The Spirit Trail: Land, Rights & Reclamation

This episode features a conversation with Ogimaa Dean Sayers, an Anishinabe leader and long-time advocate for Indigenous rights and treaty obligations. Dean served as Chief of Batchewana First Nation for nearly two decades and was a lead negotiator for groundbreaking Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850 annuities litigation. In this conversation, Dean reflects on his journey and connection to the land, and offers insights on inherent jurisdiction and sovereignty. 

The RAD Story Lodge is hosted by RAD Network. We seek to center Indigenous rights and leadership within conservation finance and nature-based solutions. 

This episode was produced by Arina Isaeva (Wolf Eye Productions) and hosted by Randi Russell with Delta Flood, with music by Digging Roots. The RAD Story Lodge is made possible with funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Links:

• RAD Network website: https://radnetwork.ca/
• RAD Network mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iNvdM6
• RAD Network socials: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
• 2025 Summer Solstice discussion with Ogimaa Dean Sayers: https://youtu.be/00ZX6s2-r3c?si=Z-T02r8x4y6Qsnrr 
• Digging Roots: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6jXRPYI1uhTRJKuetXMRpj?si=ncoOz3VdSwe_p0fqpXtdag

Transcript

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Randi Russell: Oki and hello. Welcome to the RAD Story Lodge, a place where you will hear stories from the land and learn from Indigenous communities who are advancing regenerative economies and reshaping the way we think about conservation.

Today’s episode features a conversation with Ogimaa Dean Sayers, an Anishinabe leader and long-time advocate for Indigenous rights and treaty obligations. Dean served as Chief of Batchewana First Nation for nearly two decades. He was also one of the lead negotiators for the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850 annuities litigation, which resulted in a groundbreaking $10 billion settlement in 2023.

Listen in as Dean shares stories about his roots and connection to the land, reflects on his remarkable career journey, and offers insights on inherent jurisdiction and sovereignty.

Delta: Please introduce yourself.

Dean: ​Well, Delta, thank you for having me in and having a chat. My name is Ogimaa Nebenaigoching Gway Ookosid. That talks about my role as a leader within our villages. And, more particularly, it's about how I fly, how I conduct myself, and I fly with Tilted Wing. My GST name, I guess, is Dean Sayers. And I'm from Bawaating, or, more recently, in the last few years, we've called it Sault Ste. Marie.

I'm from the Crane Clan, more particularly growing up. We always heard references to the Blue Heron Clan, and that's how I align myself with our helpers. I really have an appreciation for the Blue Heron and how it relates to the crane.

And so I'm from the leadership clan. We've historically been in contact with and welcomed people here from all over the world since the beginning of time. And it's nice to be a part of that continuation.

Delta: That's beautiful. Is that Jigaaki?

Dean: Ajijaak

Delta: Tell us a bit about your current role and your journey to get there.

Dean: Right now, I am helping out the Robinson Huron Waawiindamaagewin organisation, which was set up by the Robinson Huron Chiefs, the 21 Chiefs and Councils. And they've asked me to come on to help out with developing and revisiting our original governance systems. They brought me on as lead negotiator to move forward our relationship, align with historical reserve jurisdictions as a people and work with Canada to be able to have that further recognition. And even how we reference that, is, I guess, something that we have to be conscious of because we make sure, as we enter into those discussions with the new people on our lands, that we are not perceived as in search of a delegation of authority from the new people on our lands.

They have been collecting our share of the revenues from our resources forever in a day. And we have contracts, we have documents, agreements that really point towards them providing us with our share of those resources as per our historical and even modern-day expectations. So we're not a burden on taxpayers, actually; it's more of a burden on us how we have to completely challenge the assertions of the new governments on our lands.

So I am trying to work with knowledge keepers, elders, language keepers in designing a whole new relationship with Canada. And we call it the province as well, but how we perceive it is that there's an indivisibility of the Crown. There is no difference between the federal and the provincial governments. They do that, but at the end of the day, they have the honour of the Crown that they carry on behalf of the Crown. They're not the Crown. They're only an administrator. So we have to work with them to see our expectations come to fruition.

