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There are too many examples in Canada’s history of Indigenous land being co-opted for elite recreation: golf courses, ski resorts, luxury condos, the list goes on. Kanehsatà:ke is a Mohawk settlement just 50km west of Montreal that has existed pre-European contact. The land was stolen by a French Order of Priests, and then sold off to French settlers, including an area called The Pines which was a pine forest and Mohawk cemetery. The Mohawks of Kanehsatà:ke have tried over the years to reclaim this land but have been overruled in court every time. (Crown rules.) In 1990 the town of Oka wanted to expand a 9-hole golf course to 18-holes and the Mohawk community mobilized to defend their land yet again. The NFB documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance was produced because of the biased and racist media coverage of the Oka Crisis.

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