69 Replies to “Caledonia”

  3. When I lived in Alberta I was told stories by contractors about houses on reserves having holes cut in exterior walls so that livestock could be watered from the bathtub.
    It’s hard to dismiss those as exaggerated.

  4. the Assumption reserve in Northern Alberta, they would take about a year to do this, they were still living in them at the time.
    you cant plant an nomad. they may be happier moving.

  5. Is that the house that AL GORE and the eco-wackos want us to live it? too drafty for me

  6. I think in feminists circles this is known as:
    DECONSTRUCTIONISM
    Maybe they just need to listen to some good music?
    What are Beethoven and Mozart doing now?
    DECOMPOSING. 🙂

  7. who needs walls, global warming will take care of our heating bills.
    CBCpravda has removed Caledonia from its agenda. unless they can tie it to Stephen Harper.
    sounds like even big mouth Danny “whine for wine” Williams has been muzzled. along with Borat Dion – Pravda does have time for stuff like this when there are Afghans in jail and Khadrs on the dole.
    and lactating lesbians without embryos to buy.

  9. Richard Ball:
    You need to laugh more.
    Normally the before and after pictures are reversed.

  10. Similar stories have been heard from Nain and Davis Inlet, Labrador, Kate.
    A friend of mine was a nurse in Nain some years ago. He related how more than a few natives would bust out various doors and windows in their government provided home and pack snow across the living and dining rooms so as to create a contiguous trail from the front road, over the front lawn, into the house, out the back through the former patio door hole. Kind of an in-house carport for their snow machine or quad.
    This he saw with his own eyes.
    I also have a friend who did part time missionary work in northern Lab and reported similar things.
    Perhaps not all the stories you hear are true, but a good many of them are. I mean, think about it, what else would drive someone to tell such an implicitly bigoted, racist story except the truth of what they saw?

  11. This is a result of eurocentric, heteronormative, post-colonial, racist, oppressors’ horrendous treatment of these poor, downtrodden, innocent natives.
    If our viscious, racist Canadian society would give them $1,000,000,000 each as compensation for all they have suffered at the hands of the european colonial government, they would go back to sing-songs around the campfire and conversing with nature.
    Did that sound pathetic enough to have come out of a professor?

  12. This is what happens when you put nomads in a house, they take it down and put it up in the next place they decide to domicile.
    Or stated alternately,
    You can put a nomad in a house,
    but the nomad will take the house with them.
    Cheers

  13. I am going to reuse my quote from another site. This house looks like it has termites big enough to screw chickens!
    This house appears to be at lock up stage, rip it down then ask for more money to finish these homes. Go figure….
    Not to mention the lack of respect for our countries flag.

  14. Kate, I think you got the before and after pictures mixed up.
    Back in the 80’s near a Bonneville reserve, the government built quite a few brand new cedar sided homes only to have the siding torn off many of them within a year for firewood.
    Black tarpaper and clapboard siding is in I guess.

  15. …dang, the pictures moved around on my screen.
    Was looking upwards rather than downwards.
    Kate is right, once again.
    😉

  17. My son is a carpenter and worked for a company that went to a reserve in Alberta frequently to replace windows and doors and other items.
    They were told that the indians believe the spirit of a dead person stays where they died, so if a native dies in a house, they have to move.
    He replaced one picture window that had been broken when a wife threw her husband thru it. His form was still very visible in the broken window. Hey, they don’t pay for these repairs, you do.

  18. Thats just an NDP building project for extended education colleges.

  19. Somehow, the progressives will never equate this with their utopian “guvmint takes care of us all” world. although there are some rare exceptions, there is a different attitude/mindset between people who are given shelter, vehicles, snowmachines and anything else they may or may not need, and those who have saved and earned everything they own. now I’m not exactly a heartless bastard. I’ll always give a hand to those who need it but I will also let those who claim they are “entitled” rot in h*ll and not feel guilty at all. A canuck aboriginal is not much different than the Katrina “victims” that are still waiting for someone to build them new houses in Chocolate City.

  20. I’d vote immediately to follow the Frasier Institute’s suggestion on granting property rights to Aboriginals by dissolving reserves. Make them individually responsible and all of a sudden: they look after their stuff and actually make improvements, when their stuff gets wrecked they’ll call the cops to enforce the law, they’ll get off dope, glue and booze to keep a job, and their kids stay in school to get better jobs. Also the rug would be pulled from under the organized thugs that “administrate” reserve lands and programs.
    Let’s get rid of the fermenting stagnant cesspools of underachievement called reserves and free the people with ownership – over property and themselves.

