The upper windows of Irene Usher's Deseronto bed and breakfast provide some of the most fetching views of the sparkling water of the Bay of Quinte, but Usher barely notices them these days.
Town's Edge, Deseronto's only bed and breakfast, is normally full in May, the beginning of the fishing season, but on this day all four guest rooms are vacant.
"Nobody's coming," Usher says as she stares out of the wide window of an empty second-floor guest room.
Business has plummeted 75 per cent since November 2006, when local Mohawks began protesting non-native development efforts on land the federal government has acknowledged was wrongly taken from them more than 170 years ago.
Town residents have been hit hard by the media attention generated by at least six highprofile native-led protests in and around their community in the last 19 months.
This activity and protracted land-claim negotiations have dragged down property values, tanked tourism, brought development to a standstill and taken a bite out of business, many claim.
Residents of Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, home of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, and Deseronto have historically been good neighbours. They play sports and do business with one another.
However, the latest protest - a roadblock that cut off Deseronto from the east and prompted a massive police response and led to criminal charges against some protesters - has heightened tension between the two communities.
The Mohawks believe as much as 60 per cent of the town belongs to them and they are desperate to get more land for their growing community. Deseronto residents fear for the future of their more than 220-year-old town.
The federal government approved the Mohawk land claim in 2003. Eight years later, there's no end in sight to negotiations and the townspeople wonder if one will ever come.
Beyond the fear and anger, there is also a sense of helplessness among residents who feel they have a stake in the negotiations but no say in them.
"We're completely innocent of this whole process and yet we're the ones caught in the crossfire," said Deseronto Mayor Norm Clark.
Once the chief of the town's now-defunct police force - the OPP now patrols Deseronto - Clark said media coverage of the protests is scaring people away from the town.
"It's always Deseronto's name that appears on the TV or on on the radio or in the newspapers when actually the problem is not Deseronto," he said.
While protests generally last a day or two, their effects are felt for weeks afterward because they tar the town as dangerous, he said. Tension escalated at the end of March when protesters killed plans to renovate a Hastings County seniors home. The township blamed protesters for chasing away most of the project's potential bidders, thereby making the cost of the project too expensive.
At the end of April, Mohawk protesters blockaded Old Highway 2 on the east end of town for two days after a Yarker-area construction firm announced it would begin clearing land on the disputed area known as the Culbertson Tract.
The roadblock and the ensuing increased police presence prompted Deseronto Public School to close its doors for a day and a half out of safety fears.
The council for the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, under Chief Donald Maracle, has distanced itself from the protesters. At the same time, though, the council passed a resolution in December 2006 asking Hastings County to prohibit development on the Culbertson Tract until land claim negotiations end.
Maracle warned the town that development could spark heated protests.
Clark said the town has lost investment due to the unrest.
Deseronto recently hosted a developer who wanted to build a condominium complex on the town's scenic waterfront. The developer changed his mind once he learned of Deseronto's land claim-related struggles.
The development would have added up to $150,000 annually to the municipal tax base, Clark said.
"There are developers willing to come into the town ... but they won't come in while this land claim issue is ongoing," he said.
"Where are we going to get the money to pay the bills?"
Ken Buxton, chief building official for several municipalities, including Deseronto, said development has been stagnant in the town. "There's no building going on in Deseronto," Buxton said.
Developers and tourists aren't the only people staying away. Organizers of a May 11 amphibian and reptile workshop cancelled their booking at the Lions Hall and moved it to Napanee due to concerns about protests and access, Deseronto town staff said.
Lori Brooks owns Ma & Paws pet store on Main Street. She wants to expand her five-year-old business, but is afraid protesters would make it impossible.
Each time protests have taken place in and around Deseronto, Brooks said she loses business for up to a month afterward as people are either unable to enter the town or are afraid to leave their homes.
It's no wonder. Masked men drive ATVs up and down Main Street ; later police cars are parked on every corner.
News media caught it all on video.
"Sometimes you feel like you are under marshal law," she said.
Shauna Sidey, who owns FoodLand just down the street, said she has lost some of her out-of-town trade. She wouldn't discuss how much. It affected business for a month, not just during the days of the blockade, she said. "People never knew when the road was going to be open or closed."
