Six months later, a great divide

Attitudes have hardened in Caledonia. The natives aren't moving, residents feel like hostages

By Stories by Laura Thompson
The Hamilton Spectator(Aug 28, 2006)

On the surface, everything appears normal in Caledonia.

Children ride bicycles down a quiet street, parents gather for a barbecue nearby and a neighbour keeps his eyes toward the grey sky while he landscapes, hoping the rain will hold off.

But if you take a closer look, you might see a little boy building a blockade at the end of his driveway. Or notice how back yards resemble battlegrounds.

Six months after natives moved onto a housing survey near the Grand River, peace is fragile here. The dispute has created a brutal divide between Caledonia and the Six Nations reserve.

It has fundamentally changed the way people on both sides look at their own communities and each other.

People pay attention to race, when they didn't before. It's now an issue when native and non-native children play together in sports leagues. Natives call on visitors to boycott local stores.

It's always tense now. At times, the frustrations have boiled over, with residents and natives pouring on the streets, sometimes throwing rocks at each other. At other times, racial slurs and insults have been the only weapons.

There are nights when natives stand anonymously behind a row of cars and floodlights. Residents say the intimidating beams shine directly into their bedrooms.

Meanwhile, OPP cruisers park around the clock on Braemar Avenue in the cul-de-sac that looks onto the rear of the former Douglas Creek Estates.

It started innocuously enough. On Feb. 28, a day when the mercury didn't even reach zero, a dozen natives arrived at the housing development. They stood at the Argyle Street entrance and barred workers from the site. A banner was strung up between two lamp posts that said "Six Nations Land."

They called it a reclamation.

That assertion dates back to a land claim with its roots in 200-year-old history. Natives say 10 kilometres on either side of the Grand River granted to Six Nations after the American Revolutionary War should properly still belong to them.

"I don't see myself here forever, but I see some of our people here," said Clyde Powless, one of the native spokesmen who has been in Caledonia since the land dispute was in its infancy. He was asked by his chiefs to control matters at the site. He's surprised to learn six months have passed. "We've been here a long time. We're not going anywhere."

Last week, negotiations resumed when the provincial government and the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned an order by Superior Court Justice David Marshall that they should vacate the land. They can now stay for at least another month. For Powless, there can only be one outcome.

"Justice," he said.

The dispute in Caledonia is about more than land. The ironworker, who pulls out a pocket knife to clean his fingernails, says his people are standing up to "your government" and its forced assimilation.

"A lot of people on our reserve don't know our own ways or traditional values," he said.

"It was dying out and now I see it resurging."

Powless likens the situation to the civil rights movement in the U.S.

Since February, Six Nations people have come together. In the early days, a few hundred gathered on the site. After a violent clash during the May long weekend, thousands came to show their solidarity.

A group of residents from Caledonia have sympathized with the natives. Jan Watson, who started Community Friends for Peace and Understanding with Six Nations, said her unpopular position has led to threats from other Caledonia residents.

She said she's had eggs thrown at her house and was swarmed by an angry mob on Braemar Avenue during a violent dispute over the August long weekend.

"I really had a sense for the first time what it was like to be on the other side of the fence. They weren't mad at Jan Watson. They were mad because I supported Six Nations."

But residents of Braemar Avenue argue that it's more complicated than that. They say no one knows what it's like to live where they do: the floodlights shining into their children's bedrooms, the stress that has forced many onto medication and the decreasing property value of their homes.

They say that at the beginning of the occupation, they sympathized with the natives.

But that was before violence erupted and they realized the protesters could act with impunity.

"That empathy disappeared when this town was taken hostage," said AnneMarie VanSickle. The Caledonia resident moved into her dream home on Braemar six days before the occupation began. At first, she said, there was no disruption. Now, her six-year-old son is too scared to be in a room by himself.

VanSickle admits the race card has been played throughout the dispute, but she said both sides are guilty.

"The events have created a large division. I don't know how many generations that will take to heal."

In the neighbourhood surrounding the occupation site, pylons dot the streets making corners look like checkpoints.

Jack Dancey, a 90-year-old Thistlemoor Drive resident, said his trouble isn't with the natives. He talks to them, asks questions. He understands one key fact of this occupation.

"They're not going to leave. I can tell you that."

Behind his property wooden stakes hold up a long strip of yellow tape that says, "OPP -- Crime Scene."

The tape designates the buffer zone between the occupation site and the back yards of residents.

It's a line Dancey crosses regularly. He walks around the development. Talks to the natives. Makes sure they're keeping the grounds maintained behind his property. Some people tell him not to go too far but his reaction is always the same.

"What's the difference anyway?"

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Some key dates in Caledonia standoff

* FEB. 28

* Feb. 28 -- A small group of Six Nations protesters occupies a residential building site called Douglas Creek Estates.

* March 5 -- Developer Henco Industries obtains interim injunction ordering protesters to remove barricades and allow construction to resume.

* March 16 -- Ontario Superior Court Justice David Marshall sets March 22 deadline for protesters to leave site in order to avoid arrest for contempt of court.

* April 20 -- Dozens of OPP officers catch sleeping native protesters off guard when they swoop into the site at 4:30 a.m with guns and rifles drawn. Police later withdraw. Natives set large fires as well as blockades on Argyle Street and the Highway 6 bypass.

* April 24 -- An angry mob of Caledonia residents gather at Argyle Street South blockade to vent frustration over protracted dispute. As many as 100 OPP officers separate hundreds of residents who surge against a police line standing between them and native protesters.

* May 22 -- More violent clashes between natives and residents. Thousands take to the streets.

* May 23 -- Argyle Street South reopened after natives remove controversial barricade.

* June 9 -- Two CH cameramen are taken to hospital after a scuffle with native protesters who tried to confiscate taped footage of a confrontation with an elderly couple in a Argyle Street parking lot. Seven arrest warrants are issued over the next week and include an attempted murder charge against a Six Nations man accused of trying to run over an injured OPP officer with a stolen U.S. Border Patrol vehicle.

* June 22 -- Ontario agrees to pay Henco Industries $12.3 million for the Douglas Creek Estates property.

* Aug. 8 -- Superior Court Justice David Marshall tells Ontario to halt negotiations until the court order to remove the native occupiers from the site is enforced.

* Aug. 22 -- Talks resume after an appeal court judge rules there is nothing to stop them.

* Aug. 25 -- Ontario Court of Appeal says natives can occupy Douglas Creek Estates site for at least another month.