"Squirrel Island is being returned to its rightful owners. But between an abandoned dump, lack of utilities and a decades-long court battle, the process is far from easy — and far from over"

"In the early hours of a brisk Onaabani-Giizis (March) morning, Ben Belleau gently directs the bow of a steel fishing boat into the water, a motion that ripples across the clear glassy coat of the St. Mary’s River.

Belleau has fished and guided people around the area since he was a teenager in the late 1960s. He grew up in Garden River First Nation, an Ojibway community about a 20-minute drive east of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Our community is a place called Ketegaunseebee or Gitigaan-ziibi in Anishinaabemowin, named for the vegetables Anishinaabe grew near the shores and traded with settlers.

As the owner of Ben’s Bait & Tackle, a shop on the shore of the St. Mary’s, Belleau offers guided tours, organizes fishing derbies and, of course, sells bait and tackle. He knows the lands and water like the back of his hand and they know him just as well.

“Over the years, people wanted to know about the river, so I give them the history of how Garden River got to be,” he tells me, a history he shares to this day. For repeat customers, that usually means hearing the same tales more than once."

Kierstin Williams reports and photographs for The Narwhal June 5, 2024. [2]