This article examines grassroots relationship-building between the Grassy Narrows First Nation and non-Indigenous activists in the first years of the Grassy Narrows blockade (2002-4). In doing so, it aims to provide insight into collaborative efforts between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous activists for land defence and climate justice.

The article is split into two main sections. The first section introduces the Grassy Narrows First Nation and their struggles against colonialism and capitalist resource extraction. The second section focuses on the blockade of Highway 671, the longest Indigenous blockade in Canadian history.

The insights on the Indigenous-settler collaboration at the Grassy Narrows blockade are primarily taken from the scholarly article “Grassy Narrows Blockade: Reworking Relationships between Anishnabe and Non-Indigenous Activists at the Grassroots,” written by Rick Wallace and published in the International Journal of Canadian Studies in 2010.

All sources can be found at the bottom of the page.

Introduction to Grassy Narrows

Geographical and colonial context

Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek, also known as Grassy Narrows First Nation, is an Ojibwe First Nation situated in the Kenora District of northwestern Ontario, on Treaty 3 territory. Their government-allocated land base is the English River 21 Indian Reserve, which comprises 4,145 hectares (10,240 acres). Their traditional territory, however, is much larger. The reserve is situated 40 km northeast of the city of Kenora, near the confluence of the English River and one of its tributaries, the Wabigoon River.

According to the most recent censuses, the population on the English River 21 Indian Reserve was 584 in 2021, and 638 in 2016. In January 2025, the registered population of the Grassy Narrows First Nation was 1,621, and the registered on-reserve population was 973.

Grassy Narrows has faced colonial violence since at least 1873, when Treaty 3 was signed. This includes residential schooling, displacement, and environmental degradation, as explained below.

Residential schooling

1925-1969	Grassy Narrows children were interned at the McIntosh Residential School, a residential school in McIntosh, Ontario. This residential school also interned children from Lac Seul, Wabigoon, One Man’s Lake and White Dog (Wabaseemoong) Reservations/First Nations.
January 2025	114 “unmarked burial features” were discovered on the property of the former residential school, specifically a part of the property where Grassy Narrows members anticipated such burials.

Disruption and displacement

In the 1950s, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (the predecessor of Ontario Hydro) flooded part of the traditional lands of the Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong Independent First Nations to build generating stations. This made traditional and long-standing practices like trapping and harvesting wild rice impossible in these areas.

In 1963, the Department of Indian Affairs displaced the Grassy Narrows First Nation from their land, relocating them to a reserve 8 km southeast, adjacent to the English-Wabigoon River, and accessible by road from Kenora. This change was required by federal policy to enable those on reserve to have access to utilities like electricity, sewers, and indoor plumbing, as well as services like an on-reserve elementary school.

The new location increased the previously limited contact between the First Nation and Canadian society. The increased possibility of integration into the Canadian economy undermined the traditional Grassy Narrows lifestyle, since people no longer depended entirely on traditional and long-standing practices like seasonal migration, trapping, and harvesting for their survival.

Mercury poisoning

In 1962, Dryden Chemicals Ltd. began operating a chlor-alkali plant in Dryden Ontario, located about 130 km upstream of Grassy Narrows’ relocated reserve. The plant used mercury to manufacture chlorine, which was used by the Dryden Paper Company Ltd. to bleach the paper it produced.

From 1962 to 1970, Dryden Chemicals dumped about 9,000 kg of mercury into the Wabigoon River. Doing so polluted the water and fish of the English-Wabigoon river system, and poisoned the peoples of the Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong Independent First Nations, whose staple food was the fish of these waters. Symptoms include tremors, insomnia, memory loss, neuromuscular effects, headaches, and cognitive and motor dysfunction.

As a result of the mercury pollution, in 1970 the Ontario government banned commercial fishing and ordered Dryden Chemicals to stop dumping mercury. The people of Grassy Narrows were not only poisoned by mercury and deprived of their means of subsistence; they were also deprived of their livelihood, since commercial fishing and fishing-related tourist activities had become the main source of their income. However, no cleanup of the water system was ordered at this time.

In 1986, the Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong Independent First Nations concluded a settlement agreement with the federal government and the Ontario government to create a Mercury Disability Board to administer a Mercury Disability Fund for members of both First Nations who suffer from mercury poisoning. In 2018, it was reported that only 5.9% of Grassy Narrows community members receive compensation from the Mercury Disability Fund, and that almost 70% of applications have been rejected.

Over forty years after the Ontario government ordered the pollution to stop, the economic and environmental situation had hardly changed. A 2016 report stated that over 90% of residents of Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong Independent First Nations reserves have symptoms of mercury poisoning. In addition, exposure to mercury is directly linked to extremely high suicide rates among Grassy Narrows youth. In November 2016, the Toronto Star reported that the fish eaten by Grassy Narrows community members are the most contaminated in Ontario. This came just months after the province of Ontario claimed that there was no evidence that the Wabigoon River system needed to be cleaned of mercury.

