The ACTivist magazine

People of the Great River and

Ipperwash
Written by Stephen Salaff
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
Artist Paula LaPierre is a principal Sachem of the Kichesipirini
Algonquin First Nation, based in Pembroke, Ontario, and serves as the
First Nation’s elected representative. LaPierre has been employed by
the governments of Ontario and Canada in the delivery of social
services, including employment and the development of human
resources.

LaPierre recently contributed to a Social Sciences and Humanities

Research Council research project with York University in Toronto,
compiling and preserving oral interview information on family and
lineage continuity in Aboriginal and Algonquin communities.

She has volunteered for positions on the boards of directors of

Renfrew County Children’s Council, Pembroke and Area Association
for Community Living and Renfrew County Children’s Mental Health
Services.

LaPierre is the mother of three daughters and one son, and

grandmother of five, and she is expecting two more grandchildren. In
her spare time, LaPierre is writing a book on the history of
Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation and their land base on Allumette
Island.

Salaff: Paula, the report of the Ipperwash Inquiry is imminent. Are

there any similarities between your struggle in the Ottawa River Valley
on the Quebec border and the Ipperwash community crisis in
southwestern Ontario closer to the Great Lakes?

LaPierre: The tragic events leading to the fatal 6 September 1995

shooting of unarmed Aboriginal protestor Dudley George, a member
of the Stoney Point Chippewa community, resemble those in the
history of People of the Great River Kichesipirini Algonquin First
Nation.

The Stoney Point Chippewa and Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation

each asserts Aboriginal rights to land, which is surely valuable to us
for economic purposes.

We also cherish our lands for compassionate, deeply human

motivations, bearing on individual dignity and respect for our
members, alive or dead.

Sacred Aboriginal community attachment to ancestors, lands and

culture was observed and recorded by the earliest Europeans arrivals.

Thus Aboriginal-origin University of Toronto law professor Darlene

Johnston quoted to the Ipperwash Inquiry Day One, during her April
2004 invited presentation on “Great Lakes Aboriginal History in
Cultural Context” Jesuit Father Baird : “[the Algonquin people] are
very reluctant to be separated from the tombs of their ancestors; their
graves and cemeteries and well-marked and well-tended.” (Volume
One of Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents)

Sadly, our peoples have been separated and dispossessed from scores
of gravesites and burial grounds. Ever since early colonial settlement,
Canada’s indigenous peoples were variously dispossessed of their
lands, resources and culture, and often, their identities.

To the Stoney Point community, the expropriation and disrespect of

important gravesites symbolized this pattern of exploitation and
somehow catalyzed their awareness of grievous territorial losses.

The Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation experience strongly

legitimizes Stoney Point Chippewa concerns. Due to the unilateral
application of administrative policies, racist regimes, border shifts,
jurisdictional shuffling and cultural corruptions, the Kichesipirini, as a
distinct Algonquin people, have fallen to the realm of “the forgotten
people,” descended from “stragglers” in the Ottawa River Valley.

Some of the main archeological sites in Canada, including one of the

country’s most vividly recorded Aboriginal gravesites, and tangible
connections to our past lay lost and silent under ‘private property’ and
‘recreational facility’ signs, within our view, but outside our touch.

Salaff: What is the current status of your struggle?

LaPierre: Our Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation seeks to gain full

participation rights in negotiations on the Algonquin Land Claim.
Representatives of Algonquin communities, Ontario and Canada are
now meeting monthly to negotiate Algonquin historical and
constitutional-based claims to ownership of the Ottawa River
watershed in Ontario and its natural resources.

Our community name means “People of the Great River.”

We believe that a comparative cost analysis of the administrative

expenses of running a “Reserve” versus an even larger community
such as Pembroke, will demonstrate that the “Reserve” system has
contributed to the poverty and deprivation of registered “Indians.” At
the negotiating table, we will seek improved new models of Algonquin
and Aboriginal governance.

Although we function on opposite extremes of the imposed federal

Indian Act system, in which Stoney Point Chippewa were federally
recognized, and Kichesipirini Algonquins never were, both our
communities live remarkably similar experiences as Aboriginal
communities in Canada.

We all recognize the moral obligation to ensure that the systems are
critically examined and improved to ensure that the true frustrations
of citizens like Dudley George do not require such desperate actions to
win appropriate recourse and remedy.
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