And my role is to try and create a path with our team to be able to find comfort for our chiefs, the 21 chiefs and their leadership in their villages, who give direction to their chiefs in regards to their aspirations for some of the work that needs to happen to align us with our original reserved expectations.

So prior to this particular role that I am currently involved with, I was the Chief of Batchewana First Nation for almost 20 years. And that was quite the experience. Throughout that duration of time, I was able to, along with a really beautiful group of various councils, really move the yardstick.

Thinking outside of the box, thinking about inherent jurisdiction, thinking about some of the acknowledgements that came through our treaty discussions historically, and some minimalised expectations drawn from the Indian Act. But our power comes from the creator, and that was never extinguished.

So that was where I found I think a lot of the ability to help move the yard stick, over time and having successes with not trying to ask for recognition of our jurisdiction in a number of arenas. We just planned and educated, and informed, and reclaimed. And we put the onus on the Crown to prove to us that they have an interest.

You claim to us. If you think that's your land, show us how you got it. Show us your history there. Where's the receipt? We reversed the table on them, and that's been successful for us. Now our First Nation probably has, maybe, 60 families that are out on our original lands.

That we set aside that otherwise referred to as Crown Lands, but for us, in our historic agreement with the Crown. Those lands that are looked after by the Crown are being looked after by the Crown for the benefit of the Indians.

We ask them, and we cooperated to have them take care of them for us on an interim basis. So they're not doing a very good job of that. So we find ourselves having to chart a new course with how we perceive, the use of Crown lands, and our accessing those lands that we believe are our inherent lands.

So I've been a chief for a very long time, and prior to that I was the Health Director at our First Nation, and we have 4 communities, and we have a varied population that lives on and off the reserve. It's almost a swear word in our community to call our communities "reserves" because we set aside lands at the treaty.

We never put ourselves into that concentration camp that we refer to now as reserves. We have our inherent lands that we inherited from the creator, and we were gonna continue to assert our rights and our way of life as we're in the habit of doing throughout those original lands. That's the lands that we look after.

Even though the envelopes we get from the Crown that are money, they have strings attached, and we are challenged with our abilities to expend those because they say if you keep spending money the way you're spending money and meeting everybody's needs off on reserve, we're gonna cut your funding.

That's the kind of conversation that happened in the past in our council. When you're living in poverty, you kind of have to give consideration to those. And so it's kind of slowed down our reclamations and our growth, but we've been able to, I think, find accommodation for both our community that lives within our current villages and those that have decided to live in the cities and live wherever they may choose around the world.

We try our hardest to make sure that their needs are met. And that was how we serviced, including while I was the health director for our communities. And prior to that, I worked in Toronto and I worked with the urban Indigenous communities. My role was to develop with our elders an addiction recovery program that was focused on the fallout from gambling, gaming. So I did that for a few years back in the day. It was nice because we really found value.

We wanted to have exposure to culture and traditional teachings; we found value there. People were more successful having a recovery program based on our way of life. So I had a chance to meet some really beautiful elders all over the province and across the country that shared insights on how we can best do that. So that helped me a lot in the work that I just described. Have been able to talk to a lot of elders over time and before then, I spent 10 years on the front lines in Niagara, working on the streets and working in communities, working in Niagara South.

I worked in Niagara Falls, in Port Colborne, Dunville, Niagara-on-the-Lake, even a little bit in Niagara North and St. Catherine's, Thorold, Stevensville, Fort Erie. Again, my role was providing addiction services, one-on-one help with people that were struggling with other types of addictions and creating treatment plans for people.

I did that for 10 years. Prior to that, I lived here in Bawaating, and I always went to school here. We lived in Obadjiwan First Nation, Batchewana, in the Batchewana Village community. That's where I lived. When I decided to settle down after my teen years and my young adulthood, that's where we decided to start our family, and eventually we moved to Southern Ontario.

But I think what was really integral for me was having the ability to learn from my parents and people that were around their age. We lived in a village that was on the outskirts of civilization of society, of Canadian society. It was fairly remote, and I didn't realise how blessed we were because of that.