  21. I guess they didn’t like the idea of people building housing developments on their land.
    I wouldn’t either.
    I guess y’all wouldn’t mind though…

  22. London Free Press report aghrdscfs is now hanging ’round the neck of Lib Ontario Premier McGuinty.
    McGuinty is hoping to flick off the “Caledonia albatross”; but, aghrdscfs is a kling-on. McGuinty’s lackey, Ramsay, tells the voters to flick off; he doesn’t have the time for the voters; tells the voters to call his appointment secretary to make an appointment to see him.
    …-
    Minister won’t meet Caledonia convoy
    Wed, May 2, 2007
    Residents say it’s another sign their plight is ignored.
    By CP
    “With an election coming up, they don’t want the Caledonia albatross hanging around their neck.” …-
    http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2007/05/02/4146745-sun.html

  23. Martin B. – “they’ll get off the dope, glue and booze”
    This kind of stereotyping is all too common on this, and other conservative websites. Aren’t you the ones who complain when ‘natives’ decry the ‘white man’?
    The Frasier Institute? Their recommendations are just another step in assimilation – something we are not too fond of.

  24. Throbbin said: “I guess they didn’t like the idea of people building housing developments on their land.”
    Thanks for the deep thoughts, Throb. Even if it were true, it still begs the question: whether you’ve rightfully’taken something back’ or simply conquered a valuable piece of real estate by force and threat, why would you then destroy it’s value?
    I have two explanations. Either you believe you’ll eventually have to give it up, or you simply don’t give a rat’s *ss about making your community a better place to live.
    I’m betting on the latter.

  25. No Guff – yes, life sure is that simple for you I guess. Black and white, no ifs, ands, or buts, right?
    Maybe, they decided to use the materials from that house to improve their own homes. Guess that one hadn’t occurred to you.
    I’m not saying it’s right, all I’m saying is I understand why they would strip the materials off of a house, to use on their own. That house should never have been built there in the first place.

  27. Throbbin said:”they’ll get off the dope, glue and booze” “This kind of stereotyping is all too common on this…”
    If you’re at all honest you’ll recognize that the aboriginal community does have serious issues with ‘dope, booze and glue’. It’s not exclusive to their community by any means, but on a per capita basis it is several magnitudes greater than in non-native groups. This isn’t racism, it’s simple fact and it has led to horrendous, endemic problems that destroys their human capital.
    Apparently you’re not “too fond” of assimilation, but what’s the alternative? Another 100 years of being a ward of the state? Returning to a semi-nomadic, hunter/gathering lifestyle? Educating your children in snare setting and fire making?
    I believe that given an opportunity – meaning the ability to live independently of not only national/provincial governments but their ‘band councils’ – and the right to own land, is the key to native self-respect and political and financial freedom.
    Think about it. We know that 7th century Islamic principals are unworkable in a modern, pluralistic society – so why would cultures based on 16th or 17th century semi-nomadic tribal units fare any better?

  28. BTW Throb, I’m guessing that you’ve got me stereotyped as an uncaring, bigoted and perhaps even uneducated, redneck.
    I’m currently renting to (and living next door to) a native family, including the band matriarch. We have a great relationship and have experienced no problems whatsoever.
    I rent to people based on my evaluation of them as neighbours, not on skin colour or ‘racial history’.
    I doubt if I’d be renting to the Caledonia crew.

  29. Martin B. (12:27): Thanks for summing it up for me and everyone else. I couldn’t agree more. Not to be cliche, but the one thing you can’t buy for people is self-respect. All you can do is offer them an opportunity to develop their own. Perpetuating the reserve system is truly akin to addressing Natives as state wards (h/t No Guff). There is nothing proactive in this.

  30. What’s the timelapse between those two houses. They look like the same house, but the surroundings are quite different.

  31. Lore_Weaver said: “What’s the timelapse between those two houses. They look like the same house, but the surroundings are quite different.’
    What’s your point? Does the passage of time make it less illegal to destroy what isn’t yours?

  32. The time lapse is several months. The destroyed home was one of the first built on the Douglas Creek Estates. The home in the background of the second photo was built after the one in question was.
    The photos are legit. I drove past the site a few days ago and can attest to that.

  36. http://www.ammsa.com/buffalospirit/2003/footprints-DanGeorge.html
    Lament for Confederation….
    “Oh God in heaven! Give me back the courage of the olden chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on.
    Oh God! Like the thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s success-his education, his skills- and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.
    Before I follow the great chiefs who have gone before us, Oh Canada, I shall see these things come to pass. I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land.”
    Chief Dan George
    Doesn’t sound like a clarion call to civil disobedience does it?
    I had the privilege of meeting Chief Dan George some years ago. He struck me as the thougthful and reasonable type of person.
    The proposition that natives all hark back to something out of every spaghetti western film is quite likely incorrect.
    The Cree I worked alongside on the Nipawin Hydro-electric dam could swing a hammer every bit as good as I. At the very least the media hype out of every controversy is usually overblown for ratings purposes.
    Remember controversy sells papers, increases media ratings to sell more advertising space.

