All land in Canada is treaty land or unceeded (meaning we are still working on the treaty for said land).
I myself grew up in a town under the Robinson-Huron Treaty as part of the Supreme law of the land. (A constitutional document equal to the BNA Acts). I went to a high school with considerable FN demographics with 5 reserves within the catchment area for said High School. Our assemblies were opened by drum circles and I sat next to my grandfather who sneered and said some nasty stuff during said drum circle during my sisters graduation ceremony.
Regardless of whether a rail line runs directly through FN reserves; this detail will not stop blockages till underlying issues are resolved. Railway blockades are popular in part due to the historical fact provisions in Federal law made it easy to expropriate *reserve* land (not just treaty land) without consultation or payment. See the creation of Depot Harbour as a way to both screw the Town of Parry Sound for asking too high a price from J. R. Booth so he just stole the native land on Parry Island.
Quote:
Depot Harbour is a non-Indigenous ghost town located on the central north edge of the island. Businessman John Rudolphus Booth owned the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway to bring timber from the Algonquin highlands to his mill in Ottawa. Georgian Bay was seen as a good site to have as the western terminus of the railway for its deep water and its link which became part of the shortest route to send grain to the Atlantic Ocean.
Due to high land prices in Parry Sound, Mr. Booth located a deep water area with port potential on Parry Island. In order to get the land for Depot Harbour and the rail line, Mr. Booth used provisions of the Indian Act that allowed him to expropriate a total of 425 acres of land away from the First Nation, so long as it was for railway purposes.
Depot Harbour had been a source of waterway pollution in the area throughout its operation and was not favoured by many Wauksasing residents. After the town burned down and the railway pulled out, Wasauksing regained ownership of the land.
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Depot Harbour is considered the greatest harbour in the Great Lakes (allegedly), and was a boom town larger then Parry Sound, till it all burned down on VJ day. All those armaments on the docks didn't help. Depot Harbour burned down in 1945, but it was not till 1987 that the FNs gained control of the land back.
Most FNs are generally asking for simple things like a share of the royalties that come from the natural resource of their ancestral lands to pay for luxuries like clean drinking water.
And acknowledging that: actors like JRBooth stole their *reserve* land, and we built things like nuclear refineries on FN land (Blind River), and the entire chemical industry of Sarnia against or on top of their municipalities. You can't look at a map of Blind River and not go- hmmm why did they build the factory 2kms out of town smack dab in the middle of the reserve?
It works now because Cameco is a good actor and it provides economic benefit for the area, but I can't help wonder hmm what was going on in the 1950s when they said yeah let's do it out here and not in Blind River proper.
The media and common interpretation of indigenous people's grievances about "stolen land" is often interpreted as referring to the very notion of Canada as a settler civilization. However, often it is in fact directly related to the theft of *reserve* lands, granted by treaty, done through amendments of the Indian Act. Some examples:
* 1911: Amended to allow municipalities and companies to expropriate portions of reserves, without surrender, for roads, railways, and other public works. Further amended to allow a judge to move an entire reserve away from a municipality if it was deemed "expedient." These amendments were also known as the "Oliver Act".
Treaty 6 Cree were relocated away from Edmonton by the Oliver Act.
Depot Harbour pre-dates this as this was an
expansion of the annexation powers in the Indian Act.
* 1914: Amended to require western Indians to seek official permission before appearing in "Aboriginal costume" in any "dance, show, exhibition, stampede or pageant."
* 1918: Amended to allow the Superintendent-General to lease out uncultivated reserve lands to non-Aboriginals if the new lease-holder used it for farming or pasture.
* 1920: Amended to make it mandatory for Aboriginal parents to send their children to Indian residential school. (Indian Act, 1920 s.10(1)) Also amended to allow the Department of Indian Affairs to ban hereditary rule of bands. Further amended to allow for the involuntary enfranchisement (and loss of treaty rights) of any status Indian considered fit by the Department of Indian Affairs, without the possession of land previously required for those living off reserve. Repealed two years later but reintroduced in a modified form in 1933.
* 1927: Amended to prevent anyone (Aboriginal or otherwise) from soliciting funds for Indian legal claims without a special license from the Superintendent-General (The cabinet minister). This effectively prevented any First Nation from pursuing Aboriginal land claims.
The punishment for this was jail time.
These are key amendments that lay out a very clear timeline how the Indian Act was used to steamroll over indigenous people's largely in the name of western expansion. This leads up to the 1927 amendment that washes the hand of the Feds to make it all above the courts. Depot Harbour preceded the 1911 expansion of the expropriation powers by 20-ish years. And that's just the example that came to mind.
Just a couple links I would like to share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jb4JesjE1A - Treaty People 23m
And I love the occasional "reconciliation punk song"
https://hotvan.bandcamp.com/track/colonial-values
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lHlTEpj9w
Anyways just thoughts.
Railway Blockades really started with the Idle No More movement in 2012, which was directly related to the Omnibus C-45 that gutted environmental laws and changed the Indian Act to remove the "double majority" provisions without consultation or consent of indigenous people. However, you can draw a line from Occupy Wall Street (Q4 2011) to Idle No More (Q4 2012), and now I think you'll see
Climate Emergency protesters taking over this tactic across North America.
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