I grew up with parents that were a lot older than most kids’ my age parents. So that gave me another insight that most kids never had, having older parents, like the way we lived.

If you remember, my grandma, she was born in 1898. Her name was Louise Real. She used to wear the black and white polka dot dresses, and she had those thick brown nylons, and you could see the bottom of her slip on the bottom of her dress. She didn't have running water.

She had a slop pail, and we'd all help her out. That was my mother's mother, and she raised my mom. My parents grew up in the depression. So my mom had these ways of being really frugal. And one of those ways, when I was a kid, was kind of embarrassing; you know, those brown nylons that grandma wear, my mom had those nylons too, but when they'd get worn out, and they'd have holes in them, my mom would cut 'em up in strips, like rings. Like elastics. And she'd use milk bags. Milk bags for sandwich bags, and she'd put our sandwich in there, and she'd wrap it and tie it with her nylons, and then she'd put them in our lunches in bread bags. We didn't have much money, but I didn't think nothing of it.

But kids at school kind of start making fun of you 'cause you're the only kid that has depression era parents and, frugal and having homemade clothes and homemade mitts. It was the way I grew up. Being really conscious of not being wasteful.

Because they were older, they spoke Ojibwe. So they had a lot of insights, even the way they thought and their parents and their friends, how they would talk to their friends and that people would always come over our house or a coffee shop. Very social. The whole village was like that back in the day. Everybody knew each other. So I had some really interesting, beautiful ways of learning and living when I was a kid.

My dad's family. They were pretty active in the community and always concerned about the well-being of our people. And when you're a little kid, you don't think nothing of it. But when I think about it now, they were always talking about the village and how we can help the village, how we can make a change for the village, and how we can look after our land.

And that's what my dad would say is that – we gotta have our land. We need to keep our land. Don't get rid of our land. Keep this village alive. He did what he could, managed, and so did my mom, to keep our land. It was always important, and he told me so many things.

The original village names, the original place names and the lake and the shoals and the bays, and there were stories and spirits, and he wasn't cultural, but he knew so much. My parents knew so much. So I was blessed. That's where I come from. I come from Obadjiwan. In the language, that's the underwater current that you can't see.

And that's what this talks about. This is that spirit. That's the underwater eddy that you can't see. But there's a lot of people don't know the stories about Mizhibozhoo, but I was able to hear that from the elders. Those stories about Batchewana, where that comes from, what that word means, and who we are in our relationship with Gichigami or Lake Superior.

So that's where I'm from. I'm from Bawaating here. My family has been involved in leadership and have welcomed people from around the world forever, in leadership roles.

Little long-winded answer there.

Delta: No, it was well said.

So you touched a little bit on looking after the land. What do you think, what comes to mind when you hear, “nature-based solutions”?

Dean: Well, when I was growing up, we were always told to stay on the trail. And even, a few years ago, I got a call from an archeologist that had said there is this area where your village was, and I've been researching this area.

And, there was about 150 of our people living in this particular village, and he said, in the records, the Hudson's Bay post records, they said there was 2000 maple trees that were tapped. So he said, I'd like to go and look. I'd like to, 'cause the equipment needed for 2000 trees. They ain't gonna haul that very far.

And this was at the 17 hundreds. Late 17 hundreds. Said, I'm gonna take a look. We went up, there was too much snow. Went back in the spring and he went a little ahead of us. It was a maple forest. And if it's a maple forest, you're gonna see remnants of maple on the edge of a cliff where this village was.

 And there's big rocks about the size of this room, five meters round, all along and sometimes they're against the cliff, and sometimes they're separated, and sometimes you can almost walk underneath them. He said, I bet you they'd hide those things under one of those rocks or in a cave.

So he said, I was walking along, and noticed a bunch of birch-like pieces of birch bark, and there was no birch bark trees. He looked underneath it, and it was full of old birch bark baskets. So he called me, and he said, I found, I think I found, those, birch bark baskets. So we went up with some elders and some elders from Chi Wehn Kwe Dohn, from that village, that's where their families were from.

