b'ANISHINABEK NATIONIpperwash Summer Series:A short history of the alienation of Stony Point territory, 1818-1945BY LAURIE LECLAIRM any years ago, I read a document written in 1945 by an Anishinabek soldier who had just returned from the war. He recalled how it was late in the afternoon when the bus dropped him off along Highway 21, a short distance from home. Perhaps because of wartime communications or the fact that it all happened so quickly, he was unaware that Canada had evoked the War Measures Act and had taken over his community, the Stony Point reserve. There were new buildings, strange facessoldiers just like himself but not from these parts. Stranger still was the realization that what he had fought for, his home and family, his before-life, was somehow gone. It was too late and too dark to walk the five miles to Kettle Point, and being emotionally and physically exhausted, he simply fell asleep in a ditch. The answers would come the next day and for years after.It happened as if overnight is a quote that often prefaces the retelling of the complex and difficult Stony Point narrative, but when we examine the history of the alienation of the land, the story begins over two centuries ago.Between the years 1818 and 1827, Anishinabek leaders negotiated with the British Crown over the transfer of 2.7 million acres of land along the southeast shoreline of Odaawaa Gichi-gami1 (Lake Huron) and following the river,Dodems of some of the Chiefs and Principal leaders involved in the early discussions which would which ends at Waawiiyaataan (Lake St. Clair). On July 10,eventually lead to Treaty 29. LAC, M. G. 19 F1, vol. 11, C-1480.Detail from the sketch attached to Treaty 29, initialled by James Grant Chewitt, Deputy Surveyor, Upper Canada. Treaty 29, IT-093, RG 10, vol. 1843, T-9938. 1827, Osaw a wip and principal chief Wa wa nosh, the appointed negotiators, along with leaders from the Reindeer, Beaver, Catfish and Crane clans, signed Treaty No. 29, or the Huron Tract Treaty. Chiefs Chemokomon and Quaikeegon, as well as principal men from Wiikwedong and Aazhoodenat, safeguarded reserves of two square miles each, bordering on the waters of Odaawaa Gichi-gami. Once surveyed out, these lands became colloquially identified as Kettle Point (2,446 acres) and Stony Point (2,650 acres). Photo 2 shows what the two tracts looked like from the eyes of Upper Canadas Deputy Surveyor in 1827.For years, the communities success-fully resisted the Indian Departments pressure to have their territories chopped up into concessions and lots, aware of the fact that subdivision surveys would lead to the loss of more land. Because of this solidarity, the reserves at Kettle and Stony Point did not receive a registered subdivision survey until Walter Stanley 20l I ssue1 2020C hIefs ofo ntarIoA dvocAte magazIne'