One thing hasn't changed. On the site known as Kanonhstaton, it's just as cold as it was two years ago when natives took over the Caledonia housing development and set off one of the longest native occupations in Canada's history.
At the entrance, there's a partially dismantled hydro tower that's been used as a barricade in the past but is now in two pieces.
Gone are the houses that were beginning to line the streets, except for one big home with a Palladian window highlighting the front.
It sits toward the back of the property and now serves as "headquarters," says one native. No media allowed.
Along the snow-covered roadway, the lamp posts are reminiscent of the old plan for the survey. Today, each sports a flapping purple unity flag. At the site entrance, there's a veritable barrage of colourful flags.
Around the corner, onto the streets of nearby residents who have been caught in the middle of the native protest there are few signs of the turmoil experienced at the beginning of the protest.
There are a few more Canadian flags flying than are typical in most neighbourhoods and, at the dead end of Thistlemoor Drive where it abuts the old Douglas Creek Estates, there's a barricade with a stop sign piercing it and No Trespassing signs posted.
Calmed down
Things have calmed down between the natives and Caledonia residents, says George Hayaksoh, who stands at the jerry-built information centre near the front entrance of the reclamation site.
Hayaksoh, whose name means "He's cutting something," says the natives have been advised to ignore taunts from non-native neighbours.
"People should just get to know us," Hayaksoh says.
"Nobody ever bothers to talk to us. They read in the paper we're terrorists but don't come and ask us."
Hayaksoh's Caledonia neighbours, however, still talk about sinking property values, economic loss and fearful feelings.
Some of those fears have been stirred by some who have deliberately provoked confrontation in an effort to show the inequities of two-tiered justice.
That provocation will continue this weekend when activist Gary McHale of Richmond Hill will lead a protest at OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino's Toronto-area home.
McHale has also laid private charges against several dozen people.
McHale and others have long argued police have instituted two-tier justice in Caledonia and claim the police have not investigated and charged aboriginals who have committed crimes during the last two years.
On Thursday morning, the natives took a ceremonial walk along Argyle Street, once known as the Plank Road. They performed traditional ceremonies and held a potluck to which all supporters - native and non-native - were invited.
But at lunchtime, there were few - perhaps two dozen cars - at the site.
"People have been coming and going all day," assures Ruby Montour, well known for the distinctive red hat that she wears to protest ongoing land developments in Brantford.
"They know things are calm here but they'd be here in a minute if there was trouble."
She and her husband, Floyd, are busy doing interviews with various news outlets that come and go throughout the day.
Unlikely heroes
The Montours - he 69 and she 66 - have become unlikely native heroes on Six Nations by leading quiet mini-protests at some Brantford development sites of late.
"We love the media," chuckles Floyd Montour. "They help us get our message out."
The pair have recently been recognized and honoured by both the Confederacy council and the elected band council.
"We have the blessing of both councils as long as we're peaceful and we have a good relationship with the developers."
Typically, the Montours and a handful of other supporters show up at a development site and insist that work be stopped until the developer come to an agreement with the newly established Haudenosaunee Development Institute.
The HDI is set up to allow development to continue as long as certain environmental and archaeological conditions are meant. And as long as the developers are willing to fork over a chunk of their money.
"We love the media. They help us get our message out."
HDI asks for a $7,000 application fee and three or four per cent of the value of the development, an amount that can easily move into the millions.
The provincial government has advised developers not to pay the fees. Only one developer has confirmed it paid, but the HDI has said it has collected about $70,000 in application fees.
At an anniversary forum held at McMaster University on Thursday, elected Chief Coun. Bill Montour voiced his approval of HDI, saying it performs the same role as other municipalities' city halls or a zoning department.
"It regulates land use in the municipality. It's asking developers to make sure an environmental assessment is done, archaeological work done and land and water use is studied."
Montour, elected in November, is more supportive of the Confederacy than former Chief Coun. Dave General, who wanted to draw the Confederacy into a hybrid leadership council but didn't approve of all the group's actions.
These days, Montour is stepping carefully, saying his job is like walking on a barbed wire.
