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RSS FeedsGrassy Narrows leader Steve Fobister dead at 66
(The Star Fashion & Style)

 
 

18 october 2018 03:15:27

 
Grassy Narrows leader Steve Fobister dead at 66
(The Star Fashion & Style)
 


When Steve Fobister came to protest outside the Legislature in 2014, the former fishing guide and chief came with his tent and an ultimatum.Fobister, who was suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder, wanted a care home for those suffering from mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows First Nation.“He said quite calmly: ‘I will stay until I get some action. Or until I die,’ ” recalled former Indigenous affairs minister David Zimmer. “Though he and his community had a lot to be really angry about, he was a gentle person. His goal was to do something about it.”Fobister’s brief hunger strike got Ontario’s attention and a promise to explore building a home.He did not live long enough to see the facility built or any of the recent promises by lawmakers come to his community. Fobister died Thursday, not at home close to his relatives and culture, but in a Kenora, Ont., hospital after shuttling between there and a Thunder Bay facility 600 kilometres from Grassy Narrows.His family buried the 66-year-old on the reserve Tuesday morning, planting a poplar pole in the ground, the wood engraved with a sign of his Sturgeon clan. His spirit name is Pa pii waa nii mo petung.Read more:Landmark study reveals ‘clear evidence’ of mercury’s toll on health in Grassy NarrowsDavid Suzuki, Indigenous leaders demand justice for Grassy Narrows‘I started to have seizures at the age of 2.’ Ontario residents describe the ravages of mercury exposureLike a lot of the young men at the time, Fobister was a trapper and fishing guide to wealthy tourists who came to Grassy Narrows and the famous Ball Lake Lodge camp. He frequently ate the fish.During the 1960s, the Dryden pulp and paper mill, operated by Reed Paper, dumped 10 tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon River that feeds Grassy Narrows downstream. The potent neurotoxin contaminated the fish and poisoned the people who ate it. They developed tremors, slurred sp ...


 
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