4 ~ Wednesday, April 3, 1991 - North Shore News Decision to allow hunting in park surprises all GONQUIN PARK, Ontario — British Columbia is not, of course, the only part of the Canuck empire to be torn by unresolved territorial, jurisdictional, cultural and racial disputes stemming from the hodgepodge of methods that were employed in the process of the conquest: everything from set-piece batiles between standing armies, naval bombardments, backroom political deals, claim-jumps, mass starvation, buy-offs, rigged elections, the formation of concentration camps, genocide, religious persecution and kidnapping. Oh, Canada! While Indians in B.C. are mull- ing their limited options in the wake of B.C. Supreme Court Judge Allan McEachern’s ruling that they have no rights save those given them by successive colonial governments, including the present ones in Victoria and Ottawa, at least one band of Indians in On- tario is having to contend with the fallout from a quite different — and therefore highly unusual — decision in their favor. The Golden Lake Band of Algonquin Indians has just been made the beneficiary of a decision by Ontario’s new NDP govern- ment to permit its members to hunt and fish in the province's largest and oldest park, from which they had been banned since the passing of the Ontario Game Protection Act in 1893, at roughly the same time that the park nam- ed after them was created. The Game Protection Act clear- ly stipulated that the Indians had the right to continue to hunt and fish in those areas they had specifically relinquished claim to. As it happens, all but a thin slice of Algonquin Park lies within the vast swath of territory that was once the Algonquin Nation, which they had never ceded through treaty. The area extends northward to the Ottawa River, castward past (and including the city of Ottawa itself), southeast nearly to the Sz. Lawrence, and south as far as Perth. (All in favor of giving Ot- tawa back to the Algonquins, say ““Aye.”? Aye!) Nobody on earth, certainly the Algonquins, expects to get the ter- ritory back, or even a respectable portion of it. As their land claims wind their way through federal courts in the decades to come, however, they do hope to gain access to resources that right now are ex- ploited purely for the benefit of the descendants of the invaders. This might have remained a cu- riosity of Canada’s convoluted legal landscape but for the NDP’s decision to take a halting step in the direction of resolving at least one outstanding judicial impedi- ment preventing a solution of our constitutional hangups. While both the Game Protec- tion Act and the Royal Proclama- tion a century earlier, which set the ground-rules for the take-over of British America, conceded the Indians the right to hunt and fish in traditional areas, the invention of provincial and federal parks contradicted these earlier edicts, Game wardens ard white politi- cians and judges went ahead and enforced the game protection laws against Indians and non-natives alike, blithely ignoring treaty obligations. Ontario’s new natural resources minister, Bud Wildman, who is also the Indian affairs minister, decided to end the practice of criminalizing Indians for doing what the treaties entitled them to do. He ordered all outstanding charges against Algonquin Indians who had been caught trapping and fishing in the park to be dropped, as an act of good faith to improve the land claims negotiating climate. Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL The price for the NDP has been a chorus of outraged how!s from an unlikely alliance of campers, animal-rights advocates, non- native hunters and the tourist in- dustry, many of them from the **green’’ constituency that helped to vote the New Denycrats into power last summer. And there has even been the occasional voice raised in defence of the idea of negotiating land claims to settle ownership and jurisdictional issues once and for all, rather than leaving the natives dangling in the legal limbo they have been experiencing for the last century, ever since the rule of law took the form of reserves for In- dians, preserves for animals, and everything el: ; Sor the whit: man. During a trip to Algonquin Park, I talked to Algonquin Chief Cliff Meness at nearby Golden lake, a man who had been ar- rested several times for exercising his treaty rights to hunt and fish. He patiently explained how his band was working cut details with the provincial government so that hunting would be carried on at times when tourists weren’t around, and what public safety atrangements would be im- plemented, possibly including ap- pointing native game and fish of- ficers, the idea being to minimize the impact on the park both from a conservation point of view and from the point of view of not disturbing the tourists. Compared with the invading hordes from Europe, the Indians had always walked softly on the land. They still do. Chief Meness showed me maps his band had been working on for a year, based on the intimate knowledge his people had ac- quired over the centuries of the movements and numbers of the bear, moose, deer, rabbits, wolves, coyotes and fish they have tracked. At the slightest sign of any decline in any species, the Algon- quins would be the first to know and take steps to correct. Meanwhile, al! around the park, big game and fish have becn overhunted by hunters from the cities to the point where the Algonquins can no longer take enough to keep their freezers full. tt doesn’t leave them with much room to manoeuvre, But then, that's @ pretty familiar situation for them. The NDP in Oniario. to its credit, has given ihem a breathing space. CERT AEE Capilano Road ARDAGH HUNTER TURNER Barristers & Solicitors Personal Injury AFTER HOURS FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION Con vf 986-4366 YH B84 -- #300-1401 LONSDALE NORTH VANCOUVER, BC. We Know Cruises Best! Dest CARIBBEAN 7 DAYS From $1195 (air incluced) enters 1823 985 - SHIP (i447) FAX 986-9286 CANADIAN (UNLIMITED FREE PARKING) FROM $200 NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIAN & BRITISH TAX PREPARATION GLOVE > Let your agm become a joystich with all the controls right at your fingertips! Super low price! pera HOURS