Minigoo Fisheries alive in lobster fishery once again

Minigoo Fisheries re-opened for business in the month of September 2012. It may be a modest celebration but this is a major achievement. Lobster licenses and processing will operate under the same name thus everything was sorted out to the satisfaction of trustees and business in the lobster and fish plant is proceeding as of the first week of September 2012, says Don Bernard, general manager. They employ 70 people at the Minigoo Fisheries processing facility. It is nine months a year of employment for members of the Mi’Kmaq Confederacy of PEI (MCPEI) and others in the surroundings of Lennox Island First Nation. That is the hope.

Business success lies within the grasp of Chief Darlene Bernard who has history and antiquity on her side. The fisheries in these waters thrived before Europeans arrived in North America, when ancestors of today's Mi'kmaq people came in ocean-going canoes to harvest shellfish and lobster from the shallow bays and harbours of Prince Edward Island. Two decades ago this ancient practice was revived by the Supreme Court of Canada. The court ruled that aboriginal people enjoyed treaty rights giving them access to the resources of Canada to earn "a modest living". Aboriginal nations began entering the lobster fishery along Canada's Atlantic Ocean coastline, fishing the lobster grounds alongside non-aboriginal boats; selling their catch to processing plants scattered across Prince Edward Island.

A number of licences were awarded to the Lennox Island First Nation. Boats owned by the band, as well as independently owned vessels, became participants in the fishery. And then, one morning in early August, 2009, two people met to discuss the idea of setting up and operating a lobster processing plant on lands owned by the Lennox Island First Nation. Chief Darlene Bernard was interested in the potential of a for-profit processing industry located on Lennox Island to provide employment for her people, and earn money for additional economic development to their benefit. Chief Bernard harboured a dream of creating greater economic self sufficiency for her people as a way to breaking the cycle of dependency under the Indian Act, which held them back.
Jon Osmann Aranson was native to Iceland, that Norse island in the North Atlantic where fishing is in the genes of every inhabitant. From his teen years he worked in the commercial fishing industry, a career that took him to Russia, China and Japan before he fetched up managing the processing plant in Prince Edward Island. Aranson had a dream to create a processing plant from scratch; to put his international experience to work designing, equipping and operating a processing plant to exacting specifications that would meet and exceed international standards.

\The dreams of these two from dissimilar backgrounds came together in a single unified purpose. The dreamers had nine months to make it reality - including several in the dead of winter when snow-laden north winds blow fierce over Prince Edward Island. There was a critical challenge to be met - financing. A key decision was made to seek financing from private sources. Minigoo Fisheries was to be a profit-making enterprise - not another government make-work program. A business plan was prepared. The Bank of Montreal came aboard. The project was a "go". Work began in early December 2009 to convert and expand an existing building on Lennox Island into a world-class processing facility.
\

Aranson led a core staff and a group of local contractors through twelve hour days, six and seven days a week in the race to complete the task of being fully operational when the lobster fishing season opened on May 1, 2010. On April 21, hundreds of visitors from Lennox Island and surrounding communities celebrated the Official Opening of Minigoo Fisheries with ceremonies that included aboriginal drumming and singing, and a cutting of a ribbon by Grand Chief Shawn Atleo of the National Assembly of First Nations.

"I think I have been preparing myself for a moment like this,” said Aranson. “It is not often you are given the opportunity to design a seafood processing plant where you can put in place all of the techniques you learn over the number of years in different situations. I am a happy man". On May 1, 2010, Minigoo Fisheries processed its first lobster for the international marketplace. His was a short-lived bliss.

Minigoo Fisheries went into bankruptcy almost immediately after the grand opening in 2010.  First came announcement of the surprise departure of Aranson, Icelandic national who had arrived in Lennox Island First Nation an avid proponent of reconstruction of a dilapidated fisheries plant. What ensued was a shocking and somewhat expensive lesson in management.

Compounding the problem was a valuable catch that spoiled and contract and supply creditors fell on the hook when everything ground to a halt. It took two years to sort out the details and re-open the facility, proving Chief Bernard remains steadfast in her goal toward capacity-building the Lennox Island First Nation.

Two First Nation historic sites for summer visits, Rocky Mtn House, and Hat Creek

Eight different First Nations as well as Métis are known to have traded at Rocky Mountain House over the 76-year history of the trading posts. This includes the Nehiyawak, Piikani, Siksika, Kainai, Ktunaxa, Tsuu T’ina , Nakoda, and Atsina.
    

The year 2010 marks the sixth year of partnership between Parks Canada’s Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site and the Métis Nation of Alberta. At Bastions & Bones, August 20 – 22, 2010, Blackfoot culture will feature special guest drummers, dancers and ceremonialists from the Piikani Nation.
    

