Blockade to export plight of Bill C-31 Indians

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The land is the culture. That's the message behind Fred Fraser's symbolic land claim here in the foothills outside Calgary.

Fraser's been here in a make-shift cabin since last July. As head of a group called the Sarcee Bill C-32 Indian Band, he's hoping to force the government to deal with the rights of Bill C-31 people - people Fraser says the government created and is solely responsible for.

"They created the problem in 1984 and they need to resolve it now," he said while sitting in the fresh mountain morning outside his cabin/tent.

The controversial Bill C-31 returned Indian status to thousands of people across Canada who had lost it through a discriminatory law under which women who married outside their tribes lost their status.

The resultant flood of reinstated Indians has put considerable pressure on existing bands to accommodate the new members.

Fraser plans to blockade the road leading into the area sometime after June 1 unless action is taken.

"My deadline is June 1. That will be a year since we got here and I'm going to build a cabin right over there on that hill..

"If they come and tear it down, I'll just rebuild it. I'm also going to start putting up a fence to keep the dogs and cows from walking all over our living area.

"This is my culture I'm fighting for here and our people need land base for their future. What it comes down to at the very bottom line is the ultimate death of a race of people."

He talks openly of arming himself if need be and of fighting to the finish like a warrior.

The groups leans toward the passive resistance philosophy but Fraser said although their intention is to not fight, they will do whatever is necessary to get their message out.

"I'm prepared to die over this," he said, quite calmly.

"What other out do I have? When they passed Bill C-31 they gave us status and nothing else. No band rights, no land rights, no nothing."

"And all it leaves me after this is skid row or welfare. So I'll fight until I die. I'm 47 years old and have already lived longer than most Native people in this country," he said.

Fraser's group numbers about 200 people and while relations with the Sarcee

Band haven't proved fruitful, the group hopes that community pressure will force the government to respond.

"Our people have the right to get their culture back. That's the bottom line here, nothing else," Fraser said.

"It's nothing for the Sarcees to deal with, it's in the hands of the government to come to terms with the needs of the people they created," he said.

The Sarcees are one of four Alberta bands engaged in legal action which challenges Ottawa's right to proclaim band membership. Despite the granting of status, many newly reinstated Indians have no rights to land or band rights until the membership question is settled.

The land is the issue. Fraser and his followers believe that the land is the basis of everything. With a land base - a home - native people are rootless and susceptible to all kinds of native influences.

"The land is the culture and for two levels of government and legislation to deny us access to our own culture is the greatest of sins.

The young people who come out here understand that after a while. The city seems to take our soul and our spirit away as Native people. Living out here gets us back to nature and a natural way.

You start to see that it's easy to get back to the traditional. Just being out here shows you how to do that because seven days a week you have to live it."

Fraser seeks to provide his group with a starting point. For the past three years - initially at a similar camp some eight miles southwest - he's attempted to call attention to the issue.

For their part, the Sarcees claim they do not have adequate dollars or land to accommodate the newcomers. For Fraser, that means another avenue of settlement must be broached. Ultimately that means making other lands available for the newly created Indians.

"Bill C-31 creates outcasts. We're not wanted by our own pople and we're not really welcome in the city."

"What we're after is an economic land base so that we can become productive people again. Three generations of my people have been on the social assistance roles."

They would like recognition as an Indian band and for lands to be set aside for their use according to the dictates of the Indian Act.

"There's a lot of land for sale along the foothills and our people are more than willing to take it over," he said.

"They'll turn it into band lands. Our traditional lands. And if this move doesn't work out we'll just take over this," he said, gesturing towards the area around him.

The area is part of the Kananaskis Country recreation area. The site of Fraser's camp is about 10 km west of Bragg Creek.

He feels that it's more than fitting that his camp be situated on a dead end road, much like the futile efforts to get land set aside for his group.

The camp is small and consitsts of a main cabin/tent with a neighboring tipi borrowed from the Plains Indian Cultural Survival School in Calgary, a tent, outhouse and shower, It sits in the middle of a small clearing like any other trap line camp might be found.

"This is the Fraser traditional territory," he explains.

"My grandfather was one of the last minor traditional chiefs of the Sarcee and his trap line ran right through this area.

"It's in my blood. It's in the people's blood and we'll fight to keep it."