Our Long Struggle for Home

Most Canadians know only a tiny part of the Ipperwash story – the 1995 police shooting of Dudley George. In Our Long Struggle for Home, George’s sister, cousins, and others from the Stoney Point Reserve tell of the decades-long battle to reclaim their ancestral homeland, Aazhoodena, both before and after the police action culminating in George’s death.

Offering insights into Nishnaabeg lifeways and historical treaties, this compelling account conveys how government decisions affected lives, livelihoods, and identity. We hear of the devastation wrought when Nishnaabeg territory was re-purposed as an army training camp in 1942, with assurances that it would be returned. By 1993, five elders had waited long enough. They reclaimed the reserve, sparking a cultural and social revival that was ultimately quashed as an illegal occupation.

Our Long Struggle for Home also shows what can be accomplished through perseverance and undiminished belief in a better future. This is a necessary lesson on colonialism and the power of resistance.