Oka Crisis

Oka Crisis is the 1990 siege of Kanehsata:ke and Kahnawa:ke.

In Anishinabek News

• August 2015: Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux noted that this 1990 event pushed the Indigenous community onto the world stage and into larger conversations.
• February 2017: The militarized atmosphere at Standing Rock, including army tanks, reminded Cecile Hookimaw of this event.
• February 2018: Long Lake 58 First Nation included their 1990 blockade held during this event in a community history timeline.
• August 2020: This event involved 3,500 Canadian troops surrounding Mohawk people who were protecting ancestral burial grounds. The crisis inspired the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which produced 440 recommendations. The documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin gained international recognition for her work covering this event.
• July 2021: The poem notes that Indigenous people lost the fight at Oka after being starved from the barricades. Despite the loss at Oka, the author suggested that the underlying spirit and cause of the people would eventually prevail.
• November 2024: The event involved a siege of Kanehsata:ke and Kahnawa:ke during the summer of 1990. During the conflict, police and military forces shot at protesters with live ammunition when women stepped back from the barricades. The crisis is discussed in the book When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance to highlight Kanien'keha:ka culture and the significance of the land.