a large and costly project would set terrible precedent. It seems that there can be little done to compromise.

I therefore lean towards allowing the project to go through. What are your thoughts? How would you reconcile this and other cultural conflicts (it doesn't have to be Aboriginal vs. non-Aboriginal)?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

A multi million pound project only has any value at all if it goes ahead.

The Citizens of Canada have equal value Native or settlers.

The only people to lose out to this project are the Native Canadians.
Their reasons are certainly of more lasting value to their culture, than the money will be to those promoting the project.

Neither you nor I have anyway to evaluate their beliefs as true or false. But such industrial vandalism can not be undone.

There may be another way their ancestors can be satisfied, if so it would be worth investigating.
even if costly in money terms.

 

[Vile Atheist]

Neither you nor I have anyway to evaluate their beliefs as true or false.

This is where I disagree. Perhaps this may be true for SOME of their beliefs, but for THIS particular one, it is demonstrably false. There is no shortage of cases where people claim to talk to those who have supposedly long died. It's virtually in every culture. In most of these cases, wind and rushing water was not a prerequisite for communication. So either:

1) Wind and rushing water is not required for communication between the living and the dead (even if you take at face value that the people making the claims are correct in their convictions) and therefore this hydro dam would not interrupt any supposed communication. Or...

2) If wind and rushing water really is required for communication between the living and the dead, the Ojibwe are going to have a hell of a time explaining why virtually every religion and belief system on Earth but theirs is false. In other words, they'll have to invalidate all those other experiences.


A similar situation is occurring in my hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Just south of the city there is a "mountain range" (they're really just very large hills and cliffs) that's sacred to the local Ojibwe. They've been performing sacred rituals like the powwow on these mountains for centuries, if not millennia. There's a proposed wind farm to be set up on this mountain and they're using the argument that the mountain is important to their culture in order to halt the project.

If that alone was the case, I'd be 100% on their side. The mountains would have cultural significance and should be preserved. But consider the mountain is ringed by ever-growing suburbs, no less than three ski hills (two of them now defunct), a whole street several miles long of gas bars and variety stores (gas is cheaper on the reserve), as well as their own solar panel farm project, a dump, a trailer park, an amusement park, a scenic lookout, and a zoo.

When I look at all these developments that went not only unopposed, but in many cases were supported by the local Ojibwe, you have to scratch your head and wonder why all these developments didn't ruin the sanctity of the mountains, but a wind farm would. This leads to the (probably correct) impression that the local Ojibwe leadership are using their culture as a weapon to halt a project so that they get cut into the deal.

When there's such a lack of consistency, though, it makes cultural accommodation really difficult.

 

[Willamena]

2. The notion that winds and flowing water are essential to communication between the living and the dead is demonstrably false. This alone is no reason to stop a multimillion dollar hydroelectric dam from proceeding.

It's also not false, when it's recognized for what it is: a sign. Then it properly becomes the notion that wind and flowing water symbolize a communication from the dead.

 

[Alceste]

Native land claims issues don't really have anything to do with religious observance. The setup sounds kind of fishy. Why would the presence of human remains make them suddenly decide the wind and water help them communicate with the dead? Isn't it possible that it only made them realize that there might be a burial ground there, which would improve their chances of either controlling the property themselves or having it protected?

However you want to slice it, there's no way the only reason they might want the dam stopped is that "rushing water helps us communicate with the dead". If this is a purely hypothetical situation, you should take the human remains out of the model to avoid confusion.

 

[Vile Atheist]

It's also not false, when it's recognized for what it is: a sign. Then it properly becomes the notion that wind and flowing water symbolize a communication from the dead.

That makes the case for stopping the dam even worse, in my view.

 

[Vile Atheist]

Native land claims issues don't really have anything to do with religious observance. The setup sounds kind of fishy. Why would the presence of human remains make them suddenly decide the wind and water help them communicate with the dead? Isn't it possible that it only made them realize that there might be a burial ground there, which would improve their chances of either controlling the property themselves or having it protected?

