Native protesters

[foresterab]

Infanteer,

I'm not really sure about the 1st vs 5th migration and the exact details of how human settlement of north america occured.  I can recommend two books for you related to this subject though talking about native cultures pre-european contact.

1491 by Charles Mann - very easy read and deals mostly with central and south america but does touch on North america some
Wilderness and Political Ecology  by Charles E. Kay & Randy T. Simmons - this is more a collection of research papers and can get overly technical at times but is a very different take on landscape/ecology management over the years based upon archeology work.

All I know is that the more I read into things the more complicated it gets as to who did what to whom when....and it becomes apparent as to how much information was lost.  The history books are written by the victors after all.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

All I know is that the more I read into things the more complicated it gets as to who did what to whom when....and it becomes apparent as to how much information was lost.  The history books are written by the victors after all.

..and if any of those people are still alive then it matters,...if not than pffft.

Yea, lets be as moronic as those who march around Ireland/England because of some battle that was fought  against those who could be todays next-door nieghbors.........calling them Stooges would be an insult to Curly, Larry and Moe.

 

[Kirkhill]

Another aspect of this problem that angers me is Indian tribes want it both ways on reservations. They insist the reservation must continue to be in some isolated location ands then complain they haven't got the full range of social services. Good medical, education, clean water and jobs are not sustainable in remote northern locations even though the feds have plowed millions into trying. Move the reservation into the proximity of a community that can provide these services and provide a future for Indian children.

In this are they that much different that people that want to continue to live in logged out clearings, mined out camps and fished out outports?  I don't fault any of them for the desire to stay put.  On the other hand, if you choose that lifestyle then you need to be aware of the trade-offs.

 

[GO!!!]

In this are they that much different that people that want to continue to live in logged out clearings, mined out camps and fished out outports?  I don't fault any of them for the desire to stay put.  On the other hand, if you choose that lifestyle then you need to be aware of the trade-offs.

...and therein lies the rub.

FN (as a group) broadly demand all of the services, free of charge, regardless of where they live, and a tax free allowance every month to go along with it. When I lived in isolated communities, it was a given that there was no surgery ward nearby, that water had to be boiled, that all the roads were gravel etc. We dealt with it, and when people brought up points at town council meetings "why don't we have paved roads like the whites in the south" the mayor/chief/councillor would answer "you can, but you'll have to pay 2,000$ a year in municipal taxes to fund it, just like the non-treaty residents of this town"

The counter - argument is that if FN were to move to a major centre for work/school/services, that they would lose touch with the land and their culture. Perhaps, but to take my own heritage as an example, my ancestors left Scotland because of poor economic and political conditions there as a result of the limey ;D English government of the day. They moved to south eastern Ontario, farmed the land, and ate haggis, wore kilts and played bagpipes right up until the present day. Was it difficult? Probably, but I've moved several times in this country for school, work and with my parents - and they did too.

I fail to see why FN choose not to do the same.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>1492 is an arbitrary date, no?

Yes, but I was being sarcastic.  I suppose by now I've made it clear here that I don't believe some animals are more equal than others and don't easily suffer the fools who think differently.

 

[a_majoor]

Yea, lets be as moronic as those who march around Ireland/England because of some battle that was fought  against those who could be todays next-door nieghbors.........calling them Stooges would be an insult to Curly, Larry and Moe.

It's pretty scarey when you look back on tours and remember the Greeks and Turks on Cyprus were PO'd about events in the 1500's, and the Serbs regarded the Battle of the Field of the Blackbirds in 1366 with the same regard as actions that took place in 1992. That "we" are starting to fall into that trap is something to be devoutly avoided.

 

[DocBacon]

My work takes me to many out-of-the-way places in Canada, from the high arctic to the US border.  Many of these places are FN communities and, in my experience (read: an unscientific, semi-random sample) Most are not places I would choose to move to unless I had to.  What I have found is:

1. Filth.  Weeds grow everywhere, the mud holes in the roads are not filled, public areas are wastelands, and anyplace is a good place to drop your garbage.  Can anyone say "tragedy of the commons"?  Just down the road there might be a postcard-perfect Metis or mixed community, but the res is absent any sign of stewardship.

2. Racism.  I have been warned that "whitey" is not welcome at the bar.  I have lived in a motel surrounded by an 8' fence topped with concertina - needed to keep the locals from stealing vehicles or breaking into the motel.  I have been told that if I don't take my helicopter out of town I'll be shot at.