The event commemorates the 200th anniversary of the Piikani blockade on the North Saskatchewan River.  The blockade prevented David Thompson and his North West Company Brigade from continuing west to trade with First Nations on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. This is part of the International David Thompson Bicentennial initiatives.
    

Historic Hat Creek Ranch is in Bonaparte First Nation territory, and Bonaparte is well-represented on-site.  Sandra Gaspard, Bonaparte member, is Manager of Historic and Cultural Operations, and Curator of the significant First Nation presence at the facilities. “We have five different knowledge streams of Shuswap culture to explain,” says Gaspard.
    

On display are cooking and food preservation, lodging, hide and tannery, a replica kikuli that can house 23 people. The historic site features many outstanding structures like an 1860 Roadhouse to go along with the Shuswap Native Interpretive Site, which itself employs eight people, all with First Nation heritage.
    

On the second weekend of August the First Nations host a traditional Pow-Wow on-site at the Historic Hat Creek Ranch, “It’s no-charge admission and we are often feeding the crowd with breakfast or lunch during the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.,” says Gaspard. 

Meanwhile, until the closing at the end of September, visitors can experience Shuswap ancestry performing drum, flute, and 17 styles of dance. 

Recession hurt but Millbrook remains on track toward self-sufficiency

Millbrook First Nation in Truro, Nova Scotia, is well-positioned to develop their community into a self-sufficient First Nation, says Chief Lawrence Paul, “We have a wide range of developments underway, including a land-based aquaculture development growing Arctic Char,” and, the chief notes, the reason for a land-based growing facility, is, “Apparently the saltwater is too contaminated to grow healthy fish for human consumption so they are growing them in a land-based re-circulation system.”

Alex Cope, Millbrook Band Manager, says fish farms are not that friendly to the environment and can not be controlled as in land based facilities. The chief says the Arctic char are currently growing in the tanks in a Millbrook-owned facility, “There are buildings on our Millbrook First Nation property, leased from us, where they are hatching and beginning to grow out the Arctic char, and some salmon and trout.”

This is but one in a list of economic developments that puts the Millbrook First Nation on the pathway to self-sufficiency.  “We developed the Truro Power Centre in 2001, which now includes a call centre, motel, RV park,  restaurant, and Tim Hortons,” and an anchor tenant in Sobey’s, which was the first tenant at the Truro Power Centre.

On a satellite-reserve in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Millbrook First Nation constructed a new building that General Dynamics leased a couple years ago. General Dynamics is designing, maintaining, and servicing software for the new Canadian Forces Sikorsky helicopters, which will begin arriving in Dartmouth in November 2010.

In fact, this Mi'kmaq First Nation in Nova Scotia governs the reserves of Millbrook IR 27, Cole Harbour 30, Beaver Lake I.R. 17, Sheet Harbour IR 36, Truro 27a, Truro 27b,and Truro 27c. Chief Paul works with a 12-member council that has highly qualified personnel in elected positions. They are elected from a membership over 1,400, “Closer to 1,500,” says the chief, “and that will increase to we expect close to 1,800 with a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision,” McIvor v. Canada (Registrar of Indian and Northern Affairs), [2009] B.C.J. No. 669, the B.C. Court of Appeal, “that affects Band membership across Canada.”

Prior to the current endeavors in economic development, says Lawrence, “our focus had been on the Highway 102 Connector to the TransCanada Highway. Now the focus is on a new hotel in immediate vicinity to Truro, Nova Scotia, in a destination-oriented tourism property that will include an indoor climate-controlled waterpark. “It will be busy year-round,” says the chief.

Alex Cope says, “We have three buildings with VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals) in Millbrook, three centres in Cole Harbour, and one in Sheet Harbour with a total of 117 machines VLTs,” and the VLTs are making money. “These VLT’s are good income for Millbrook,” says the chief, “big breadwinners.” The 117 VLT’s supplied much needed income for some of the current development that Millbrook is undergoing, and much-needed cash benefits to the community membership.

“Every man, woman, and child receives $1,000 in the third week of June and $1,500 each November. For those under 19 years of age the money is held in trust until they become of-age.” The Millbrook community is able to thrive and people are working, “We are creating jobs for ourselves and adding community services, like a health centre and a youth centre. Our kids are enrolled in the public school system. We have 19 graduates coming out of high school this year.

“We have accessed programs at university and Nova Scotia Community College trades so our graduates can pursue post-secondary opportunities. Our administrators have university educations. For example, Alex, our Band Manager, got a B.Admin at University of New Brunswick.”

