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A wobbly milestone TheSpec.com - Local - A wobbly milestone The stalemate drags on, but there are pockets of hope in the town -- such as these high school students who feel the conflict only applies to the older generations.

Jon Wells
The Hamilton Spectator

CALEDONIA (Feb 27, 2010)

It was marked in the media as a notorious milestone when the number of days reached 100. Tomorrow, that number hits 1,421 days -- the fourth anniversary of what has been called an occupation, reclamation and land dispute in the old town on the Grand River.

It began in Caledonia on a cold and snowy day in 2006, when native protesters hoisted a banner between two lamp posts that said "Six Nations Land" and blocked construction of a planned 200-home development called Douglas Creek Estates. Natives mobilized by the cause likened developing the land to the rape of their mother; residents appalled by the protest called it unlawful.

After fist fights, a bridge-burning, tire fire, police raid, arrests, bloodshed, rallies, lawsuits and more than $65 million in public money, the stalemate continues.

At the spot where it started at the south end of town, there are no longer barricades, just a tattered trailer in a field with a sign that reads, "Racism is ugly." The only hint that a new subdivision was being created is a paved road that winds through the survey blanketed in snow; dark street-lamp posts stand like bare trees, their glass shades smashed; and a lone completed house still sits in the field. At the hydro station nearby, a security guard sits in an idling car; early in the protest, the hydro equipment was set on fire.

The dispute is quiet now, although perhaps just hibernating. Spring is three weeks away and reports say the province is considering conceding the land to the natives.

"Yeah, the government is going to just tie it up in a nice bow and give it to the natives for the fourth anniversary," says a woman who owns a business downtown.

A native man working at a smoke shop says natives "just want their land back. It won't happen in my lifetime, though."

Both refuse to have their names used in the newspaper. It's all still too raw, four years in.

The land dispute does not define Caledonia, even though it put the place on the map for many Canadians -- and on the same thematic page as Oka and Ipperwash, places that gained notoriety for native land claim standoffs.

Four years ago, the Ontario government paid $210,000 for a marketing campaign to improve the town's image for business, with the slogan "Caledonia: Close by, but a world away." Natives raised a sign that countered, "Boycott racism, shop elsewhere."

The former mill town 30 km south of Hamilton was founded more than 170 years ago by dam and mill builder Ranald McKinnon, and its name goes way back; depending on the source, Caledonia was the Latin name given by the Romans to what is now Scotland, or is a pre-Celtic word that means "hard land."

The distant roots of the Douglas Creek Estates occupation/reclamation goes back at least to 1784, when U.S.-based Chief Joseph Brant was granted a tract of land in Canada -- 10 kilometres on either side of the Grand River from Lake Erie to its source, or about 385,000 hectares, in appreciation for the natives' loyalty to the British Crown during the 1776 American War of Independence. The Caledonia land, natives say, falls within that grant and should still be considered theirs.

While most of the talk about Caledonia focuses on the past, the future is found a half a kilometre away from the contested land, at a place visible from the historic nine-span bridge across the Grand River: McKinnon Park Secondary School. Here, the mood is blue -- of the Blue Devil variety. And an argument rages, between native and non-native.

About?

"Girls."

Laughter.

"Girls fighting over me," says Logie Bradley.

More laughter.

"We have yet to see one of those," quips principal Darren Duff.

Logie, who is in Grade 11, lives on the Six Nations reserve but buses here, to McKinnon, the only high school in Caledonia. He plays on the Blue Devils football team and is in the band and sits around a table with 11 other students gathered to meet a reporter. Five of them are native, seven are not.

They have all been touched by the land dispute in one way or another, but they do not fixate on it, in fact it is not even on their radar. Mostly they focus on school life, teams, clubs, grades, dating, the Olympics and lamenting the lack of anything to do in Caledonia, apart from hanging at McDonald's or jumping off the train bridge into the river.

"I have yet to see a fight or argument over the issue," Logie says. "Nothing based on DCE, or race."

"We get along so well," says Carey-Leigh Thomas. "It's our elders that are fighting, not us ... When I come to school I just feel very welcome."

Carey-Leigh is in her senior year, and felt the impact when the protest broke in 2006. That first fall, her parents on the reserve enrolled her farther west at BCI (Brantford Collegiate Institute) for fear she'd be caught up in emotions running hot at McKinnon. The elementary school bordering the disputed land, Notre Dame, at one time had police officers patrolling the grounds early in the dispute.

