Today, we honour the memory of those who survived the Indian residential schools — and those who didn’t. We sometimes forget that the harm caused by those schools was often overlaid on other traumas. A case in point is Grassy Narrows First Nation in northern Ontario.
Grassy Narrows is a community on the shores of the English-Wabigoon River system. In the 1950s, it was dependent on that river for its fishing industry — something that continued into the 1960s, even as Dryden Chemicals Ltd. began to pour tons of mercury into the river system.
By 1970, high levels of mercury were being reported in fish. By 1975, the fisheries and tourism lodges had closed; another First Nations community downriver, Whitedog, was similarly affected. Substance abuse and all the markers of a community in crisis emerged soon after. There were no recorded suicides in the community before 1970; after that, suicidality soared.
The community — like so many others — had already been badly affected by the impact of the country’s residential schools. In those schools, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were completely separated from their families, cultures and languages. This was often compounded by severe abuse, mistreatment and lasting trauma, left unacknowledged and untreated for decades. Many at Grassy Narrows had attended the school at McIntosh, Ont.
By 2016, about 90 per cent of the community was suffering the effects of mercury poisoning. Mercury poisoning results in Minamata disease, a syndrome first identified in Japan in the 1960s. Symptoms include neurological impairments and disability, blindness, seizures and other disorders.
Japan responded to its disaster with meaningful support and treatment for victims. But not here.
There were always higher priorities in federal budgets, every year for 50 years. In 2010, scientists from Japan came to Grassy Narrows to assess for prevalence of Minimata disease. Over half the people they assessed were diagnosed or diagnosable with it. Twenty per cent exhibited emotional disturbances, and over 10 per cent showed intellectual deficits.
This past summer, another study in the journal Environmental Health Perspective concluded that mercury toxicity was directly linked to children’s mental health and suicidality at Grassy Narrows. In the study, every mother over 35 years of age had at least one parent who had been at a residential school; over one-third had a family member or close friend who died by suicide in the previous year. Half had thought about it themselves, with over a third going on to attempt it. This isn’t “ancient history”; this is everyday life, today.
It was Grassy Narrows’ perseverance that led the federal government to commit to a mercury treatment program in 2017. But then came the pandemic, inflationary pressures — and today, not a shovelful of dirt has been turned over to build a care home. How could this not be a high priority? Would this be tolerated in our community? Not even a little. We each carry a moral responsibility to do something about that. A call or email to our local MPs would be a good start.
Progress in Reconciliation has been agonizingly slow. But it is happening, and we can’t lose hope and faith in our ability to see it through. There were many — both Indigenous and non-Indigenous — who tried to make a difference long before most of us had even heard about residential schools. One of those people was Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Tom Cooper.
Cooper is someone whose story might have been lost to history. He was born in August 1950, and attended Waterloo Collegiate before becoming an OPP officer in 1971. He served at northern OPP detachments at Minaki, Dryden and Grassy Narrows before returning to southern Ontario.
Wade Meeks, a former OPP detective-sergeant, described him, he was a big guy, full of life, with a tremendous sense of humour — something that sustained him through many difficult circumstances. He said it was always Cooper’s intention to return to northern Ontario. He loved hunting, fishing and his friends and family. And he cared deeply about the people at Grassy Narrows; he had observed the effect of the residential schools and the mercury poisoning, and worked with the leadership of the First Nation to address those challenges. Solvent abuse, addictions and family violence were real problems in the community at that time. But Cooper always remembered that there were human beings, badly wronged, behind all of that.
By the early 1990s, he was back at Grassy Narrows, this time as a sergeant — detachment commander. On July 25, 1991, he was responding to a firearms complaint on the reserve when he was shot and killed; his partner was badly wounded. Wade and his brother got the call that night about what had happened; the three of them had been planning a fishing trip with friends that weekend. They served as pallbearers at his funeral.
Cooper was not an Indigenous man. But he was one of many who tried to make a difference, often in the face of widespread indifference and disdain. We can take so much for granted in our lives, losing sight of the realities that others face. We can even take the sacrifices of men like Cooper for granted. May it be different this year.
Let’s remember all who were harmed by the Indian residential school system, their families and their communities. Let’s remember those whose perseverance eventually led to this day. And let’s honour all of them by finding our own way to make things better — with a personal commitment toward Reconciliation.
Gary Whetung lives in Waterloo Region and is a member of Curve Lake First Nation. He is a member of the Waterloo Region Record’s Community Editorial Board. His great-grandmother Bella Howard attended “Indian finishing school” at Muncey, Ont. It was formally known as the Mount Elgin Industrial Training Institute, one of more than 130 Indian residential schools in Canada.