Grassy Narrows community members told the Star that they still eat fish from contaminated lakes because they don’t have enough money to buy food or boats to fish farther away, and also because living off the land is an important part of their culture.

It was not until 2017 that the Ontario government committed to cleaning up the mercury-contaminated waters of the English-Wabigoon river system, committing $85 million for the initiative.

In 2020, the federal government and Grassy Narrows signed the Mercury Care Home Framework Agreement, which requires Ottawa to fund the construction and operation of an on-reserve care facility for people suffering from mercury poisoning. A similar agreement was signed between the federal government and Wabaseemoong Independent First Nations, with the government committing $19.5 million. By the end of 2020, the federal government had committed $200 million up to 2025 to finance both centres. As of the September 2024 River Run rally, construction had not begun on the mercury care homes.

In June 2024, Grassy Narrows First Nation sued the governments of Ontario and Canada, arguing that they violated their treaty obligations by failing to ensure that Grassy Narrows people could “safely practise their right to fish.”

The paper mill in Dryden is still in operation, employing over 350 people. A 2024 study from Western University found that new mercury poisoning is occurring as a result of present-day industrial pollution. The industrial wastewater from the mill contains sulfate and organic matter which produces methylmercury - which is even more toxic than regular mercury - from inorganic mercury in the environment. Grassy Narrows is seeking the closure of the paper mill.

Resource extraction and resistance

1997	The Government of Ontario issues a forestry licence for clearcutting to newsprint company Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. on Crown lands in the Keewatin area, which includes Grassy Narrows traditional territory. As a result of clearcutting in the Whiskey Jack Forest, Grassy Narrows people see their hunting and trapping grounds destroyed, and local game populations decreased. There is also concern that clearcutting is increasing mercury levels in fish.
December 2002	In response to the clearcutting, a blockade was formed on Ontario Highway 671 into Grassy Narrows territory, giving rise to what would become the longest-standing Indigenous blockade in Canadian history. Although this main route into Grassy Narrows territory was blocked, logging continued via alternate access points.
2005-2014	Grassy Narrows files a legal challenge against the Ontario government to have the forestry licence revoked, on the basis that it violates their treaty rights to harvest the non-reserve lands on their traditional territory. Their challenge is initially successful in Ontario Superior Court in 2011, but is ultimately rejected on appeal by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2013. This latter decision is upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2014.
July 2006	Grassy Narrows blockaders and non-Indigenous activists with the Rainforest Action Network blockade a section the Trans-Canada Highway near Kenora, to protest continued logging. The protesters set up a 30-foot tall metal tripod on the highway, preventing logging trucks carrying hardwood taken from Grassy Narrows territory to a timberstand mill in Kenora. Later that month, protesters blockade the English River Road, where approximately 2,500 logged trees were transported every day from Grassy Narrows traditional territory to the Weyerhaeuser Trus Joist mill in Kenora.
2007	Grassy Narrows First Nation call for a moratorium on all logging activity taking place without their consent. Negotiations with the Ontario government...
2008	Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. ends its logging operations in the Whiskey Jack Forest area.
2017	The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry establishes a logging moratorium over 76% of the Whiskey Jack Forest for the remainder of the province’s 2012-2022 forest management plan. This moratorium is then extended until 2024, when a new 10-year forest management plan is expected to take effect. There are also around 3,200 mining claims in Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory. (In July 2024, this had reportedly increased to 10,000 mining claims). As of July 2024, the province of Ontario had reported delays in developing a plan for the Whiskey Jack Forest.
2023	Grassy Narrows issues the Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek Aaki Declaration (Grassy Narrows First Nation Land Declaration), which asserts their sovereignty over their traditional territory and bans all resource development on their land.
July 2024	Grassy Narrows First Nation filed a legal challenge against Ontario’s Mining Act, which argues that the province’s free-entry system to establish mining claims violates the duty to consult present in both the Canadian Constitution and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
July 2024	Grassy Narrows community members have been protesting the proposed location of an underground nuclear waste site by the Revell lake, a few hours from their traditional territory. The proposal to locate the waste site was approved in November 2024.

The blockade: analysis of a collaboration

The Grassy Narrows blockade became a site of collaborative relationship-building between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous activists. The dynamics of this collaboration were studied by Rick Wallace, who conducted interviews with 11 Grassy Narrows people, most of whom were blockaders, and 11 key non-Indigenous activists who participated in the blockade in 2002-4. Here are some key takeaways from Wallace’s article on the dynamics of Indigenous-settler collaboration.

Sources and further reading

Geographical and colonial context

Residential schooling

Disruption and displacement

Mercury poisoning

Resource extraction and resistance

Grassy Narrows blockade: Indigenous-settler collaboration

Contents