1905 Railway Taking

The 1905 Railway Taking was the transfer in 1905 of about 1,600 acres of the Fort William Reserve, the frontage of the reserve along the Kaministiquia River and the Mission River, to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company for its Lake Superior terminal at Fort William. The land held the main village of the Fort William Band at the Mission, with its homes, farms, church, school and cemetery, and the band was moved to two new villages, at Squaw Bay and at the foot of Mount McKay, in 1906. Fort William First Nation describes it as the largest taking of reserve land by a railway in Canadian history. The Department of Indian Affairs recorded it as a sale of 1,600 acres for $242,936. In 2002 Canada accepted the band's Grand Trunk Pacific Claim for negotiation on the basis that the land had been sold for less than it was worth, and the claim was settled in 2016–2017 by the Grand Trunk Pacific Settlement Agreement, worth about $99 million.

The event is also called the 1905 surrender of the Fort William Reserve townsite. Fort William First Nation describes it as an appropriation under the Railway Act rather than a surrender by the band.

Background

The Fort William Reserve was set aside under the Robinson-Superior Treaty of 1850 and created in 1853. In 1905 the reserve lay along the south side of the Mission and Kaministiquia rivers and contained about 13,500 acres, with good farmland along the river. The band numbered about 292. Many members worked as day labourers at the elevators and docks of the nearby towns and fished for town customers, while others farmed on the reserve. About 240 band members were Roman Catholics. The village had a church with a resident priest, St. Joseph's Orphanage and a day school, and a convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph. The Brothers of the Jesuit mission also farmed there.

In 1902 the band wrote to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs to complain that white settlers were pressing it for its remaining land, and that it had been promised after the Robinson treaty that it would not be asked to sell any more. The Lake Superior agent, J.F. Hodder, resigned in 1904.

The Grand Trunk Pacific received a charter in 1903 for a branch from the National Transcontinental Railway to a port on Lake Superior, the Lake Superior Branch. Its engineers examined several sites and took an option on land at Bare Point, north of the Port Arthur harbour, before choosing the 1,600-acre tract of the Fort William Reserve fronting both the Kaministiquia and Mission rivers. The town of Fort William offered a cash bonus and a subsidy for a combined rail and road bridge over the Kaministiquia, and its ratepayers approved the by-law by about 100 to 1. The historian P. Whitney Lackenbauer writes that when the railway asked for the land and began expropriation proceedings, the department's surveyor told the band that he wanted the whole reserve and that the band would be moved elsewhere. The department's chief surveyor in 1905 was Samuel Bray.

Terms

• Land: 1,600 acres, the whole river frontage of the reserve, including the Mission village site.
• Price: the department's Indian Land Statement for the year ended 30 June 1906 records the sale of 1,600 acres of the Fort William Reserve for $242,936, with the remark "right of way and terminal of G.T.P. Ry." This is about $152 an acre.
• Authority: an order in council of 26 May 1905 authorised the sale of the 1,600 acres to the company (letters patent 14294). Orders of 17 June 1905 and 27 June 1905 asked for and approved a report on the land from the Board of Railway Commissioners, and an order of 19 December 1905 approved the insertion of the land description. The government's inventory of these orders lists no band surrender for the 1,600 acres, although it marks the band's other land dealings of the period, such as the water pipeline of 1906 and the rifle range of 1907, as accepted surrenders.
• Relocation: the band was to be moved to two new villages on the remaining reserve, at Squaw Bay and at the foot of Mount McKay. Houses were to be built, land cleared and roads made for the new villages, and the department expected most families to have money left over after the move.
• Church and cemetery: the church and the burial ground were moved with the village, and the graves were exhumed and reburied at the new site.
• School: the land of St. Joseph's Home passed to the railway, and the school accounts for 1905–06 record the sale of the building to the company. A new home was planned for the Squaw Bay village. The school moved instead to the city of Fort William in 1907.

Parties

• Fort William Band: chief John Baptiste Penassie and councillors Henry Scott and Simon Webobikesige, elected in July 1904. Moses McCoy was elected chief in July 1907. The names of any band members who signed or voted on the transaction have not yet been found.
• Department of Indian Affairs: Frank Oliver, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs; Frank Pedley, Deputy Superintendent General; Samuel Bray, chief surveyor. At Port Arthur the acting Indian agent Euclid Bonin reported in October 1905, and Neil McDougall, appointed agent in February 1906, oversaw the move.
• Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, the purchaser, and the town of Fort William, which subsidised the terminal.
• Joseph Singleton: an order of 25 February 1905 authorised the sale of lot 56 in the Mission village (2.4 acres) to Joseph Singleton on his enfranchisement, and an order of 8 March 1906 authorised him to sell the lot to the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Timeline