3. Nepotism.  While evacuating a FN community on the shores of James Bay, I  was told by the local plumber that the town's water supply fails it's quality requirements because the son-of-someone-important running it is unqualified.  Before and after the installation of a new treatment plant, the same problem remained.  The community across the river was also evacuated, not because of a flood threat or unsafe water, but because the other guys got a trip to town so we should too. 

4. Child abuse.  Members of remote communities north of Yellowknife would poison their kids to require a medevac to the big city each fall.  The kids recover, the family is put up in government housing for the winter, and the next spring we fly a plumber up to the communities to repair the frost damage to the abandoned homes.  Year after year, same families, same communities.

5. Environmental abuse.  Goose hunt-camps serviced by helicopter that require slingloads of over five hundred pounds to bring back the take from each hunter.  Narwhal hunts with power boats used to herd pods of animals onto shore - where the tusks are cut off and the rest left to rot.  Families paid to go hunt for a week, on lands claimed but not awarded, in order to embellish traditional use history.

Now tell me again how these, and many other things I've seen that disgust me, are not valid criticisms when viewed through my cultural lens, or some such nonsense.  You're damned right something has to be fixed, and there's nothing to be saved from the current system.  You'll never see that on the evening news, and if I voice my experiences I'm called a racist.

 

[Infanteer]

>1492 is an arbitrary date, no?

Yes, but I was being sarcastic.  I suppose by now I've made it clear here that I don't believe some animals are more equal than others and don't easily suffer the fools who think differently.

I know.  I was highlighting it for everyone else to see. 

 

[GO!!!]

Now tell me again how these, and many other things I've seen that disgust me, are not valid criticisms when viewed through my cultural lens, or some such nonsense.  You're damned right something has to be fixed, and there's nothing to be saved from the current system.  You'll never see that on the evening news, and if I voice my experiences I'm called a racist.

My personal favorite(s) are the "traditional harvests" of musk - ox and caribou.

Musk - oxen are lured into a trap by creating trails of hay, flown in from the south via c-130 and thrown out the back. Once 2-300 are corralled, they shoot them all and send the meat to Japan. No consideration for cows, calves or bulls.

Caribou (although this has'nt happened in quite a few years) are machine gunned from helicopters for valuable antler velvet in the spring. 3-4oz of velvet collected, carcasses left to rot. Wolf populations explode following year. "Hunters" sit in trucks and shoot animals as they cross dempster hwy, taking tongue, and other choice cuts, remainder left for scavengers.

When the porcupine/bluenose caribou herd began to decline, the FN immediately blamed it on oil and gas exploration and demanded compensation.

The list goes on, but Doc is right - if FN are to be equals in every sense of the word, it must be recognised that they are just as greedy and corrupt as the rest of us, and require the same rules to be fully integrated.

 

[Jacqueline]

Hunting is definetely excessive, especially when it comes down to the cold hearted clubbing of seal pups up north. Although I don't know anyone who has left a fresh carcus to rot, I have to agree that killing under those circumstances isn't at all necessary.

 

[ArmyRick]

Go, good point you brought up. Hunting en mass like that is very near sighted and a quick ticket to extinction.

Enough with the excuses.

Docbacon, straight to the point. Good point.

 

[DocBacon]

Miss J:

Hunting everywhere in Canada is regulated (for better or worse - the spring bear ban is an example of bad management) except where the FN are involved.  Again, in my own experience, FN hunters have shown the same respect for animal populations as the first European hunters whose excesses we decry today.  Stewards of the environment indeed - their historical restraint is a fiction: only technical restraints kept the FNs from killing off more species (ever heard of Buffalo Jump Head Smashed In ?).  Once those, and the legal and moral restraints are removed, we see demonstrated the same rapacious nature of man in the FNs as in any other population.

Singling out the visually unappealing but regulated seal harvest as an example is specious.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Please, not another seal hunt debate! 
Thanks for the straight goods, Doc.  Although, my white mans burden is struggling to find ways to blame myself for all the points that you made.  :

I would be curious if one of our FN posters could give us a brief outline of early native interaction between nations and tribes.  From what I recall from my history (doubtless a discreditable and skewed Brit colonial view) it seemed as though fighting, conflict and territory takeover was very much a part of native life?  I spent a week living at St. Marie among the Hurons when I was in grade 7, and I remember the various historical accounts of how much inter-native conflict there was.  And the whole warrior thing?  Seems warriors would tend to suggest wars...

