Mohawk and the Seaway: A Troubled Relationship

After five decades, and two full generations, the Mohawks can sit on the shores of Kaniatarowanenneh, our ‘big river”, and see the great and permanent changes the St. Lawrence Seaway has brought about to our lives.

Once we were masters of the rapids, a people strong and healthy who were known throughout the world for our ability to take delicate watercraft into areas others feared.

From our homes astride the Big River we guided the courier des bois deep into the continental interior as no other group was as adept as the Mohawks in navigating the thousands of miles of lakes, rivers and streams by which the fur traders and missionaries made their way west.

We were David Thompson’s canoeists, we shot through the rapids of the Columbia River to Fort Astoria in distant Oregon, we carried British soldiers up the Nile River in 1884 to relieve General Charles Gordon at Khartoum when some said this was impossible. Not for us.

We profited in many ways from the Big River’s bounty: our primary meat diet was the fish we netted, speared and caught by line. The marshes in the east of Akwesasne gave us birds by the thousands while the rich soils on our islands proved to be fertile ground for our crops of corn, beans and squash.

Our ancestors selected the Akwesasne region as a main settlement for other reasons. It gave us a strategic and economic advantage over other indigenous nations as we were able to place assessments on products which were carried across our waters and a fee for those who used our resources.

We were also able to monitor the many military expeditions which clumsily made their way through Akwesasne with most of them hiring our river runners as guides.

For generations the rhythms of Mohawk life blended with the moods and movements of the Big River; its massive ice breaks in the spring shook us back into a new planting cycle while its cool fall waters enabled us to harvest enough birds for the long winters.

Not one of our ancestors would have believed the Big River could be stilled into an artificial lake or that this most powerful of beings would one day become a danger to its children.

When the St. Lawrence Seaway was proposed the Mohawks were like most people-enthusiastic. Our parents saw the potential of cheap electrical power as a stimulus to a regional economy, which had suffered greatly during the Depression.

Akwesasne might have been poor in a material sense but the bounty of the land and the hard work ethic of the people insured everyone had sufficient shelter and adequate food. Virtually everything the Mohawks needed to sustain life was present at Akwesasne with enough left over to barter for accessories in Cornwall. But the hard times were passing and we wanted a share of the boom times.

It was, however, our independence, and relative isolation, which kept an earth based lifestyle vibrant and the Mohawk language strong. What the leaders of the community did not foresee was how the Seaway would endanger not only the traditional way of life but cause a linguistic break between the generations which in turn would lead to inner turmoil and confrontation.

The Seaway destroyed the fishing runs. The stilled waters became cesspools for the factories on the river’s banks, industries located in the region because of the cheap power, cheap labour and loose environmental regulations. The area became a ‘sacrifice’ ground where massive amounts of chemicals were spewed into the air or dumped into the waters with no thought as to long term effects.

The Mohawks complained but we were considered a marginal people. What we grew or fished became saturated with toxins. We had no choice but to leave the water as it was killing us. Once we abandoned the ancient ways of living we discarded the language and thereby caused a severe breach between the generations.

We could no longer understand our parents or appreciate the great knowledge they had preserved over hundreds of years. We became, of necessity, “wage earners” meaning we were now defined by our income rather than our humanity. We had metamorphisized from “onkwehonwe” (human beings) to abrasive consumers just like our Canadian and American neighbours.

This is what the St. Lawrence Seaway brought to us. It sits on our land, across our river. It was constructed with Mohawk labour. It is there but it has given us nothing but 50% adult diabetes, obesity, bodies rife with lethal chemicals, birth defects, a land base which should be declared uninhabitable and a cultural crisis which threatens to obliterate our identity as Mohawks.

And in return we are gouged by high electrical rates, our islands are eroded away by massive ships, strange birds and fish are choking off the indigenous animals and our kids know how to say polychlorinated biphenyls easier than the Native names of their grandparents.

That is our harsh 50th.