We went up there, it was so nice to be with those elders; how they shared how we enter into the forest and how we look after anything that we may tread upon. And how we apologise and how we clean ourselves off before we come into the forest. So we don't bring anything from the outside in.

No negativity can attach itself to us to come in and cause any issues amongst the spirits in that area. This was just a few years ago, like the knowledge about how we respect the land and how we stay on the trail, we had to commit to not sharing the information, where this was because people will just go in and take the baskets, and we wanted to leave everything where it is.

 It's still all there. We're working on building replicas. We took some out and made measurements. But that elder that took us in there, she said, I can make those. And she's like, gimme a piece of paper, and she got a piece of paper, and within a few seconds she had the same basket that they used to make back in the day.

We're still working on it. Now the new chief and council are still managing those types of things on the land. When we left, we also had a similar ceremony before we left the forest, leaving everything there so nothing can attach itself and making sure that we are clean for our families.

 We really became conscious of our abilities to stay on the trail. It's partly because we didn't want to leave any signs where we were, and we had to cover our trail. Always conscious of not taking any lives intentionally or unintentionally, 'cause when we wander off the trail, you have to tell the spirits, you have to tell every little ant, every shrub, every branch, what you're doing, and apologise and say, I need to do the work that I promised I would do as an Anishinaabe.

And part of that, to help you. I have to take some lives. I have to take some, and I apologise for that, but it's for the well-being of all of creation; we have to do that. So they call it a carbon footprint. But for us, I think it's a spirit trail. It's laden with our ancestors, it's spirit, it's generations of our people, of animals.

 We really respect that. We stay on the trail, and we have some pretty good trails. Over time, we've always been able to keep those trails. Indian trails they call 'em, and a lot of highways around Indian trails 'cause they're always the best. Even from our village, where I grew up, there were shortcuts.

My dad would run for hours through the bush, him and his brothers and uncles. That's what they got around 'cause there was no really roads towards Wawa when he was a kid. He would tell me even when they changed the name, they were talking about the name, the Wawa name. When he went up there with elders, and they met and, I forget what the name they were gonna change it to, but they ended up calling it Wewe.

It's not Wawa, it's Wewe. There was no real road. They found a way getting there, usually by boat. It was just the way they moved, and there was trails they could run, whereas the highway now goes along the water. But there's shortcuts, and there's trails, and we know where those trails are, and we know where the minerals are.

We know where the sacred sites are yet, and those are our obligations to protect those. So under natural law, our Anishinaabe law, we were conscious of those types of concepts. Even when I was the chief, there was these carbon credits, and there's discussions around carbon, and it took me a little while just to get, what do they mean?

What are they talking about? I had to compare it to something, and that's what I thought about was, oh, it's pretty logical. It's a spiritual journey we're on, and it's about minimization of impacts on the land.

Dean: ​We find ourselves, I think, somewhat stuck. And colonisation didn't have any sympathy. There's a lot of conditioning that's happened over time. Institutionalisation has had a detrimental effect when you look at education systems and even how I see the schools and their curriculum, and how curriculum is designed.

To be able to have your thoughts incorporated into literature that's being respected, or in literature that's ultimately gonna end up in curriculum. You have to have a lot of letters after your name. If you have a lot of letters after your name, to me, that means that you've probably been one of the more successful conditioning person.

Although I know there are some of my friends there that really helped them and broaden their awareness, but I know some people may be a little narrower in their perception. And then our history and our textbooks are full of their stories. It's really important for us to take a look at how can we change the narrative for ourselves.

So I try to go and speak at schools, universities, colleges, conferences. And share our history as it was shared with me by our elders, our ancestors. When I first became chief in our community, I would get lots of calls from the elders saying, come over for a cup of tea. I want to tell you something.

This is what you need to remember. And very seldom was it about the Indian Act. It was about our stories, it was about our jurisdiction, it was about spirit, it's about sacred places, it's about treaty. You don't find those stories in the books, and it's such an eloquent, beautiful perspective on how we were so resilient and why we were so resilient and spirit and fire and ceremony.