So I guess I'm just curious.  Was the process of making treaties and coming to peaceful settlements with the early natives a mistake?  Would the natives have been better dealt with to have engaged them and defeated them?  As I recall, a defeated villiage might end up becoming part of the conquering group, and they accepted it.  Intermarriage would occur and things got back to normal until the next big battle.  So being so war oriented as they may have been, could it be that they were not prepared to accept the consequences of what they were agreeing to? 
I would certainly not presume to be anything of a history scholar, so I will stand to be corrected. 

 

[GO!!!]

Hunting is definetely excessive,

No, that's not what we're saying. I hunt, but I only leave entrails behind, using every edible part of the beast.

Industrial hunting is excessive, especially when it is not required, and drives species to extinction.

especially when it comes down to the cold hearted clubbing of seal pups up north.

Actually, the harp seal hunt takes place farther south than Edmonton, off the coast of Nfld, for the most part.

It is a legal, humane, and sustainable industry, full stop. Don't bring your shallow cute animal activism here - this is a serious discussion, and you would'nt give a flying **** about those seals if they looked like lamprey eels.

Although I don't know anyone who has left a fresh carcus to rot, I have to agree that killing under those circumstances isn't at all necessary.

People don't usually broadcast those types of things around, because wasting meat is a crime. From the tone of your posts, I'm going to guess you've never actually been hunting for anything, to have the opportunity to see it happen.

 

[TCBF]

"That would be us immigrants, according to some around here. "

- In the words of the infamous Sgt (born in Frankfurt am Main) Gerhard N______, "My family has had problems with immigrants ever since we came to this country!"



Tom

 

[rmacqueen]

Was the process of making treaties and coming to peaceful settlements with the early natives a mistake?  Would the natives have been better dealt with to have engaged them and defeated them?  As I recall, a defeated villiage might end up becoming part of the conquering group, and they accepted it.  Intermarriage would occur and things got back to normal until the next big battle.  So being so war oriented as they may have been, could it be that they were not prepared to accept the consequences of what they were agreeing to? 
I would certainly not presume to be anything of a history scholar, so I will stand to be corrected. 

The reality is that defeat of the the FN in battle would, given what has taken place in the ensuing decades, been better.  So many of the problems now faced are the result of the treaties made and the restrictions placed on both sides by the treaties.  Add to that the slow erosion of treaty lands leading to disputes on ownership, the legal commitment by the federal government to continue to fund them and an inept bureaucracy administering it and you have today's situation.

FN's peoples often cannot do things to improve their lives because of restrictions placed on them by the Indian Act.  The government, over the decades, has created a bloated system that seems incapable of meeting the needs of the reservation system.  Look at the situation in Kashechewan, where the federal government built the water treatment plant downstream from a sewage lagoon.  Will the idiot who made that decision face any consequences?  Doubtful.  So many of the decisions the federal government makes in regards to a reservation seems to be a toss off, do whatever is easiest because it is just a reserve.  Many of these communities have unqualified people running the various facilities as well, not because of who they know or are, but because the government builds the plants and then never trains the people to run them. 

When Walkerton was hit by E. Coli leaving 7 people dead, no one suggested that we close the town and move them but it is constantly brought up for FN communities.  The same holds true for northern logging towns that are suffering because of mill closures.  They all want government money to try and keep the towns alive and no one suggests moving the towns en-mass, yet it is constantly being brought up in regards to FN communities.  Why the double standard?  Again, the reservation system has created a mentality of ownership amongst non-FN.  Our tax money pays for them to live there so we should be able to do what we want with them.

So, I agree, supporting and making peace with the Europeans, and signing treaties in good faith, is the cause of the problem.

 

[GO!!!]

FN's peoples often cannot do things to improve their lives because of restrictions placed on them by the Indian Act.  The government, over the decades, has created a bloated system that seems incapable of meeting the needs of the reservation system.  Look at the situation in Kashechewan, where the federal government built the water treatment plant downstream from a sewage lagoon.  Will the idiot who made that decision face any consequences?  Doubtful.  So many of the decisions the federal government makes in regards to a reservation seems to be a toss off, do whatever is easiest because it is just a reserve.  Many of these communities have unqualified people running the various facilities as well, not because of who they know or are, but because the government builds the plants and then never trains the people to run them.   

Riiiiiight.

So when the Chief fires the water plant guy from Oshawa who was running a state of the art facility, and replaces him with a relative who does'nt know how to do the job, is that our (collective "our") fault too for neglecting to supply him with training in HR, management and ethics?