However you want to slice it, there's no way the only reason they might want the dam stopped is that "rushing water helps us communicate with the dead". If this is a purely hypothetical situation, you should take the human remains out of the model to avoid confusion.

Well that's the thing. The original story where I got this from (it's not a hypothetical) mentioned the human remains but didn't say what the significance was. How old were they? Were they even Ojibwe remains? Was it an old Ojibwe gravesite (in which case, the case for stopping the dam becomes far stronger)? It just sort of throws that in there.

Based on the setup, I would have to assume that it was an Ojibwe gravesite and the significance of the wind and rushing water played into it that way. But that's just an assumption and I didn't want to start assuming. The story doesn't elaborate on the human remains. For all I know, it could be a white guy buried there a couple years ago.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

As this forum is a little more "American" than "North", I'm going to make it a little more North American. Allow me to set the story.

It's the fall of 1992 in the small town of High Falls, Ontario. A plan was put in place to develop a hydroelectric dam nearby in order to generate electricity and develop the local economy. After several days of heavy rains, a skull and two bones showed up in the ground. The site now took on an entirely different meaning for the nearby Poplar Point Ojibwe First Nation. Some Ojibwe believe that the wind and rushing water are essential for communication between the living and the dead. This dam would, in their view, block the voices of their ancestors. The question becomes: "Do you allow this project to go through?"

Well, ideally, the issue wouldn't come up in the first place.

I don't know what the rules were for environmental assessments back in 1992, but today, a project like this would hopefully go through two stages of architectural review:

- a high-level review based on the known history of the peoples who lived there and the geology of the area to figure out both where settlements and artifacts may be, potentially, and where the geology and soil conditions would have allowed those artifacts to be preserved if they had been there.

- a detailed-level, shovels-in-the-ground survey of the locations identified in the high-level review.

Hopefully, with this sort of investigation, the issue would never arise, since any burial sites or settlements would be known before design happened, and could be taken into account in the design, or at the very least, you can take the time to decide calmly and rationally how to deal with them instead of having to do a quick decision when construction schedules (and therefore money to pay a crew to just wait around idle) are at play, and when it's not a matter of the dam going right here or nowhere else.

However, sometimes things like this do happen. On a highway project I worked on, they had already completed the archaeological reviews when a crew doing the boreholes needed for pavement design found what ended up being the remnants of a First Nations village that nobody had known about. In that case, the design of the road was altered to go around it. Luckily, the land that they had to divert onto was vacant and already owned by the province.

In this case, I'm not really sure what they would have been asking for. Preserving the site itself? A ban on all in-water works in any watershed where any First Nations burial site might be? Something in between? The alternative that's up for discussion has a pretty big bearing on whether it's reasonable to accommodate it.

In essence, this one incident is a microcosm of many others where cultural conflicts between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in Canada cause friction, racism, and hatred. Considering my background, I'm very conflicted here and I was wondering your opinion on how you would reconcile the cultural differences. Here are my thoughts:

1. I unequivocally believe in universal freedom of religion, thought, belief, opinion, and expression and I am unshakeably opposed to any attempts to stifle any of the above, no matter how much I may disagree with it, so long as it stays within the confines of the law and does not inflict harm on others.

2. The notion that winds and flowing water are essential to communication between the living and the dead is demonstrably false. This alone is no reason to stop a multimillion dollar hydroelectric dam from proceeding.

In my mind, the issue isn't so much with that; it's with the fact that because of that belief, it will cause real distress to real people if the project goes ahead. I think that's a factor, although it's not the only factor.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Native land claims issues don't really have anything to do with religious observance.

It's not necessarily a land claim issue. Yes, there are some cases where there's a question of who owns the land that an infrastructure project would use, but even if it's clear that there is no native claim to the land, it's still an archaeological find of cultural significance and value.