It's such a beautiful, beautiful, ever-growing story, and it's not told that often. So I go to schools all the time whenever they need me anywhere. I'll go, and I'll share. And not only do I share, I am more action-based. I'll actually look at something and say, well, that's wrong. And I found out early on that asking the Crown to give something back that they might have stolen.

It ain't gonna happen. So you just gotta take it. And that's what I've been able to work with our leadership and reclamation and taking things back. But we don't just go take, we actually research and say, we're ready for you now, Canada. If you don't like it, come and challenge us, and we'll see you in your courtroom or ours, and we'll see what happens there.

'cause you don't have a legal leg to stand on with what you did to us. So we're taking it back. If you think it's yours, you make a specific claim to us. We ain't making no specific claim to you. We don't go through that specific claims process. And that's why, because at the end of the day, when you file a specific claim, you actually, in your documentation, are gonna give up underlying title if you already had it.

And they'll compromise it, and they'll say, we won't give you a land, but we'll give you money. We'll give you $150 million per claim. And if you take it, let's say. Now you can buy land with that, but when you buy land, you're recognising their title, you're legalizing their theft, that it's not a theft, and they give it back to you, give it back to you, it's yours in the first place.

So we've got some real challenges with specific claim with our leadership and our villages in the area. It's a little bit of an assorted history. So I thought it would be a really good use of my time to be able to come and share some of the history, especially as it pertained to logging, for our people and land reclamation, reclaiming land and assertion of jurisdiction.

And we've been successful. We're working on implementation now, but we've got the decisions, by the federal and provincial governments, as far as the perceptions of our unextinguished rights are concerned. I shared that on a panel last year. I enjoyed my time in Timmins at the conference, and they asked me to come back this year to help out with helping guide some of the atmosphere and the essence of the conference.

So it was a real honor to be able to pepper the conference with some assertion and some indigenous inherent jurisdiction, monologues periodically, and it went really nice. And I really feel good that our forests are going to have some reprieve because some people are gonna go home and actually align themselves with inherent jurisdiction as opposed to Canadian and provincial legislation being the driver.

There is another model. That's partly why I want to be involved and I'll continue to be involved as long as they need me.

Delta: Absolutely.

Dean: The accomplishments that, that we've been able to make within my First Nation, Batchewana First Nation, were accomplishments that were achieved by a collective over a period of approximately 20 years, with many former chiefs involved, elders being involved, different council members being involved. We have eight every two years that are elected, and they all come on, and they find some appreciation and contribute to the council fires to make sure we're gonna continue to be productive in our assertions around our inherent rights. It's been really incredible. The challenge for me is trying to educate people as to how the accomplishments have been made, 'cause there's stereotypes out there that chiefs have all this power and chiefs make things happen.

But it's not, it's the people. And it's the counsellors, and it's the elders that guide us and help us. I can't make decisions. It's the people through their representatives that make the decisions. So I get these questions about you've done so many incredible things, Dean, and as chief, and I keep saying, oh, where's our current chief?

He needs to have these types of commendations, 'cause he's now the one that's running with the ball, and he's doing an incredible job. I remember an elder when I first came on, said, "You're the gimaa now”, and that's a very powerful role. It is a spiritual role.

The spirits, whether you like it or not, are gonna work through you. Our ancestors are gonna work through you. Creation is gonna work through you whether you realise it or not, you're the gimaa, and you will be in that role. So no matter where you are, what time of the day, you will introduce yourself as the gimaa 'cause you are in that incredible role. And you'll have the help of creation in that work because that's how important that is on behalf of the people.

So I think those are the types of understandings that we need to share with our people. There's a misconception: it's the chiefs that make all the decisions. Chiefs say yes or no. Chiefs say, “give out money”. Chiefs say, "Don't give out money”. Chiefs say, “build houses”. It's not; it's based on the leadership in the community and the priorities of the community that people talk about during their election time.

So that for me, even sitting here is, is something that I had to really contemplate because our people need to believe in our current leadership, and I know Mark, our current chief, Mark McCoy, is doing the best that he can do, and I support him. I have a lot of discussions with him. Provide advice.

