First Nations Face Border Struggles: Canadian Geographic Magazine

FEATURE STORIES & EXTRAS

Defining the Canada-U.S. Border

On the frontier between Canada and the United States, weed whackers and wile keep the boundary clear and quiet.
Read more »
Smuggler’s Inn

At Smuggler’s Inn, guests are encouraged to watch cross-border smuggling from the comfort of their rooms.
Read more »
First Nations’ Border Struggles

In a land with no lines, how do you define the end of one territory and the beginning of another? Read more »
Lynx: The Cross-border Cat

Lynx don’t care about the line between Ontario and Minnesota, and researchers on both sides are starting to pay attention. Read more »
Stanstead on the Borderline

Boosting security in the border town of Stanstead, Quebec, divides a peaceful community. Read more »
Ontario’s Elvis Festival

The King comes to Collingwood in a cross-border cultural exchange. Read more »
Multimedia

Discover more videos, interactive features and photo essays about the Canada-U.S. border.
View now »

In a land with no lines, how do you define the end of one territory and the beginning of another?

My Ojibwa family name is Wagamese. By itself, it means nothing. That is because when the registrars came to sign up the Ojibwa for treaty, they wrote down only the parts of the names they could pronounce. Or they gave us English translations, such as Redsky and Otter Tail, or English surnames, such as Green, Kelly and Smith. Wagamese is part of a longer phrase that translates to “man walking by the crooked water.”

The name refers to my great-grandfather. He is remembered in the northwestern part of Ontario north of Minaki for walking the 72-kilometre length of our traditional trapline along the Winnipeg River in both directions in three days. That river is the crooked water referred to in our name because of the way it snakes from Lake Winnipeg southeasterly to Lake of the Woods, close to the Canada–U.S. boundary. It is the great landmark that allowed my family to declare the boundaries of our trapline.

The shoreline is marked by bogs, marshes, coves, steep cliffs and huge expanses of spruce, pine and tamarack. There were no straight lines in Ojibwa culture, so there were no grids or maps or delineations to assume or claim territory. Instead, my people used the land itself.

The Jay Treaty of 1794

In the beginning was the Jay Treaty of 1794

It may be over 200 years old, but the Jay Treaty remains the authoritative agreement between Canada and the United States governing the movement of First Nations people across the international boundary.

On paper… The treaty, negotiated between Great Britain and the United States without consulting First Nations, recognizes the natural and historic right of aboriginals to cross the border at will.

…and on the border: The treaty’s observance has always been interpreted and implemented differently in Canada than in the United States. Though it seemed to recognize a fundamental right of mobility for First Nations, the promise of the treaty is ever vulnerable to political motives and circumstances in Ottawa and Washington.

The Akwesasne Mohawk First Nation

A house divided: the Akwesasne Mohawk First Nation.

On paper… Partitioned not only by an international boundary between Canada and the U.S. but a provincial boundary separating Ontario from Quebec, many have called the area “a jurisdictional nightmare.” The strategic exploitation of Akwesasne for smuggling and legal battles over the rights of the Akwesasne people to traverse the international boundary unimpeded present complex challenges for aboriginal, provincial and federal governments alike.

…and on the border: A dispute over the arming of Canadian border guards on reserve land last summer led to the temporary shutdown of the border crossing, becoming a potential milestone in the community’s struggle for greater sovereignty, especially in matters of law enforcement.

First Nations in the Yukon Territory

The Kluane and White River First Nations in the Yukon Territory.

On paper… Commercial and infrastructure projects are required to include genuine consultation with First Nations communities that will be affected.

…and on the border: Since the construction of the Alaska Highway in the mid-20th century up to the current Alaska Highway Pipeline Project and other transnational industrial explorations, this neighbourly arrangement has been characterized by increased and ever more disruptive contact with outlying communities, governments, lifestyles and cultures.

First Nations and the Border Post-911

First Nations, New World Order, and the Border Post-911…

On paper… An agreement has been reached between Canada and the United States to allow carriers of the Indian Status Card to freely pass the border by land or sea. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, has also advised the Canadian federal government that this “flexibility” is at the discretion of U.S. officials.

On the border… From New Brunswick, amidst reports of alleged racial profiling against Elsipogtog Micmacs at the New Brunswick-Maine border, to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, concerns over the potential for border security to trump age-old treaty rights are ever alive.

Sometimes, the end of one family’s or band’s traditional territory and the start of another’s was marked by a huge boulder or a cliff. Other times, a bend in the river itself referenced a boundary, even though there is no word for boundary in the Ojibwa language. There is no word for map either. There was only ever the land.

For the Ojibwa and other native groups across North America, land could not be divided. It was whole, as defined by the Creator. It was sacred, because the idea of wholeness contained principles such as sharing, harmony and equality. When territory was decided upon, it was an honourable agreement based on those principles, and the agreement became sacred, too, because it involved the land.

The trapline my great-grandfather walked followed the twists of the river. There were beaver dams, muskrat lodges and plenty of foxes, wolves, mink and game, such as moose, deer, geese, ducks and rabbits. It was rich and bountiful in everything our family needed. That was the other thing that defined territory; no band or family ever arranged for more than what it needed.

When I see the number of land claims negotiated these days and the reams of maps backing up those claims, I wonder how it all came to pass. The idea of the land as sacred remains a native principle. But nowadays, we have learned to see it in straight lines and value it in terms of the resources and money it could yield rather than the spiritual principles it gave our cultures.

There is a man walking by the crooked water. He stops to enjoy the feel of the land all around him. There are no boundaries between him and the world. There is only a critical joining: balance, harmony, belonging. No one ever needed a map for that.

Richard Wagamese is an Ojibwa writer and storyteller from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario. He is the author of One Native Life.

NEWSLETTER

Subscribe

AA

EMAIL

The Canada-U.S. Border

Defining the Canada-U.S. Border

Smuggler’s Inn

First Nations’ Border Struggles

Lynx: The Cross-border Cat

Stanstead on the Borderline

Ontario’s Elvis Festival

Multimedia