Bob Lovelace and the Ardoch Algonquins

Jeff Green | Jul 07, 2021

In early June, an anonymous report that was released on Twitter alleged that members of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, and others who are associated with the Indigenous Studies department of Queen's University, have no legitimate claim to their indigenous identity.

Bob Lovelace, who has lived in Frontenac County for most of the last 40 years and has taught at Queen's since 1995, was named in the report.

The report has been associated, via analysis of the metadata of the initial Twitter post, with Daryl Leroux, an associate professor at St. Mary's University in Halifax and the author of the book, “Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity”.

Queen's University rejected the report out of hand soon after it was released, but later announced that it was reviewing how it factors indigenous identity in its hiring processes.

“We know that questions have been raised about processes that have been followed in the past. The way Indigenous identity has been factored into hiring and other internal processes may not have been what it should be – may not have been done in a way that meets the real needs of Indigenous scholars, students, academics, and communities” wrote Queen's Principal Patrick Deane on June 28.

Murray Sinclair, who was days away from the start of his term as Queen's Chancellor, wrote “It is clear that self-identification of Indigeneity no longer works. Self-declaration is an important part, but it is just the beginning. We must go beyond an honour system and include voices from Indigenous communities across Turtle Island.

Queen’s, and all universities, must work in allyship to build better processes that honour Indigenous self-determination, practices, and approaches to create a space that affirms Indigenous academics and students alike.”

The matter has been the subject of a petition among academics and others, and has been taken up by the CBC. The petition asks the university to refuse organizations like the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, which it describes as a group “whose membership is based on 300+-year-old 'root ancestors' (some of whom aren’t even Algonquin)”.

Ardoch is a very small grouping of houses. located at the westernmost extremity of the Ardoch Road in North Frontenac, at Mud Lake, just before Ardoch Road meets Road 509. The only remnant of what the former hamlet is a Canada Post outlet. There are 115 homes, located in a pretty wide area, that are served by the postal outlet.

At the bridge over Mud Lake, there is a large white rock slab with a plaque about the fight to save the Manomin Keesis, the wild rice on Mud Lake that, in 1979 and 1980, became the centre of controversy during what have been dubbed locally as “The Rice Wars.”

It was through the Manomin Keesis, that Bob Lovelace met Harold Perry. Harold Perry was who was born at Ardoch and came back to his home on Mud Lake after living and working in Toronto. He played guitar, taught martial arts to local kids, built canoes, and tended the rice on Mud Lake. He was of Algonquin descent, and his mother had been involved in the establishment of the rice in Mud Lake in the early years of the 20th century.

Once, he recalled, when he was a boy, houses in the small community where he was raised had been burned in a racially motivated attack.

In 1979 Perry sought support from North Frontenac Community Services (now known as Rural Frontenac Community Services) for his family’s efforts to prevent a provincially approved ricing operation from harvesting the rice at Mud Lake for commercial purposes.

Bob Lovelace was working at North Frontenac Community Services (now known as Rural Frontenac Community Services) as a legal officer at the time.

The Rice Wars dragged on over two years, involving other Perry family members, and community members, both indigenous and non-indigenous.

The effort eventually succeeded, and the harvesters left. A community organisation, originally named after the Manomin Keesis, eventually became known as the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and Allies (AAFNA)

It was during the 1980's, at a ceremony in Sharbot Lake, that Bob Lovelace was adopted as a member of the Ardoch Algonquins. Harold Perry and other members of the Ardoch Algonquin Family Heads Council officiated at the ceremony.

It was something that Harold Perry said was consistent with Algonquin practice, adopting people to make them part of the local community, much like he way immigrants earn their Canadian Citizenship.

When Harold died, Bob Lovelace told the Frontenac News that he, “knew from when I was a kid that I was part Indian” but “I like to tell my students that Harold Perry taught me everything I know about Aboriginal Culture and politics”.

Lovelace was born in the United States, in St. Louis, and came to Canada as a draft dodger. The “part Indian” that he refers to is a Cherokee antecedent on his mother's side.

To prepare this article, I asked someone who knew Bob Lovelace before he met Harold Perry about his identity. I was told that he talked about having a Cherokee uncle, and was raised in the white community.

Once Lovelace was adopted into the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation (AAFNA), he participated in some of the formative events leading to the start of the Algonquin Land Claim and in several court cases on behalf of AAFNA. Establishing rights for Algonquin people who do not have status under the Canadian Indian Act was the common theme in those cases.

In the 1990's, the Ardoch Algonquins participated in the Algonquin Land Claim, but their participation was complicated by at least two factors. For one, they were concerned about the direction the claim started taking, fearing it was going to extinguish the rights that they were fighting for in court, Secondly, they did not agree with the prescribed method for choosing the person who would represent them at the land claim negotiation table.

Meanwhile, AAFNA continued to pursue educational initiatives. Different families took lead roles in the organisation over time, but Harold Perry remained as an important figure, living as he did very close to the Manomin Keesis, which has played a central role for AAFNA ever since it was established to represent the political interests of the Algonquins who trace their family heritage to the region around the headwaters of the Mississippi river and the Crotch Lake area.