Date	Event
1850–1853	Fort William Reserve set aside under the Robinson-Superior Treaty.
1902	The band petitions Ottawa not to be pressed to sell more land.
1903	The Grand Trunk Pacific receives its charter for a Lake Superior branch.
1904–1905	The band expects to sell its reserve as the railway's lake terminal; houses are not whitewashed that year.
25 February 1905	Lot 56, Mission village, authorised for sale to Joseph Singleton.
26 May 1905	Order in council authorises the sale of 1,600 acres to the Grand Trunk Pacific.
17 and 27 June 1905	Report of the Board of Railway Commissioners on the 1,600 acres requested and approved.
11 September 1905	Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier turns the first sod of the Lake Superior Branch at Westfort, before about 10,000 people.
5 October 1905	Construction contract let to Foley Brothers, Larsen and Company.
19 December 1905	Order in council approves the land description.
February 1906	Neil McDougall appointed Indian agent.
8 March 1906	Joseph Singleton authorised to sell lot 56 to the railway.
1905–1906	Sale recorded at $242,936; sites of the two new villages and the road between them surveyed.
Summer 1906	About 54 new houses built and land cleared at the "Mountain" and Mission Bay villages.
1907	St. Joseph's school moves to the city; 100 acres of the reserve transferred for a rifle range.
1909	The Lake Superior Branch begins carrying grain.
1920	The rail line is taken over by Canada and the Mission land passes to Canadian National Railway.
1999	Fort William First Nation Development Corporation buys back about 1,100 acres from CN; the band submits its claim.
2002	Canada accepts the claim for negotiation.
30 March 2016	Canada offers $98,933,310.
23 December 2016	Settlement agreement initialled.
February 2017	Members ratify the settlement, 98 per cent in favour.

Relocation

By August 1906 the band was dividing about equally between the two new village sites, Squaw Bay and the foot of McKay's mountain. The sites of the two villages and the road between them were surveyed that year. By March 1907 the reserve had fallen to about 11,654 acres and the band of 280 people had moved to the "Mountain" and "Mission Bay". About 54 new houses had been built and land cleared during the summer of 1906. The agent reported that the new houses were better than the old ones and that much of the remaining land was rocky, and that the band had done very little farming that season. Fort William First Nation has described the new land as rock and swamp, and the move as one that split the community in two.

Use of the land

The railway built a swing bridge to reach the property on the east side of the Mission River. It also built a grain elevator of 5.75 million bushels, which became the Grand Trunk Pacific Elevator, a coal dock, freight sheds, yards, a roundhouse and its local offices on the Mission land. The company later went bankrupt, and the terminal was never completed as planned. The line was taken over by Canada in 1920 and the Mission land passed to Canadian National. About 500 acres were later sold to third parties. A 27.7-acre strip on the lakeshore was leased by the CNR to the city of Fort William and became part of Chippewa Park.

Later claims

In July 1999 the Fort William First Nation Development Corporation regained about 1,100 acres of the Mission land from CN, and the band submitted the Grand Trunk Pacific claim to Canada that year. Canada accepted it for negotiation in 2002 on the basis that the land had been sold for less than its value in 1905. After the Supreme Court of Canada's 2001 decision in Osoyoos Indian Band v. Oliver, the band asked for a wider review. A lawsuit it filed led Canada to suspend talks, and the suit was then held in abeyance. Negotiations resumed in 2008, with Canada now taking the position that the Railway Act barred the company from selling appropriated land and that Canada should have prevented such sales and returned the land to the band.

On 30 March 2016 Canada offered $98,933,310, including money for legal, negotiation and ratification costs, land purchases, environmental assessments and surveys. In return the band was to release the claim and give up its interest in about 147.5 acres of the claim lands that it had not reacquired. Canada could recommend that up to 1,132.67 acres be added to the reserve. Chief Peter Collins and the federal negotiator David Snowdon signed the agreement in the band's council chambers on 23 December 2016. Members ratified it in February 2017, with 98 per cent in favour. The band's lands director, Ian Bannon, said the returned land would stay in industrial use. By 2022 the land had been added to the reserve, but the city of Thunder Bay still held taxing authority over it.

Conflicting figures

• Area: the Department of Indian Affairs, the orders in council and Fort William First Nation give 1,600 acres. The Friends of Chippewa Park give 1,100 acres, the area later returned in 1999.
• Terminal: settlement-era sources say the terminus was never completed, while Todd describes an elevator, coal dock, sheds and yards built on the Mission property.
• Town bonus: Todd gives Fort William's cash bonus as $200,000 plus $50,000 for the bridge, while the company's 1909 return to Parliament gives $300,000 for the Fort William terminals and $50,000 for the Kaministiquia bridge. The 1905 agreement itself, as quoted by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2018, provides $300,000 for lands, docks, yards and buildings and a further $50,000 bonus for the bridge.
• Band petition: Hay dates the band's letter asking not to be pressed for more land to 1902, but his footnote cites a letterbook entry of 27 December 1909.

Related transactions

• In 1906 the band surrendered a right of way for a water pipeline and transmission line for the town of Fort William.
• In 1907 it surrendered land for the Mount McKay rifle range, 105.81 acres of sale and a transfer of 100 acres to the Militia Department. The band received $10,000, and the claim over this land was settled in 2002 for $2.9 million.
• The 1859 Neebing Surrender had earlier taken 6,300 acres of the reserve's farmland.

See also

• Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, the railway company and its Fort William terminal
• Grand Trunk Pacific Claim
• Grand Trunk Pacific Settlement Agreement
• Fort William First Nation
• Fort William Reserve

In Anishinabek News

• April 2022: This event forced the relocation of community farms, homes, a church, and a cemetery along the Kaministiquia River. Although a financial settlement was reached and the land was returned as an addition to reserve, the municipality of Thunder Bay still holds taxing authority over it as of April 2022.