Millbrook’s leadership mentored a handful of their members to become educated and available for administrative duties for a growing group of Millbrook communities. Once the 102 connector highway was established, due to no small amount of lobbying by Millbrook, they obtained access to the mainstream of provincial life and commercial opportunities began to emerge.

“Commercially we are doing well, and the goal is self-sufficiency,” says Lawrence. “We are breaking away from government dependency and economic development is our course.” The excitement around Millbrook these days relates to the new hotel, naturally, “a $27 million facility that will employ skilled workers when it’s built,” and meanwhile, contracts to build will supply jobs for a growing Millbrook First Nation labour pool.

Chief Lawrence Paul is an elder now, and he had a long career in various kinds of endeavors, “I was an auto body man, a furnace repair man, I went to business college, and Nova Scotia Agriculture College. I was in the army in 1951,” where he spent time in Germany during the post-war period of German reconstruction. He says, “In 1984, I decided to run for chief,” and he has served 14 consecutive terms now, 28 years in the office. “I am not ready for retirement. I have another term in me after this one.”

Nine hundred Band members live in Truro area, and 100 non band members and 100 non natives dwell in the Millbrook sub-divisions beside Truro, “We have Band members all over Canada and the U.S.,” and those members can be proud of their ancestral home, “Native people are going to go forward same as the rest of society,” says the chief, “toward self-sufficiency and into the fight for the almighty dollar,” he quips.

“Now that we have leveled the playing field we are promoting education as the way forward for our people.” Self-sufficiency is in the not-too-distant future. “The recession hurt us too, but we recovered and we have opportunities to pursue that will make it happen sooner rather than later,” including management of the building and Band-owned property in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Glenn Squires is CEO of Pacrim Hospitality Services of Halifax that developed and manages the Super 8 Motel located at the power centre, and Glenn says Millbrook's practical business model works well for the firm, one of Canada's largest privately-owned hotel management companies.

"We enjoy working with Millbrook and had a great experience with the partnership model, which works to the advantage of all," says Squires. "The relationship is very collaborative and geared to a win-win over the duration of any given project. We have done several quite successful projects with Millbrook and plan to do more in the future."

Power Centre businesses include a multiplex theatre, sit-down and drive-through restaurants, a 50-room hotel, a recreational vehicle retailer, a service station, a call centre, an aquaculture facility and the Glooscap Heritage Centre. Truro Power Centre is not the only location Millbrook has to offer for partnership opportunities.

The band owns other lands in Nova Scotia, including 19 hectares in Cole Harbour. In the past five years, the area has seen significant activity, and the Band built two apartment buildings in 2003 and 2007 worth more than $11 million. The buildings were designed specifically for empty nesters.

Lateral Violence in Indigenous Life in Canada

 

David Segerts is a man who lives for positive change in Canadian society. Sitting one day with Segerts in his tastefully decorated apartment I felt surrounded by an orderly nature given to his lifestyle and was treated to his impeccable manners. I was also given a taste of his lifetime of memories before he talked about the really important issues he works on.

Segerts was born in 1960,  at the time Uranium City, Saskatchewan, was a city of 5,000 souls, and he grew up to see the mining property turn into a ghost town. Uranium City was shutdown in 1982 but by that time he was ready to move on.

"I am a Dene/Cree but I generally say I am Dene because I look almost exactly like my Dene father." He shows a photograph that proves he is the spitting image of his dad. "I dropped out of school when I was in grade 8 and went back for adult upgrading by the age of 25 at Alberta Vocational Centre in Calgary. AVC was a good learning experience although the facility lacked a First Nation student organization so I helped put one together. We held dances, fundraisers, and hosted a room that the school donated, which became a gathering place for all nations and a useful foot in the door for First Nation students."

A short time later Segerts began to study something very important in First Nation life in Canada, the tactics of oppression known as lateral violence that are especially prevalent in systemic racism. It is this lateral violence that explains the extraordinary incarceration rates and recidivism in crime for the First Nation people of Canada. As high as 50 percent of the prisoners in Canada either male or female are First Nation or Aboriginal people. For these kinds of disparities to exist in a segment of society that is less than 5 percent of the total population, the problems have to run very deep indeed.

"Lateral violence goes on in every First Nation organization and starts with arguments like, 'My family is better than theirs,'" he says. "It is important within the system of racism to get us fighting amongst each other. We are actually born into it, however, because the system is designed that way. Public awareness is the only way to address it," says Segerts.

