Original history The Asubpeeschoseewagong people themselves say that they have always lived along the
Wabigoon River, a river that flows from
Raleigh Lake past
Dryden, Ontario on Wabigoon Lake to join the
English River. It is located northeast of
Lake of the Woods. Historians believe that the ancestors of the Northern Ojibway first encountered Europeans near what is now
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and thus were given the name
Saulteaux. Their territory was on the northern shore of the
Great Lakes from the
Michipicoten Bay of
Lake Superior to the
Georgian Bay of
Lake Huron. Participation in the
North American fur trade was initially through trading of furs trapped by other tribes, but soon the Saulteaux acquired trapping skills and emigrated to their present location as they sought productive trapping grounds.
1800s In 1871, Grassy Narrows First Nation, together with other Ojibway tribes, made a treaty with the Canadian government,
The Crown, in the person of
Queen Victoria, giving up
aboriginal title to a large tract of land in northwestern Ontario and eastern Manitoba,
Treaty 3 between Her Majesty the Queen and the Saulteaux Tribe of the Ojibbeway Indians at the Northwest Angle on the Lake of the Woods with Adhesions. In exchange a spacious tract of land, as much as a square mile of land for each family, in a favourable location on the Wabigoon-English River system was reserved for the use of the tribe. Tribal members were allowed to hunt, fish, and trap on unused portions of their former domain; the government undertook to establish schools; and to give ammunition for hunting, twine to make nets, agricultural implements and supplies, and a small amount of money to the tribe. Alcoholic beverages were strictly forbidden. On original Treaty 3 lands, the cycle of seasonal activities and traditional cultural practices of the Ojibway were followed. The people continued to live off the land in the traditional life style. Each clan lived in log cabins in small clearings; often it was to the nearest neighbour. Each parcel was selected for access to fishing and hunting grounds and for suitability for gardening. The winters were spent trapping for the
Hudson's Bay Company, the summer gardening and harvesting wild blueberries which together with skins were sold for supplies. Potatoes were grown on a community plot. In the fall,
wild rice was harvested from the margins of the rivers and finished for storage.
Muskrat were plentiful and trapped for pelts and food. There were deer and moose on the reserve which were hunted for meat and supplemented by fish. Work was available as hunting and fishing guides and cleaning tourist lodges. White people seldom entered the reserve except for the
treaty agent who visited once a year. The only access to the reserve was by canoe or plane. The Ojibway had yielded ownership of their territory to Canada, through the signing in 1873 of Treaty 3. The school property consisted of located at the southeast end of Canyon Lake on a small bay. There was a CNR station not far from the school. A trail was created to link the school. The main access to the school was by a barge, that brought supplies, equipment, livestock and students. In 1912, the land, which is now known as the
Keewatin, was annexed to the province of Ontario. It is "one of Canada's worst environmental disasters". In 1985, the province of Ontario granted the Dryden mill and any future owners a broad indemnity, assuming all environmental liabilities related to the mill and its mercury dumping." In 1997, the Government of Ontario issued a forestry licence for clear-cutting to Abitibi-Consolidated Inc.
2000s In 2002, community members began the
Grassy Narrows road blockade to prevent clearcutting on their territory. The blockade was ongoing in 2023. In 2005, Grassy Narrows filed a legal challenge against the province of Ontario in regards to the license granted to Abitibi-Consolidated in an "effort to stop the logging", which initially succeeded. In a unanimous July 2014 decision by the
Supreme Court of Canada, in
Grassy Narrows First Nation v. Ontario (Natural Resources), the justices "determined that Ontario had the jurisdiction to take up Treaty 3 land and therefore had the right to "limit First Nation harvesting rights." A 2016 confidential report by an environmental consulting firm, commissioned by
Domtar—who have owned and operated the Dryden pulp and paper mill since 2007—revealed that Ontario provincial authorities "knew decades ago that the site of the mill was contaminated with mercury," according to a 2017 article in the
Star. == Environment ==