If the protests continue, Deseronto residents should start worrying about the future of their only grocery store, a business that has been in the community 33 years, she said.
On the other side of Main Street, George Lazarakos and his family have run United Restaurant for more than three decades.
An eatery that is famous for its panzerottis, the restaurant attracts patrons from Picton and Napanee.
Lazarakos renovated the restaurant in 2005 and hopes it will continue to grow, but he wonders how that's going to happen if the protests continue.
"If the community can't increase in size, how is your business going to increase?" Lazarakos asked. "And if you are from out of town and you know the situation, do you want to buy property here?"
Karen Brown and her husband tried to sell their house last spring, around the time the Mohawk protesters barricaded the CN Rail tracks at Deseronto Road.
"We took it off the market last fall [and] will keep it off the market until the government buys our house or the land claim is settled," Brown said.
The couple didn't receive many visits from prospective buyers, but those who did come by told the Browns their real estate agents had advised them not to buy property in Deseronto until the turmoil subsides.
Meanwhile, the Browns would like to build a large deck on their home, but are afraid to do so.
"I'm not going to start building something and then have [protesters] camping out on my lawn," she said.
Douglas Forbes, the federal government liaison to the community of Deseronto, said residents are entitled to do such work during the negotiation process, despite the request by the Mohawks to order a moratorium on any land in the Culbertson Tract.
Tyendinaga chief Donald Maracle said a partial settlement of the Mohawks' 369-hectare claim is close at hand.
The federal government had hoped to negotiate the return of about 120 hectares of vacant land around the Thurlow Aggregates quarry to the Mohawks by early May, but tension around the recent protests kept civil servants away and delayed the process, Maracle said.
"That [deal] doesn't effect discussions on the main area," he said.
Forbes said the process is still on track, but that a final resolution for the 120 hectares is still a long way off.
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte who live in the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory are desperate for more land as a result of changes to the Indian Act made in 1985, which tripled the population of the reserve.
The Indian Act of 1951 removed the Indian status of native women who married non-native men. That decision was reversed in 1985, when the act was amended to allow them to apply to regain their status. The new legislation sparked an unexpected landslide of applications for reinstatement, which resulted in overcrowding at many reserves such as Tyendinaga.
There are about 6,000 Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. About 2,200 live on the reserve.
"That's where they got really sensitive about land surrenders," said John Leslie, a retired manager of the Claims and Historical Research Centre for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. "If they think something has been done illegally, they want the land back."
The Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory was originally granted to the Six Nations people by the British in 1793 in a document called the Simcoe Deed. It was 92,700 acres - the size of a township - and initially accommodated 100 residents.
Over the years, the reserve shrunk by about 18,000 acres as a result of land surrenders. Meanwhile, the resident Mohawk population has grown at a rate of four per cent per year, a large percentage of whom don't even have safe drinking water, Maracle said.
According to the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada website, the land given to the Indians under the Simcoe Deed could be surrendered to the Crown only with the formal consent of the Mohawk people through a community vote.
However, in 1837, the Crown gave away the rights to 827 acres to John Culbertson, the grandson and an heir of Capt. John Deseronto, who was a former Mohawk chief. That land was slowly sold off to various third parties. Some of that land includes what is now about 60 per cent of Deseronto.
According to an article Leslie wrote for the Canadian Parliamentary Review in 2002, the British intended to protect Canada's natives and granted them reserve land to shield them from unscrupulous speculators and traders.
After all, they had been heroes to the colonialists as middlemen in the fur trade. They were important allies to Britain in times of war.
After the War of 1812, however, British and Canadian policy-makers set about trying to find a new role for Indians in colonial society. "The new approach was simple and direct: place Indian people temporarily on reserved lands - convert them to Christianity, and teach them to become self-sustaining British Citizens by becoming productive farmers," Leslie wrote.
When the assimilation didn't work, frustrated government officials created new laws to penalize Indians for persisting in their old ways.
In 1884, traditional dances and ceremonies were banned and, in 1894, native youth were sent to industrial or residential schools where many were abused. In 1927, a law was introduced banning the pursuit of land claims.