At the McMaster forum, he recognized the tremendous contribution of the two women who first stepped onto the Douglas Creek Estates development in 2006, Janie Jamieson and Dawn Smith.
Jamieson, after a quick visit to the site for the traditional ceremonies, hurried to McMaster to help educate those willing to listen.
"There's nothing more important you can do than to education yourself," she told the crowd of almost 200. "Don't believe what I say. Go learn it yourself."
After the forum, Jamieson said the knowledge that's been shared with non-natives has been the most important thing to come out of the Caledonia situation.
"In two years, we haven't got too far at the table, but the education of the country has been worth more than any money they could offer us."
She dismisses with the wave of her hand the government's $26 million offer to settle a portion of the land claims.
"It's not even a starting point. That offer shows that the government isn't listening."
Jamieson says the native people don't want money without accountability of what happened to their funds and their lands.
"We want accountability and they're not budging."
Organizer Dawn Martin-Hill, professor of Indigenous Studies at McMaster, was thrilled with the turnout at both the afternoon and evening forums.
At one point, Will Coleman, a professor from McMaster's Institute on Globalization, took his own university to task for failing to educate people about the area's native neighbours.
"We've had 15 years of Indigenous studies at Mac but have we met the vision (the program was set up with)? No. If the university worked harder, we might not have such misunderstandings as the one in Caledonia."
Martin-Hill has produced a 70-minute documentary film called The Dish with One Spoon in which she works to explain the history of the native people and their various efforts to reclaim land promised to them two centuries ago. She showed clips from the film at the forum. Martin-Hill gets angry when she starts doing some Caledonia math.
The province has spent about $5 million on the negotiations where everyone but the natives gets a substantial salary.
Almost $16 million was paid to the small developers of the Douglas Creek Estates in order to compensate the owners for losing their only source of income. Regular and overtime police officers, who have sometimes been called out in force at the site, have cost the province well over $30 million.
Money has been given to those living closest to the protest site and to Caledonia to boost tourism.
Six Nations has received money too: about $1 million to pay for experts, consultation and studies needed to outline their claim.
A recent audit of the funds, published in the weekly native papers, showed that costs have totalled $245,000 so far with about $100,000 going to representatives at the negotiating tables and $83,700 donated to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council.
But Martin-Hill says with a projected $200 million having been poured into the Caledonia situation, the clanmothers and traditional chiefs working on resolution get nothing.
"It's really hard to see these clanmothers coming to all these meetings on their own dime," she says.
And in comparison to the amount spent on paying and placating others, the $26-million offer for lands that were flooded by the government in 1830, is pitiful, she says.
If MPP Toby Barrett has his way, there'll be even more compensation. Barrett drew up his own version of a Haldimand Proclamation earlier this month, saying community life has declined because of a climate of fear, chaos and uncertainty and calling on the governments to stop negotiations until "extortion, illegal occupations and protests are terminated."
He also calls for the governments to compensate people, businesses and the municipality for the loss, insecurity, economic decline and "collateral damage" they've suffered because of government decisions.
On Thursday, Martin-Hill took advantage of the fact that several provincial negotiators were in the audience to plant some suggestions about getting the focus off land.
"You look at land as the most important facet, but what I have is a legacy and culture that's as much of a priority as land.
"Give us the money to build a Haudenosaunee University and get our Mohawk children out of the third-rate asbestos-filled schools they're in," she told the negotiators in the audience.
"Those could be negotiating points of good faith."
Negotiating has practically become a full-time job for Confederacy Chief Allen MacNaughton. And that job is taking its toll.
"It's been hard negotiating, especially after April 20 happened," MacNaughton says, referring to the day in 2006 OPP raided the site, arresting many.
"The federal negotiator would have us believe we should trust them, but trust is something that comes down to experience and time. What do you think our experience and time with the Crown has taught us?" Two years on - two years after everyone promised a speedy settlement - MacNaughton admits to definite discouragement.
"I'd really like to see some movement," he says. "I know for some, two years is a long time, but this is going back to 1830 for us. We've been waiting a lot longer than two years."
Floyd Montour talks with a CBC employee while fellow protesters sit outside the Kanonhstaton information centre.