If you remember, the water plant in Kashechewan was repaired in 2 days for $3000. Problem? Zero maintenance, it broke and made everyone sick. Additionally, the Chief had been allotted money from Ottawa for operations and upkeep and elected to spend it elsewhere.

When Walkerton was hit by E. Coli leaving 7 people dead, no one suggested that we close the town and move them but it is constantly brought up for FN communities.  The same holds true for northern logging towns that are suffering because of mill closures.  They all want government money to try and keep the towns alive and no one suggests moving the towns en-mass, yet it is constantly being brought up in regards to FN communities.  Why the double standard?  Again, the reservation system has created a mentality of ownership amongst non-FN.  Our tax money pays for them to live there so we should be able to do what we want with them.

It is the residents of the reserves themselves that demand evacuation, and a lengthy stay in southern centres in hotels!!! They demand extra special treatment, not us!

Do you really think the feds want to be on the hook for transport and housing of hundreds of FN people? Do you have any idea what that costs?

 

[DocBacon]

Look at the situation in Kashechewan, where the federal government built the water treatment plant downstream from a sewage lagoon.  Will the idiot who made that decision face any consequences?  Doubtful. 

Not quite true.  I've helped evacuate Kash because of flooding (I've even risked my life by climbing off my chopper onto the river's breakup ice to hoist a drunken idiot into the cabin - he wanted to walk to Albany even though only half the river had ice).  The story about the water inlet and sewer discharge is just that: a story.  The whole Kash flood hazard could have been prevented with the closure of two valves (the ones that prevent the storm drains from backflowing into the town when the river rises outside the berm).  That wasn't done in the fall, nor in the early stages of breakup before the river rose to cover the valves.  Still, a few dozen sandbags could have covered the storm drains inside the berm, and avoided the evacuation rush, but nope: we're going to the big city instead.  Also while I was there I spoke to the Arctic Rangers, who arrived two days after me and my two medium heli's to relieve me of the task of crowd control and loading, they just shook their heads and made disparaging remarks about the stupidity of some people.

By the way and off topic, the Rangers really got things organized.  They brought in the three C's, imposed order and teamwork, and made haste without panic - just what you'd expect from CF personnel.

Should the "idiot" who built the plant get s**tcanned?  Nope: there are only a few areas of ground high enough to build on for about 80k inland (Ft. Albany across the river could be expanded, but the two villages were converted by different brands of missionary and they won't even allow the refugees from Kash to stay in town overnight)  so the water and sewer plants are arranged oddly - but not their respective intake and discharges. 

Fact is, the only good excuse for evacuating anyone from Kash was that the airstrip was under water for a day and therefor out of action until it could be graded, compacted, and re-certified (48 hrs); until then, any medical emergency would require heli medevac and as a precaution you could justify the evac of about 100 people.  Instead we airlifted about 1800 out by heli to Albany airstrip, where a fleet of chartered prop-jobs flew the "refugees" south to places where they could be put up in hotels, and fixed wing ac flew most of the rest out in the following days once the strip was operational.  Some people left home without their winter clothes so that they could impose a need on the government to supply them with new gear once moved.  Some of these people were still in places like Thunder Bay, Geraldton, Long Lac, and Cochrane in September.

All the time the media was reporting on the "humanitarian crisis" here at home.  I saw the tv crews, introduced the CBC producer to the people who spoke to me about the facts behind the lies presented by the Council, and was told they would look into the story.  The only thing they did was ask us to fly the helis lower on the river crossings to get better shots for the news coverage of the disaster.

Now really, who should get canned, the CBC producer or the Council?

 

[Jacqueline]

It is a legal, humane, and sustainable industry, full stop. Don't bring your shallow cute animal activism here - this is a serious discussion, and you would'nt give a flying **** about those seals if they looked like lamprey eels.

Oh, so you think it's cute?  :

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Oh, so you think it's cute?  :

No, but you seem to. You seemed to be on the fringe of where the PETA people start their useless arguments. Hunting is about killing, and it is never pretty. Taking everything usable from the prey is ethical. Slaughter for velvet or gall bladders is a travesty. If the fur is to be used, and the most proficient way to harvest it, with the least damage, is with a club, so be it. If your squeamish about such things, you have a right to not participate. You don't have a right to condemn someone else who is pursing a lawful activity. No matter how distasteful you view it as.

Let's put the thread back on track please.