 

[Alceste]

It's not necessarily a land claim issue. Yes, there are some cases where there's a question of who owns the land that an infrastructure project would use, but even if it's clear that there is no native claim to the land, it's still an archaeological find of cultural significance and value.

Fair point. I mean to say that there's bound to be a lot more going on than superstition, and the situation in Ontario is still pretty adversarial. Whatever the government tries to do, there is bound to be some level of objection from First Nations communities due to the huge amount of screwing over they've endured over the years.

If you give me more information (ie the location) I can try to find out the position of the dam's opponents in greater detail.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Fair point. I mean to say that there's bound to be a lot more going on than superstition, and the situation in Ontario is still pretty adversarial. Whatever the government tries to do, there is bound to be some level of objection from First Nations communities due to the huge amount of screwing over they've endured over the years.

That hasn't been my experience. I've been involved in several environmental assessments for highway projects, and local First Nations normally get put on the contact list. I've never seen any of them object to a project just for the sake of objecting. In fact, in several cases, after we send them the first letter telling them that the study is starting, they've sent replies asking to be taken off the distribution list because they know they'll have no objection.

Of course, every group is going to be different, so maybe First Nations in other parts of the province behave the way you describe.

 

[Vile Atheist]

That's much of the case in Northwestern Ontario (my literal neck of the woods).

 

[darkendless]

This sort of stuff can be frustrating. Their "culture" can significantly harm the livelihoods of entire companies. A construction company went broke in my neck of the woods (QLD Australia) because of cultural issues. Hundreds of people lost their jobs in an already strained market. Due to delays and already contractored equipment and sub-contractors they had paymnts to make with nothing tangible to present to the client to receive their funding. Terrible really. It was over bones as well.

In the case you have presented, did they have proof that the skull was native? Seems terribly unjustified if such a project (which would be a significant injection to the local economy) was canned for a single skull.

Seems as if they were being difficult for the sake of it. Could the companies involved in the initial planning be compensated for their losses? Pretty sure professional indemnity does not cover natives having a whinge over a skull.

 

[Alceste]

This sort of stuff can be frustrating. Their "culture" can significantly harm the livelihoods of entire companies. A construction company went broke in my neck of the woods (QLD Australia) because of cultural issues. Hundreds of people lost their jobs in an already strained market. Due to delays and already contractored equipment and sub-contractors they had paymnts to make with nothing tangible to present to the client to receive their funding. Terrible really. It was over bones as well.

In the case you have presented, did they have proof that the skull was native? Seems terribly unjustified if such a project (which would be a significant injection to the local economy) was canned for a single skull.

Seems as if they were being difficult for the sake of it. Could the companies involved in the initial planning be compensated for their losses? Pretty sure professional indemnity does not cover natives having a whinge over a skull.

Why do you think profits should be prioritized over the historical and cultural significance of a piece of property to its original owners? Our culture has lots of sites of historical significance to us, as well as graveyards, and they are protected from development, regardless of any concerns over lost profits or jobs. Is that only unreasonable when aboriginal people want the same consideration?

 

[Alceste]

That hasn't been my experience. I've been involved in several environmental assessments for highway projects, and local First Nations normally get put on the contact list. I've never seen any of them object to a project just for the sake of objecting. In fact, in several cases, after we send them the first letter telling them that the study is starting, they've sent replies asking to be taken off the distribution list because they know they'll have no objection.

Of course, every group is going to be different, so maybe First Nations in other parts of the province behave the way you describe.

That's encouraging to hear. I'm mainly familiar with the sorts of conflicts that brought Oka, Gustafsen Lake and Ipperwash to a head. IOW, illegal encroachments onto reservation land for the sake of development. It's good to know things are not always so tense.