It wasn't until the Indian Act of 1951 that the ban on traditional dancing and ceremonies was lifted and Indians were again allowed to pursue land claims.
Approved eight years ago, the land claim of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte is now in the midst of what's called the Specific Claims Process, a negotiation to figure out appropriate compensation.
It's almost always a lengthy effort that involves prolonged discussion and several complicated studies to determine factors such as the value of the land, the value of the lost use of the land and its actual boundaries.
According to the latest data from Indian and Northern Affairs, 111 claims are currently under review in Ontario.
Since 1973, about 284 specific claims have been resolved through negotiated settlements, says the department's website. Settlements paid out by the federal government have valued from $15,000 to $125 million, with an average settlement value of $6.5 million.
The process usually takes less than five years, but can take more than 20.
Settlements usually involve cash, but can involve land transfers, the website says.
For example, in 1991, the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte negotiated and signed a memorandum of understanding that allowed them to regain control of about 80 hectares in Shannonville.
Over a number of years, the federal government purchased all of the land in what is called the Turton Penn Lease Area, which included several homes owned by non-natives, said chief Maracle.
"It was a model that worked really well," Maracle said. "We didn't have the protests, we didn't have the CBC and we didn't have the millions of dollars spent on policing costs."
Maracle emphasized that the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte won't accept a cash offer from the federal government.
"We're calling for the return of our land, something we rightfully own," he said. "We have the deed for it."
Although the details of the negotiation process are confidential, Maracle said the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte expect the government to buy all the land in the Culbertson Tract, including the part inhabited by Deseronto residents, and hand it over to the Mohawks.
Nobody would be forced out of their homes.
Rather, people would sell their properties at market value to the federal government at the time they are ready to sell, as was done in the Turton Penn deal, Maracle said.
Leslie said it's not uncommon for the federal government to step in and buy land for First Nations people, but it is probably reluctant to do so in this case because buying all of the land in the Culbertson Tract would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Who wants to buy out half of Deseronto?" he said, pointing out that the government has only so much money available for such purchases.
"It sets a precedent, too," he said.
Mayor Clark is more concerned about what would happen to Deseronto if it became a patchwork quilt of reserve land mixed with town land. "It basically would ruin Deseronto," he said.
"If they could come in and buy a piece of property at one location and make it part of the territory, we would lose the tax money ... but we would still have to provide all its [municipal] services."
Forbes said nobody will be forced to sell their property and that purchased land would not receive reserve status without thorough consultations and agreements made beforehand with the municipality and provincial and federal governments.
Meanwhile, town residents such as Irene Usher continue to pray that the end of negotiations will come soon so that Deseronto can return to normal.
"It's one of the best fishing months of the year and we're empty," she says. "That never happens."
farmstrong@thewhig.com
Protest: A chronology
Nov. 15, 2006: Protesters, believing the army has been called to confront them, block Highway 2 after a military convoy on a routine exercise happens to pass the site of a property slated for a $30-million residential development on the Culbertson Tract.
Jan. 10, 2007: Mohawk protesters close a section of Deseronto Road at Thurlow Aggregates quarry because it planned to provide gravel to a company intending to build on the Culbertson Tract.
March 22, 2007: About 125 protesters seize control of Thurlow Aggregates and begin a lengthy occupation; Mohawks have since been using gravel from the quarry on Tyendinaga reserve driveways.
April 20, 2007: Mohawk-led protesters barricade the CN Rail line at Deseronto Road.
June 28, 2007: Protesters set four bonfires on Tyendinaga Township roads and Highway 401 was blocked by the OPP in anticipation of a group of Mohawks blocking it as part of the national Day of Action; many trucks ignored posted detours and cut through the township, causing nearly $30,000 damage.
March 31, 2008: Mohawks rally at the Hastings County seniors residence in Deseronto, discouraging builders from bidding for a renovation contract; ultimately only one bid came in and the county cancelled the project because the bid was above its budget.
April 21, 2008: Mohawk protesters barricade Highway 2 at Deseronto Road, prompting police to attend for several days; Deseronto Public School closed for a day and a half out of safety concerns.