From: Christine Luckasavitch [mailto:christine.luckasavitch@gmail.com]! Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 9:53 AM!

! Subject: Morrison Island! ! ! ! Dear colleagues and friends,! ! As a proud Algonquin woman, it is with a very heavy heart I write this to you.! !

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013, my partner and I walked on Morrison Island on the Kichisippi (Ottawa) River, just inside of the Quebec border. This is a place where we go from time to time in order to escape for a moment by stepping back in time and regrounding ourselves. Although there has been farming on this land and some cottages visit the shoreline, this Island has been relatively untouched by modern civilization. I visit this Island because I feel the presence of my ancestors on this land. I can feel the thousands of years we inhabited this place. On this exact site we were once a very proud people; a beautiful people to be reckoned with, charging tolls to cross our land to continue inland on the Ottawa River. This island has been a stronghold for our traditional territory since time immemorial.!

My partner had spent hours on this site earlier that afternoon. The moment I returned home from work, he asked me to go somewhere with him. He had seen something earlier that day that shook him to the core. He didnt tell me where we were going, just that he needed me to go with him to see one of the worst things you will ever see. I drove past bright lights at McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Tim Hortons and directed my car toward the Ontario/Quebec Border at Morrison Island.!

I parked my car at our usual parking space close to dark. As soon as we got out of the car, I felt that this visit to the site of my Ancestors was much, much different. Even the air was heavy; I felt off kilter as I walked. We passed through the trees and weaved through pathways cut through a forest that remained untouched for many years. In an opening on the eastern edge of the island we came to a large pile of freshly cut 150-200 year pines on the banks of the archaic shoreline (approximately 5000 years old). But my partner assured me that I still hadnt seen the worst!

We dropped down the bank to the present-day shoreline onto a freshly made road. As we walked north toward the centre of the island, we came to another new road that cut directly into the banks of the old archaic shore. We continued north to a large clearing at what used to be an eastern-facing point of land along the shore!

! At that moment I became silent. My heart broke.! ! !

Those beautiful, old pines had been cut away from the shoreline to increase the eastern view of the mighty Kichisippi for a future house. No structure was present, only a massive, gaping hole where the ancient archaic shoreline once existed. The shoreline of my Ancestors. Where my people lived. Where we traded our goods. Where we had our meals. Where we played with our babies. Where we honoured our Ancestors. Where we buried our dead.!

This portion of the shoreline, on the eastern side of Morrison Island with the eastern-most view of the mighty Kichisippi River, is so very close to being lost forever, along with it a portion of Algonquin and Canadian history.!

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Earlier that day, my partner spent hours witnessing 15 loads of soil being hauled out by dump trucks. What lies buried in this soil? What are we losing? Where is this soil going? What are we losing in this post-glacial shoreline? Have the remains of my Algonquin ancestors been hauled out of their resting place, deposited somewhere else like trash, to be forgotten and destroyed?! To provide a very brief background on the signicance of Morrison Island, rst discovered and excavated in 1961-1962 by Clyde C. Kennedy, Morrison Island:! is a site which has recorded two very important groups of behavior; ritual and everyday life. The most obvious ritual behaviours are shown by the twenty burials of the remains of men, women and children of different ages spread throughout the whole site area The bodies were frequently covered with red ochre but to different extents Grave inclusions were also quite variable, apparently consisting mainly of items of daily use which had belonged to the individuals or other items thought to be of use to them (Kennedy, 47).!

How can a known site of this signicance be disturbed? This is no fault of the workers on the ground. They no doubt have families at home and are simply going about the job they were hired to do. But what about the future homeowners who commissioned this work? Do they know the real value of the land they are to live on? How could they if we Algonquins, or archaeologists, or historians, were not consulted on the fact that this land was being so disdainfully disturbed? If this project was approved, Algonquins should have been present when this land was broken and ripped apart. We should have had the opportunity to ask for the forgiveness of our Ancestors when their resting place was disturbed. We should have been given the chance to sift through this soil to collect any remnants of our history.!

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Algonquins have been, are, and will always be a very proud people. At this point in our history, many of us are learning to honour our Ancestors and walk a good path. But how can we learn if some of the most important pieces of our history are taken away from us without our knowledge or consent, and we are powerless to stop it from happening?! I look to you, my dear friends and colleagues, for your support and guidance. I cherish you for many reasons, and I know you approach history and heritage (whether Aboriginal or otherwise), with honour and heart. I do not want pieces of Algonquin history on Morrison Island ripped away from us without our knowledge. More importantly, I do not want to continue losing pieces of Canadas history as a whole, whether we lose it through land disturbance or the passing of our Elders who hold our oral history. It is time to unite and preserve our histories.!

Methods pertaining to the preservation of our heritage are often pushed aside. Heritage Values, Aboriginal Values or Heritage Plans are often projects that are not prioritized. In some instances, it takes decades to begin projects of this nature or not at all. With protocols in place, the archaeology process (while necessary) is often deemed too difcult, expensive and time consuming when a development project is looming. I ask you, what is the priority? Economic development and monetary gain? Or is it the preservation of our history? What should our priority be, not only as Canadians, but as human beings?!

Christine!

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Morrison Island is arguably the most well documented site of Algonquin activity with records dating back to Champlain's arrival in 1613. For a very small selection of supplementary reading on Morrison Island and Algonquin presence in the Ottawa Valley, please reference the following:!

! 1962 Archaic Hunters in the Ottawa Valley. Ontario History 54(2):122-128.! ! ! ! ! ! !

A History of the Pontiac (Kinounchepirini Algonquin First Nation)! http://kinounchepirini.com/history! Algonquin History (Algonquins of Ontario! http://www.tanakiwin.com/history.htm! Champlain Explores the Ottawa (Great Canadian Rivers)! http://www.greatcanadianrivers.com/rivers/ottawa/history-home.html!

1967 Preliminary Report on Morrison's Island-6 Site. Contributions to Anthropology V, Bulletin 206. National Museum of Canada, Ottawa, pp.100-125.!

Encouraging the Ethical Practice of Archaeology: Exotic Artifacts Found in the Ottawa Valley (Ontario Archaeological Society)! http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/ottvallexotics.php! Flotilla to Mark Champlains Arrival at Morrison Island (Ottawa Sun)! http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/06/08/otilla-to-mark-champlains-arrival-at-morrison-island!

! Hessel, Peter. The Algonkin Nation: The Original People of the Ottawa Valley. 1993.! ! Kennedy, Clyde C. The Upper Ottawa Valley. 1970.! ! Kruzich, Noreen. The Ancestors are Arranging Things: A Journey on the Algonkin Trail. 2011.! ! ! ! !
Morrison Island: An Archaic Sacred Place and Workshop in the Ottawa Valley! http://www.thealgonquinway.ca/publications/PaloQubec28_74_00.pdf! Ottawa River Community Heritage: Pembroke Area History! http://www.ottawariver.org/pdf/32-ch5-4.pdf! Whiteduck, Kirby J. Algonquin Traditional Culture. 2002.

Lawrence, Bonita. Fractured Homeland: Federal Recognition and Algonquin Identity in Ontario. 2012.!