Chrissy Swain shares about her connection to the land, the importance of youth defenders, and how some leadership should “smarten up” and be Anishinaabe.
On December 2, 2002, youth and Elders of the Grassy Narrows First Nation established a blockade on a logging road in their territory and sparked one of the longest standing Indigenous logging blockades in Canadian history. The Grassy Narrows community has survived many colonial traumas including relocation, residential schools, mercury contamination, flooding of sacred grounds and burial sites, and clear-cut logging within their traditional territory. However, resistance is strong at Grassy Narrows where youth and Elders are actively defending their territories by re-occupying their lands, reviving their culture, and exercising their rights to manage their land as they see fit.
