This land is our land
A Mohawk woman's border battle
BY Tania Tabar
In November 2003, Katenies, an Akwesasne Mohawk grandmother from Quebec, decided to deliver some hockey equipment to her nephew in Ontario. But what should have been a simple trip has led to a one-woman showdown with the Superior Court of Ontario over the U.S.- Canadian border and its application to native peoples in Canada.
To reach her nephew, Katenies crossed the Three Nations Crossing bridge from New York State to Ontario— a five-minute drive she’d done hundreds of times. On this trip, she was pulled over by a Canadian border official who claimed she had ignored his earlier signal to stop. Katenies was arrested, charged with running the border and fined.
Viewing the charge as illegitimate, Katenies used her first court appearance four years ago to challenge the authority of Canadian courts and border officials over indigenous peoples in Canada. “What is the legal basis for your claim to jurisdiction over us, and ownership of the land?” she asked Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice. The judge said he would address her concern at her next court date, but Katenies has yet to receive an answer, and now considers her charges to be “null and void.”
The feds, on the other hand, don’t see it that way. In the fall of 2004, a warrant was issued for her arrest after Katenies missed her next court appearance, and a year later she ended up spending a few hours in jail after again being stopped at the Three Nations Crossing.
Katenies has refused to appear in court, but continues to regularly cross the border—what she calls “the imaginary line”—to visit her family on the other side of the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, which straddles Quebec, Ontario and New York.
She does not acknowledge the partitioning of her homeland, and says Canadian authorities cannot stop her from traversing it, citing the Two Row Wampum Agreement of 1613 between European settlers and Aboriginal peoples, which states that neither is to interfere in the affairs of the other. “I don’t understand the laws or how they came about on my land. I never gave authority over to them to say that I’m a citizen. I’ve always been a person of my nation,” she says.
Lawyer Stephen Reynolds, who specializes in Aboriginal law, believes Katenies is right to challenge the system but doubts her actions will result in any sort of systemic change. He states that even though Canada has a First Nations self-government policy, the country will never allow complete sovereignty for First Nations peoples, since a nation-to-nation relationship would undermine the sovereignty of the Canadian state. “Canada will never go to the extent that it should,” says Reynolds.
Most recently, Katenies was supposed to appear in court in August 2007. Instead, she served the courts with a motion to dismiss, requesting that all charges and demands for appearance be dropped and that the matter be returned to the Mohawk Nation and its council. Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General has not responded to Katenies’ request, and will not comment on the case, which is still technically before the courts.
Katenies describes herself as a “free person.” Even if the courts continue to issue warrants, she vows to never turn herself in, but to keep on challenging the Canadian legal system, a protest she links to her right to exist. “I’m going to keep doing as I’m doing and become a major voice. I have a responsibility to my future, to my grandchildren.”