  37. Wow, I sure am glad down here in America all we have to worry about is the Blacks, Illegal Mexicans, Jihadist Terrorists and the Liberal Tree-Huggers.
    ,

  38. Pathetic.
    Throbbin’s rationalization (maybe they needed the building material) is even more pathetic. Even if there were a legitimate land claim (which seems fanciful given the evidence), the building materials are still not the property of the band. Theft is theft.

  39. Did anyone else notice these bumbs were too lazy to remove the brick!!
    Hey, come on man, that stuff is heavy, I might break a sweat stealing it.

  40. Thug mentality at work. Indians demand money and respect and in return do not obey any laws of the Country they suck from and demand more.
    The government of Dilly McGuinty is gutless for not calling in police and hauling their fat asses off to jail. If it takes more power the federal government, also gutless, could call in the army.
    The rights of the working people who pay taxes to support the low life scum who are blockading are not being considered by their own governments.
    It’s long past time for Indians to earn some respect. They can say they own the land but who the hell developed it? It was our European ancestors who forged this country through great hardships. We civilized and developed the Country.
    Do the Indians seriously think without modern medicine and civilization there would be many of them left?
    It’s about time they show respect. They get perfectly fine homes built on reserves and trash them in very short order. Maybe it’s time to go back to the tee-pees.
    The Chiefs and Elders have a lot to answer for as well.

  41. You got it, Murray.
    Throbbin’s rationalization is also an insult to all natives. It assumes that natives are natural thieves, or simple-minded people who have no idea of how to live in Canada.

  43. I agree,
    sorry MartinB, but you left out copier fluid. they drink copier fluid too.
    Natives not know how to live in Canada? what do you mean , they have the take part of the equation down to a tee. Indian handshake is like a newfie handshake – palm up.

  44. Kate: something is wrong about the dates on those pictures. In May 2006 the occupation had been underway for months. Since there are more buildings in the second photo, it was obviously taken long before May 2006. I’d be curious as to how long before.

  45. The fishing season is closed here in Manitoba for pickerel, from the end of March to the middle of May to let them spawn. However, that does not stop the natives from going in and raping the species, when they are the most vunerable, in the small streams they go into to spawn.
    The Manitoba goverment/NDP has seen fit, to give the West Regional Tribal Council $300,000.00 over the last six years to find ways to maintain the pickerel stocks in our local lakes, yet they continue to allow they’re own people, to pillage the fish stocks. WE all know the amount of fish taken is not for sustanice. They are selling it, which is completely illegal.
    It’s like they want to poke a stick in the eye of the white man, saying it’s out treaty right, but when the supply has run out, you white guys can restock it, which we did and continue to do every year.
    It’s time to get rid of the treaties and treaty rights…we’re all equeal.

  46. Dear CanadianKate: If you look at the trees, the older photo shows full foliage on the trees, while the newer photo shows no foliage. Although it may look like more homes were built, maybe it’s just that you can see them without the foliage now.
    The date of the photos would be summer for the first (must have been LATE May) and spring or fall for the latter (April seems about right).

  47. The government has contracted with Six Nations to actually remove the homes that were not completed at the time of the takeover. What you might be seeing is a a deconstruction. They have already removed at least one of the houses.
    There is a moratorium on building in the ex-subdivision. this has stopped the actual building of real houses but has not prevented the protesters from erecting unfinished, junky buildings all over the place and also bringing in equally ugly old mobile homes.

  48. They are just rebelling against and deconstructing the racist, colonial white man’s ideas and imposition of foreign architecture and re-adapting it to be a culturally appropriate tee-pee. Now they’re just trying to find deerskins large enough to drape over that frame.

  49. As a resident of Hamilton, and one who travels to Caledonia on a weekly basis, I can vouch for the legitimacy of those photographs. These pictures are but a microcosm of the destruction that has occurred on the Douglas Creek Estates since the natives took occupation of the land and premises.
    The Six Nations are being held hostage by a band of Mohawk Warriors who are intimidating the majority of these people who simply want to live along side their neighbors. The Natives and the Residents of Caledonia are being screwed royally by a small, but vocal and violent group of miscreants who know full well how to play the game.
    And our Governments have collectively caved in to them.

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