 

[darkendless]

Why do you think profits should be prioritized over the historical and cultural significance of a piece of property to its original owners? Our culture has lots of sites of historical significance to us, as well as graveyards, and they are protected from development, regardless of any concerns over lost profits or jobs. Is that only unreasonable when aboriginal people want the same consideration?

The issue is one skull with little to identify it as significant to the natives (if I am not mistaken).

If I am not mistaken it seems that they are making a big deal over one skull. I recognise that there are sites of importance, there are here too, but one skull? I respect their culture but surely there has to be middle ground here? If the principal contractor got as far as people being on site then they would have flooded hundreds of thousands of dollars into the project. How would they be compensated for their losses in Canada?

 

[Alceste]

The issue is one skull with little to identify it as significant to the natives (if I am not mistaken).

If I am not mistaken it seems that they are making a big deal over one skull. I recognise that there are sites of importance, there are here too, but one skull? I respect their culture but surely there has to be middle ground here? If the principal contractor got as far as people being on site then they would have flooded hundreds of thousands of dollars into the project. How would they be compensated for their losses in Canada?

The OP only offered the discovery of human remains, and said that was all the information his source (not provided) contained. I am saying it's kind of a silly assumption that that is all there is to the story. That's why I asked for specifics.

 

[darkendless]

The OP only offered the discovery of human remains, and said that was all the information his source (not provided) contained. I am saying it's kind of a silly assumption that that is all there is to the story. That's why I asked for specifics.

Of course, if it is random bones people are going to be angry. Even if they are native American, who ever the principal contractor is probably lost a truck-load of cash over some bones which is terrible.

Doesn't Canada have a policy where sensitive persons have a representative perform a survey prior to principal engagement to prevent things like this?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Of course, if it is random bones people are going to be angry. Even if they are native American, who ever the principal contractor is probably lost a truck-load of cash over some bones which is terrible.

Doesn't Canada have a policy where sensitive persons have a representative perform a survey prior to principal engagement to prevent things like this?

Kinda sorta. A project like this would have an environmental assessment, which would normally include an archaeological investigation and consultation with all sorts of stakeholders, including First Nations (aboriginal) representatives. Normally, any formal field investigation for things like this would be done by archaeologists who aren't necessarily native themselves, but each First Nations group would be given opportunity to raise any concerns as they see fit.

The project wouldn't get approval to proceed until the Ministry of the Environment (either provincial, federal or both, depending on the nature of the project) gives the okay. The MOE takes into account the issues raised by stakeholder groups when making its decision.
That being said, sometimes issues do slip through. Earlier, I mentioned a project I was on where a geotechnical crew stumbled upon artifacts that ended up being the remains of a First Nations village. That portion of the project had to be redesigned so that the village remained undisturbed, which they were able to do. In that case, the village wasn't in an area thought to have been part of the historical settlement area of the First Nation that had traditionally lived in the region, so it hadn't been identified for archaeological field survey.

 

[Alceste]

Of course, if it is random bones people are going to be angry. Even if they are native American, who ever the principal contractor is probably lost a truck-load of cash over some bones which is terrible.

Doesn't Canada have a policy where sensitive persons have a representative perform a survey prior to principal engagement to prevent things like this?

We're not just talking about "some bones", though. That's an over-simplification of the issue. We're talking about up to fifteen thousand years of human history, much of which is completely shrouded in mystery, and the significance of which we only know from charred fragments of an oral history decimated by violence, sickness, Residential schools and substance abuse. Whenever a project stumbles on human remains it's going to grind to a halt. If it isn't an aboriginal historical site it could be the scene of a murder, or the remains of someone reported missing. Either way the area has to be processed. If it does turn out to be a site of historical significance, it's possible the first nations didn't know about it, or had stories about it but didn't know exactly where it was. In Alberta they have discovered a site where a fire pit was built in the exact same spot for five thousand years. No doubt it would be profitable to hand over the area to the oil companies for a tar sands project, but I'd much rather use the opportunity to learn something about the history of this country and the people who first settled it.