First Nations need to lead Far North growth: Eabametoong chief regards "nation-building" as key to developing local economies.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: NEWS

Harvey Yesno wants Eabametoong to take the initiative when it comes to development in their traditional territory instead of constantly reacting to it.

The respected former grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) was elected chief of the remote Far North community in mid-June, succeeding Elizabeth Adookan.

"What has happened in our region is we've just been responding to what's going on,whether it's one permit and one explorer, or the Ring of Fire," said Yesno. "I'd like to be in a position where we are engaging."

Eabametoong, a remote Ojibway community of 1,500, is located 350 kilometres north of Thunder Bay on the Albany River system. It's one of the nine-member Matawa First Nations tribal councils and one of the five remote communities closest to the Ring of Fire mineral belt.

Yesno is a familar figure in northwestern Ontario's political ranks.

He headed up NAN, a political organization of 49 First Nation communities in the northwest and Far North, from 2012 to 2015, and prior to that, he was president and CEO of the Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund from 1993 to 2012. Previously, he served five terms as chief of Eabametoong (also known as Fort Hope).

Regardless of the tide, Yesno still talks of "nation-building," and of communities finding ways to be autonomous, self-sufficient and "guardians of the (Canadian) Shield."

The latter term came out of the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment, a provincially driven 1985 study that outlined a socioeconomic and environmental vision for the region north of 50 degrees latitude.

As a fresh-out-of-college economic development officer in Fort Hope in the late 1970s, Yesno gathered input from community members that formed the foundation and recommendations of the final document.

What was expressed by Indigenous folks back then, Yesno said, basically still holds up today: find ways to maximize the benefits from resource development while minimizing the adverse impacts on the landscape.

The report also recommended that Northerners needed a greater say, through a special authority, on how the province made impactful landuse planning decisions in the region.

Participating in that exercise had a profound influence on Yesno's way of thinking. In particular, that First Nations need to apply their own laws when it comes to development and safeguarding the environment.

I do believe our land is rich in resources. It has to be managed properly.

But like so many studies of the North, it stayed on the...