In 2004 and 2005 the land claim was floundering. One of the issues in dispute among Algonquins centred on who was an Algonquin person. The Algonquins of Pickwaknagan, the only status Algonquin Community on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River, and 9 non-status communities (including the Ardoch and Sharbot Lake communities) could not agree. Membership in Pikwaknagan was determined by blood quantum, literally the percentage of genealogically verified Algonquin descendancy according to be granted status under the Indian Act. Membership in the other communities was determined by a direct line of descent from a genealogically verified Algonquin individual, and community connection.

The genealogical research that is used to establish descendancy used census records from the 19th century and Parish records from before the founding of Canada in 1867.

The accommodation that was established between Pikwakanagan and the off-reserve communities was to accept direct descendancy for Algonquin electors in those communities. The electors have been eligible to vote for Algonquin Nation Representatives (ANR) to the land claim, one for each of the 9 for the 9 off reserve communities. Pikwakanagan First Nation members are represented by the 7-member band council.

The 16-member table has been working on the land claim ever since. Interestingly enough, that accommodation from 2005 was silent on whether being an Algonquin elector will result in being one of the recipients when the land claim is finally settled. That matter has apparently not been settled.

The Ardoch Algonquins insisted on being governed by decisions made at Family Heads Council meetings, and on the authority of the Family Heads Council to decide on membership and the person they sent to the land claim negotiations.

The other members of the Land Claim table would not accept this, and they were also very clear, as was their lawyer Robert Potts, that Bob Lovelace was not welcome at the table because he did not have an Algonquin blood line at all.

The Ardoch Algonquins left the land claim table. One of their former members, Randy Malcolm, along with a few other families, remained at the table as the Ardoch Algonquins and later changed their name to the Snimikobe First Nation.

There was considerable bitterness between those who supported the land claim and those who walked away.

The claim is now close to completion. It is slated to come with a one-time payment of $300 million for clear title to all of the land on the Ontario side of the Ottawa river, along with the transfer of 117,500 acres. The claim territory encompasses 8.9 million acres, including the City of Ottawa and Algonquin Park.

In 2005, Harold Perry pointedly called the Algonquins who were involved in the claim “collaborators”.

The bitter divisions between supporters and opponents of the land claim were put aside in 2008, when the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation (formerly known as Sharbot Lake Algonquins) and AAFNA joined together to occupy lands that were accessible from the now former Robertsville mine site, off Road 509 in North Frontenac, in order to prevent test drilling for uranium.

The occupation lasted 4 months and resulted in a court case in Kingston in the fall and winter of 2009.

As one of the principals in the court case, Bob Lovelace refused to sign an undertaking not to return to the site of the occupation, which had already been secured by police and was no longer under threat of re-occupation.

Other AAFNA leaders, including both Harold Perry and Paula Sherman, a professor at Trent University, intended to do the same. Perry was talked out of it, as he was 79 at the time and had a very weak heart. Sherman was taken into custody, but was also convinced to recant because of the implications for her children if she was incarcerated for an extended period of time.

Justice Cunningham, who presided over the case, did not give Lovelace a fixed jail term. He said Lovelace would remain in jail until he signed the undertaking, no matter how long it took. Five months later, the case was appealed and overturned in an appeal court in Toronto. Bob Lovelace's health and family circumstances were compromised as the result of the time he spent in jail.

While Lovelace was in jail, Ardoch Algonquin members looked after his family.

The occupation weakened the community, and they have spent years recovering, according to current members. They now devote their time on education, preserving the manomin keesis and on other specific projects.

The question of Bob Lovelace's identity and the history and legitimacy of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation in Frontenac County, that surfaced last month at Queen’s, implies that both have been faking their heritage.

However, there was a tract of land in 1844 that was set aside as an Algonquin reserve, but the trees on the surface and the iron in the ground were of value and the reserve was never established.

There were Algonquin and Mohawk families with roots at Lake of Two Mountains, in Frontenac County, since before settlers arrived, and members of the Ardoch Algonquins, Shabot Obaadjiwan, and the manomin keesis, are historically based in this territory.

In 1980, Bob Lovelace helped to prevent the destruction of wild rice at Mud Lake, in support of the indigenous families who had tended the rice for generations.

In the spring of 2009, he went to jail in the name of the principle that the land on the east shore of Crotch Lake needed to be protected against uranium mining. He did so to symbolize the resistance of the First Nations and settlers on those and the surrounding lands to threats to the integrity and intrinsic value of the land.

For those of us who live in this part of Frontenac County, those facts are indisputable.

How Queen's decides who to hire, what questions they ask is a matter for them to decide.

The politics surrounding the report that was released last month on Twitter and the reaction to it in university and mainstream media is already beginning to fade, leaving only damaged reputations and personal wounds that will take time to heal.

To prevent misunderstandings in the future from outside institutions, we need to remember and document our own history in Frontenac County.