Indigenous group clears cottagers’ barricades at Ipperwash Beach

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Tensions are running high on a stretch of Ipperwash Beach after a group from a nearby First Nation removed barricades and plantings put in by cottagers.

Cottagers said dozens of people who described themselves as Anishinaabe members of the nearby Kettle and Stony Point First Nation used chainsaws and heavy machinery on Saturday to clear wooden barricades and dune-grass plantings along a 1.7-kilometre stretch of beach between West Ipperwash and Centre Side roads.

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“It was basically, I think, telling the property owners that you’re not allowed to put logs and berms and anything like that,” one cottager said.

“They’re making a statement it’s their property,” said the cottager, who has lived part time at the beach for more than 30 years.

Cottagers who were interviewed by The Observer requested anonymity because they said they fear retaliation.

The group who cleared the beach and ripped out plants identified themselves in a letter as Anishinaabe members of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation located west of Ipperwash Beach.

Many cottagers in the community on the shores of Lake Huron west of Port Franks have deeds saying their property  extends to the water’s edge.

Building barricades and planting grasses on the beach were attempts at makeshift buffers to protect cottagers’ children and grandchildren from vehicles being driven on the sand, said Dave Bowen, president of the West Ipperwash Property Owners Association.

In a letter given on Saturday to property owners, the cleanup group calls encroaching on the beach “a direct and egregious infringement on the collective rights of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation.”

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The letter also threatens legal action if people build encroachments again, and points to various court decisions supporting Indigenous peoples’ constitutionally protected rights to access and use navigable waters for traditional purposes.

Tempers rose at times Saturday, Bowen said.

“Things could have got out of hand,” he said. “Fortunately they didn’t, but they came very close.”

OPP provincial liaison team members were on the beach, Lambton OPP Const. Jeanine Robertson said.

The team focuses on building and maintaining trust and relationships between police and communities, and encouraging respectful dialogue, she said.

People regularly drive along the beach, now even closer to cottages, leading to safety concerns, said a cottager, noting Slow Down and Private Property signs have also been removed.

“Our issue basically has been the increase in traffic and the speeders and the fact that it’s very difficult to put anybody on the beach,” he said.

Property owners also described “a lot more new people” moving into cottages over the last five years and “pushing their limits as far as the beach goes … further out toward the water.”

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The beach cleanup was a community initiative led by about 15 First Nation members, said Kettle and Stony Point Chief Kimberly Bressette.

“It wasn’t directed by chief and council, or the administration,” she said.

The impetus, she said, was frustration with the encroachments “stopping people from parking there or enjoying that part of the beach area.”

People “respectfully asked the owners to move their personal items” before dismantling barricades, she said.

Bressette said she supports the initiative and was at the beach on Saturday.

“Because it is, it’s ours,” she said about the land.

“And there’s nothing that says we ever surrendered that part.”

That’s asserted in the Ipperwash Inquiry report, Bressette said, where the beach is referred to as an historical trail between Kettle and Stony points.

The ownership issue isn’t resolved, Bowen said.

A 2009 memo from lawyers for the West Ipperwash Property Owners Association (WIPOA) describes a mediated settlement between the cottagers and the First Nation, connected with a lawsuit over land ownership started in 1992 that went to the Supreme Court of Canada.

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The courts did not decide on beach issues, the memo says, but the settlement included a provision for the two sides “to discontinue, without prejudice, your respective claims relating to the title (ownership) and use of the beach.

“In place of this,” the memo continues, “WIPOA and the Chippewas have agreed to pursue an ongoing dialogue as to joint use and preservation of the beach.”

The agreement doesn’t preclude either side from going back to court to try to settle the beach ownership issue, the memo says.

The sides agreed to the memorandum of understanding in 2016, Bowen said, but Kettle and Stony Point did not renew the agreement in 2019.

The association hopes to meet soon with members of the band council, he said.

“What we’re hoping to do is get things back on track,” work co-operatively and keep communication open, Bowen said.

Some cottagers, meanwhile, have been hostile to First Nation youth riding dirt bikes or other vehicles on the beach, Bressette said.

“There’s a few videos on social media of our youth down there (being told) they’re not allowed to ride down there” and being yelled and sworn at, she said.

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“That’s what else was initiating this movement that the community wanted to take,” she said.

Bressette said several cottagers were happy about the cleanup.

“The ones that were upset about it, I would say there were about five or six,” she said. “Others were very pleased. They were like, ‘It’s about time.’”

Bressette said she relayed a request to unnamed cleanup group members, asking them to speak with a reporter. They declined, she said.

Friction about driving on the beach and barriers blocking the way are nothing new at Ipperwash.

About 10 years ago there were disputes about driving on nearby Centre Ipperwash beach.

A cottager built a makeshift barricade after others were torn down.

tkula@postmedia.com

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