But Carey-Leigh transferred to McKinnon for second year when she heard from friends that the school was a friendly place to be.

"I asked my parents, 'Why can't I go too?'"

Molly Beaton is non-native, but her parents were worried back in 2006 as well about what might erupt at school.

"I wasn't worried though, I already had native friends in elementary school ... In one class here it got heated, talking about it."

Brandon Berlingieri, who is active in student government, had no idea that native students once had fears about attending McKinnon.

"It's sad to think that if they hadn't come here, I'd have fewer friends, there would be less talent at the school, it would be less fun."

Logie has no illusions that the land issue is complicated. Elders tell him they are fighting for the kids, securing land they will need, "and to an extent that is true, we need some land because we don't have much left. But I don't think our land will be taken."

His mother is "hard-core" in support of the protest and he understands that. "But (natives) do stupid stuff in protest, like when they blocked the street. That's stupid, you don't need to do that, you can have a peaceful protest."

One could argue that it's just a high school and they are just teenagers. But in the peculiar incubator that is high school, where roots and appearance can be magnified and enflame emotion, it is noteworthy; the harmony between natives and non-natives, and that the land fight goes no further than debate in history class.

And while the seniors are set to chase their lives at college and university out of town, they may well return to live in Caledonia and Six Nations, and perhaps that bodes well for future relations.

He claims no credit for it, but principal Duff helps set the tone in the school. His office is adorned with a poster of golfer Mike Weir, he plays hockey a few times a week and he talks the talk of teamwork. He said that native kids who don't take part in teams and clubs tend to stick among themselves, but the others are too involved to segregate themselves.

Of the high school's 850 students, about 175 are from Six Nations or have native backgrounds.

"We all have different backgrounds, diverse cultures, and we celebrate those and tolerate our differences," Duff says. "But we share one common goal and community.

"We are just --" he stops and looks at the students.

"Blue Devils," Logie says.

jwells@thespec.com

905-526-3515

Some key events:

*Feb. 28, 2006

A group of Six Nations protesters occupies Douglas Creek Estates (DCE) on Argyle Street South, claiming it is being built on land never surrendered. Ottawa later says land was surrendered in 1844.

*April 20, 2006

Dozens of OPP officers raid the site and arrest protesters. Police withdraw after hundreds of natives and supporters march on to the site. There is later a violent clash on Victoria Day over native blockades.

*May 11, 2006

Talks begin between Six Nations, Queen's Park and Ottawa on trying to find a solution to the Caledonia standoff.

*June 22, 2006

Ontario pays developers $16 million for Douglas Creek Estates, plus $4 million to home builders.

*Jan. 3, 2007

Haldimand Mayor Marie Trainer says a 2,500-home development for Caledonia was scuttled, partly because of occupation.

*May 30, 2007

Ottawa offers $125 million to Six Nations to resolve three land claims -- Moulton Township, Burtch Tract and Welland Feeder Canal in Dunnville -- plus investment of Six Nations funds in Grand River Navigation Co. in 1830s.

*September, 2007

The Six Nations Confederacy announces creation of the Haudenosaunee Development Institute, which will regulate and charge fees for development in the Haldimand Tract along the Grand River.

*September 13, 2007

Construction is stopped on the Stirling Woods subdivision after native protesters occupy it. A builder is beaten during an altercation with protesters. Nine are arrested.

*Dec. 12, 2007

Ottawa offers $26 million to settle the Welland Feeder Canal claim. Natives later say it could be as much as $1.1 billion.

*Jan. 24, 2008

Haldimand seeks $60 million from Ottawa and Queen's Park to offset economic damage.

*Oct 8, 2009

Talks between Six Nations, Canada and Ontario hit an impasse over the issue of getting a mediator.

*Dec. 29, 2009

Ontario quietly announces an out-of-court settlement with a couple who sued the province for $7 million over charges OPP abandoned them when natives occupied DCE.

*Feb. 8, 2010

A judge approves a class-action lawsuit against the province and the OPP. Lawsuit alleges police inactions in the blockades caused economic loss to residents.

*Feb. 22, 2010

Haldimand mayor Trainer says Ontario is leaning towards giving DCE to natives. Aboriginal Affairs Minister Chris Bentley says no decision has been made.