199011 July – 26 September 1990 · Kanesatake and Oka, Quebec

Oka Crisis

The wooded Oka hills seen across a summer meadow at Kanesatake, Quebec — Photo: P. Davignon. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When the town of Oka planned to extend a golf course into the Pines, a forest and Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) burial ground at Kanesatake, residents barricaded a road. A Quebec police raid left a corporal dead, Kahnawake blocked the Mercier Bridge in support, and the army was sent in for a 78-day standoff. The crisis led to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

Indigenous History
Political History
Civil Rights & Human Rights
Montreal, Canada

Sites

Site 1: The Pines, KanesatakePine forest and Mohawk cemetery at the centre of the dispute.Map ↗
Site 2: Kanien'kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center, KahnawakeCommunity cultural centre and archive in the Mohawk territory beside the Mercier Bridge.Map ↗