'Here We Stand': River journey protests controversial bills
By Sonal Gupta
A 20-year-old university student from Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario is putting his summer on hold — and taking a 400-kilometre boat journey to protest against new provincial and federal bills he says threaten his people’s land, culture and way of life.
Jeronimo Kataquapit is leading a grassroots movement called "Here We Stand," a direct response to Ontario’s recently passed Bill 5 and the proposed federal Bill C-5 — pieces of legislation that, according to Indigenous leaders, accelerate mining and development in the Ring of Fire region without proper Indigenous consultation.
Kataquapit’s journey, which began Monday from Attawapiskat, is a physical reassertion of Indigenous presence and inherent rights in a territory he argues is wrongly portrayed as uninhabited.
“One of the general opinions I hear is that there are no First Nations here, that our way of life is gone,” Kataquapit said. “They say that whenever they come to do surveys or look around, there’s no evidence we were here — but there is evidence that we were here.”