Guest
Alanis Obomsawin, a filmmaker from the Abenaki nation, begins her documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance by saying that ‘the story you will see takes place near Montreal in Kanehsatake, a Mohawk village near the town of Oka, and in Kahnawake, a Mohawk reserve south of the city at the Mercier Bridge.’ With these lines, she locates herself and the film within the storytelling tradition that is the cornerstone of First Nations’ knowledge, culture, and history. [...] Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance reconstructs the momentous confrontation between Natives and the Canadian state in Oka in the summer of 1990. Mohawks mobilized to protect the Pines, a burial ground in a white pine tree forest bordering the town, against the expansion of a nine-hole golf course. With the intervention of the Canadian army, the protest took on the characteristics of an armed uprising and received extensive television coverage. Acts of solidarity took place at the Oka Peace Camp, and Native communities across the country set up blockades. With the release of Kanehsatake in 1993, the Oka showdown regained political currency, albeit temporarily. While acknowledging the film’s Native point of view, critical responses predictably focused on factual accuracy or distortion and revealed the precarious nature of public opinion on land claims and self-determination. Obomsawin’s film offers an opportunity to non-Native Canadians to understand the significance of the land in First Nations’ history, culture, and community. Zuzana M. Pick