"The methods of lateral violence include, backstabbing, gossip, infighting, shaming, humiliating, damaging comments, belittling, and sometimes violent behaviour." Other terms for what is happening to First Nations in Canada include auto-genocide and horizontal violence, he said. These terms are applied mostly to the members of oppressed groups in society, and he explained, "I didn't really understand lateral violence until I was about 30 years of age. I rarely discussed it until I did the research first. Lateral violence is designed to prevent efforts to heal the effects of oppression."

Lateral violence teaches people to disrespect and deny the rights of an oppressed group, to destroy values and beliefs. Practitioners will engage in infighting, faulting finding, and scapegoating, raising the stakes of competition via jealousy and envy. The attacks are made upon those who already possess low self esteem and further attacks lower a person's self worth.

Ultimately the goal is to make the victim take blame for the continuous putdowns, "This is the nature of oppression," says Segerts. "It is a denial of their self and humanity. They think they have become objects unworthy of respect. They fail from the inability to recognize themselves as human beings. They become convinced that the oppressor owns them, and often the oppressor does own them through financial dependencies upon welfare and personal dependencies upon drugs or alcohol."

He says, “When my son was 11 years old I brought him to Calgary to live with me, and after a few short weeks he told me, ‘Dad, I didn’t realize that Indians didn’t drink. I didn’t realize the Indian men work.’” It was another stunning learning experience about lateral violence for Segerts the father who has never spent time stuck in welfare programs but knows on reserves and in some urban communities it can become a long-running generational trap.

“People who feel dependent suffer a lack of personal power. When they lose power they will see their cultural identity eliminated and be unable to stop it,” he says. Many times the First Nations in Canada have been known to hide their own beliefs or adopt the beliefs of an oppressing society. “They were dislocated from the land and suffered breakdown of family structure during the Residential School years. Indigenous people were removed from families at age four in some cases, only to be afflicted with physical, mental, sexual, and social abuses.”

His own mother had a safety pin jammed through her tongue by nuns at one such school, then was made to sit facing a corner in a classroom for speaking her Cree language. “There were many children killed by torture,” he asserts, “and other families were disrupted by one child being raised in a Catholic school and another being raised in a United Church run school. In fact the Residential School system was a highly specialized form of lateral violence.”

The lateral violence design for First Nations people results in a distrust of First Nation leaders by their own people. “It results in a distrust of those who might emerge to help," he says. "Rising stars are severely restricted or punished. Leaders who make any difference are fired and persecuted. Incompetent leaders are recruited and promoted by the oppressors. Dividing and conquering is the main process used by the oppressors.”

Segerts needs to write a book with a biographical story line if he hasn't already. He was trained as a technical engineer at BCIT and NAIT, then, while living in Vancouver, he entered the film industry, first as an actor, then as a producer and director. When we last spoke he was running a youth-at-risk employment initiative that operates across Canada for First Nations. Remember the name David Segerts because the book would be an important read. If you know David Segerts personally, put the suggestion to him again. 

Culture Camp on Yukusem

 

Numas Warrior a powerful ship-berthing tugboat for the Orca Quarry Marine Terminal

The Orca Quarry located on the east coast of northern Vancouver Island, 3.8 km west of Port McNeill, B.C., is permitted to produce 6.6 million tons of sand and gravel per year. Production began in Feb. 2007 including a dedicated ship-loading facility in Port McNeill for handling vessels up to 80,000 tons.

This harbour activity is now enhanced by the delivery of the Numas Warrior to Port McNeill, “a powerful and modern ship-berthing tugboat now in service assisting 80,000 ton capacity Panamax class freighters in and out of the Orca Quarry marine terminal,” said Mike Westerlund, Communications Manager, Polaris Minerals Corporation.

Polaris owns 88% of Orca Quarry, with the remaining 12% interest held by Namgis First Nation, said Westerlund, “The tugboat ownership group, consisting of Polaris Minerals Corporation of Vancouver, the Sea Legend Group of Port Hardy and Island Tug and Barge of Vancouver, were pleased to press the Numas Warrior into service in December.”

Since then the Warrior has been on hand to move each freighter loaded at the quarry and assists with the loading of barges dispatched for Vancouver. The tugboat operates powerful engines with rotating drives, “on a beamy, flat-bottomed hull design. The boat is about 60 feet long, 30 feet wide and has a relatively flat bottom,” said  Westerlund, “When combined with its twin 1,200 hp diesel engines and 360 degree rotating Z drives, this boat can move sideways almost as fast as it can move forwards.”

He said these attributes make it ideal for controlling the movements of large vessels, and “the new boat has won the admiration of all who have worked with her, including the BC Coast Pilots.” The twin MTU diesels meet Tier II emission standards, an advanced standard for clean burning diesel engines.