Having been in this role as a leader amongst the Anishinaabek for such a long time gave me so many interesting perspectives and experiences. And I share that with other chiefs that are struggling or even chiefs that wanna be chiefs, people that are running for office.

And I tell 'em like. I'm not supporting you, but I can answer your questions. I don't support anybody. I can't get involved in your community's politics, but I can tell you how I made it. My experiences, and I can commend you for putting your name forward, 'cause it's not an easy job.

You have to have skin seven layers thick, and it does grow back. But sometimes it gets pretty thin, and you have to be prepared 'cause you will always have to carry yourself as the chief.

Delta: Miigwetch

So before we close out, is there anything else you would like to add?

Dean: I think one of the biggest accomplishments that was part of my journey was working over a long period of time and helping as a lead negotiator with the $10 billion settlement for the annuities, and how we were able to work with our ancestors, with our culture, which I think was the key for us being successful.

We created a process that allowed for eventually, the revenues that were gonna be a part of the settlement to make it back to the communities and the community leadership. Their leaders that they put in place, would make those decisions on how the distribution happens. Very grassroots-oriented processes.

Challenging processes because in order to be successful, we have to sign some non-disclosure agreements, which really were a challenge to us, and we had a lot of discussions with Canada and Ontario, but we realised that we had to settle this and resolve this while we had willing governments, and we were able to do that.

So. It was really important for us tо go through these processes, and it was nice to finally see the resolution to that historic non-payment of rent by the Crown as per their promise. So we are really looking forward to how the future is gonna look, because actually one of the, the most beautiful perceptions that came outta the court through Justice Hennessy was that our elders and our voice is of equal force in the courts now.

We don't have to have all those letters after our names in order to have our perceptions take life and have value in their court systems as well. And I think that applies across the board in every arena.

So there was a lot of accomplishments through the processes we went through, but I really appreciated the confidence that the chiefs had in me to be one of the negotiators and to represent the people as a representative plaintiff over time to be a trustee, to be a part of the whole negotiation processes and settlement processes. Like what an experience. And it's so important for our young people to understand how we can continue to move the yardstick.

All those years that I was in this role, I tried hard to find people to accompany me, to even chat about my experiences, 'cause we need some of the stuff I try my best to share, but sometimes we need people to actually be available. Some young people. Some young women, some young men, to sit with the leadership and ask them, how do you do the job?

What's involved in the job? Because it's a unique job. You can follow the Indian Acts processes, but we aren't ultimately an Indian Act people. We are Anishinaabek and we have our own history, and we have our own reserved expectations of our leadership. And those were the things that I found so much value and you don't find those in colleges and universities.

You find those with the existing leadership, the previous leadership, the elders, communities, ceremonies, sacred fires, and I think that's really integral, and you'll find some beautiful experiences, and you will make the changes too. There's so many more changes that need to happen. They take a long time, and we need healthy leadership, so we need our young people.

And anybody in our communities, rise, we need you. We need you to help out. We need action. We have enough of the couch critics; we actually need people to say, and I heard an elder saying it today. I would really like it if people, yes, pose a problem for, but every problem that you pose, you should come up and recommend two options to resolve that.

I thought that was such great advice. So we need to be a part of the solution, and it's not just a current leadership. We need to have an ever-evolving interest in leadership positions amongst our Anishinaabek. So yeah, that would be one of the things that I think is important for our people to hear.

Delta: Well, I'd like to say miigwetch for all your hard work, miigwetch for sharing your knowledge and experiences with us. It's been a wonderful discussion with you.

Dean: I thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Randi: Thank you for listening to the RAD Story Lodge. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to learn more. Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. This episode was produced by Arina Isaeva from Wolf Eye Productions and hosted by Randi Russell with Delta Flood. We'd like to extend a huge thank you to award-winning duo Raven and Shoshana of Digging Roots for the incredible music featured in this episode and to all the RAD team members who have helped to make the podcast happen. The RAD Story Lodge is made possible by funding support from Environment and Climate Change Canada.