Mishkeegogamang First Nation

Mining and Lumbering Issues

esides these incursions onto their reserves, the people of Mishkeegogamang have had ongoing issues with mining and lumbering companies who have licenses to operate on their traditional lands outside of the reserve. The treaty gave the people the right, in perpetuity, to hunt and fish on those lands, but if the lands are destroyed by lumbering and mining, this right is denied to them. Mining and lumbering concerns promise jobs, but these have sometimes proved to be temporary and more often illusory, as white people have been hired instead. Those who view things in a traditional and more long-term manner say the companies are hiring the people to pillage their own land, leaving them, in the end, with nothing.