Ipperwash Park returned to local First Nations

It's not very often that land gets restored to Aboriginal people, especially land on the shores of Lake Huron that was a popular provincial park.
But just before Christmas, Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant travelled to southwestern Ontario to announce that Ipperwash Provincial Park would be returned to the Kettle and Stony Point First Nations.
The land where Dudley George was shot and killed fighting for Aboriginal rights will again be in the care of its original occupants.
For Dudley's brother Sam, no other outcome was acceptable.
"It's a big honour to my brother's memory," he said. "The return of the land to the people, it carried for me a whole lot of weight in the healing process."
"The achievement was all the more historic because governments don't like to right a wrong by returning land, he said. "But in this case we did get it ­ instead of a cheque."
The 100-acre park, once the beachfront of the Stony Point reserve and the site of an ancient burial ground, was surrendered in suspicious circumstances in 1928. It was sold to the provincial government by a speculator in 1936, after local residents had agitated for a park by the lake.
The federal government took the rest of the 2,200-acre reserve for use as a army training camp in 1942, forcibly relocating the Stony Point people to nearby Kettle Point, creating resentment and economic hardship for both communities.
In 1993, exasperated by the government's refusal to return the reserve, Dudley George and some Stony Pointe community members moved onto the base and gave it its original name, Aazhoodena. On Sept. 4, 1995, a small group moved into the park to highlight concerns about the burial ground. Police responded with a stunning show of force two days later, and Dudley George was fatally shot by an Ontario Provincial Police officer
The death of the 38-year-old, known to his friends as a prankster and a joker, would have been swept under the carpet if the provincial Conservative government of the time, headed by premier Mike Harris, had prevailed.
Sam George was equally determined that his younger brother not be forgotten.
"In the beginning, all we asked them to do was tell the truth," he testified at the inquiry called by the Liberal government that defeated the Harris Tories in 2003.
Instead, there had been many lies. A few examples: The province denied there had ever been a burial ground. But the information was readily found in a search of government files.
Harris and his ministers denied the premier had said, hours before George died, that he wanted the "f-ing Indians out of the Park." The inquiry established that he had.
Police testimony that Dudley was armed was "clearly fabricated and implausible," said a judge who convicted Acting Sergeant Kenneth Deane of criminal negligence causing death.
An OPP release the day after the shooting ­ never withdrawn until the inquiry - said police reacted after a group of First Nations people armed with baseball bats damaged a private citizen's car, and also that police were fired on by Aboriginal occupiers­two lies that festered in the public consciousness for almost a decade.
The return of the park wasn't one of the recommendations of Ipperwash Commissioner Sidney Linden, although he said it would be a good idea, albeit one fraught with complications.
Among those complications is the rift between the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and the residents of Aazhoodena, who have held both the park and the army camp for more than a decade. The Aazhoodena group opposes the former reserve lands going to the integrated First Nation and favours a disentanglement of the affairs of the two communities. But other Stony Point families, after 65 years of living at Kettle Point, disagree.
Another issue involves relations with non-Aboriginal neighbours, who are keen for the park to re-open and bring tourism business to the area. The park has remained closed to the public since Dudley's death.
Bryant's plan involves an interim stage where the park is co-managed by the government, the First Nation and nearby communities.
At present, the two sides are waiting for provincially appointed mediator Jim Thomas, a former deputy minister of labour, to convene the first meeting.
Yet another problem is the need for the park to go back to the federal government if it is to be reconstituted as part of the reserve.
A spokesperson for the department of Indian affairs said it is ready to participate in any discussion between the province and the First Nation (As for the army camp, it was ostensibly returned by the federal government in 1998, but still hasn't been handed over because toxic materials and unexploded ordinance still have to be cleaned up.)
It's been a long road for Sam George, and another stretch lies ahead.
"Sam understands there are huge complications in returning the land," said Klippenstein. "I don't think he feels stress ­ he's got the firm commitment of the province."
Meanwhile Sam is working with the Chiefs of Ontario in preparation for an Ipperwash implementation committee that the province is setting up.
"It's exciting to see things happening from the report," he said.
A stand alone ministry of Aboriginal affairs is in place already, the park is being returned and "everyone is working hard on the other recommendations," said George.