The Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation, also known as Grassy Narrows, is an Indigenous nation in northwestern Ontario, an hour north of Kenora, Ont.It’s an Anishinabek community with a rich history of multicultural hunters, trappers, fishers and harvesters of the land. But in recent history, it’s been launched into the national spotlight as the First Nation poisoned by mercury.Media coverage of the dumping, which began in the early 1960s, has exposed the world to the community’s incredible suffering caused by contamination of the land, water and fish, the consumption of which has made many of its members sick. (About 1,000 people live on the reserve.)In April 2016, with support from N’we Jinan, youth in Grassy Narrows — including Darwin Fobister and Hailey Loon — released an original song called “Home to Me,” which draws attention to the community`s struggle with deforestation and contamination, but also highlights the strength they draw from their deep connection to the environment. N’we Jinan is a nonprofit organization that brings a mobile recording studio into communities across North America to help youth express themselves through song with professional guidance. Today, the youth have a message for the public: “We are more than mercury.”DARWIN FOBISTER, 21: ‘I decided to work with Grassy’s youth because they saw me as a leader’I didn’t find out until the age of 5 about the mercury poisoning. I started having seizures — my mother’s umbilical cord had a high amount of mercury in it. The doctors knew when I was born that I wasn’t a normal baby.When I was 8, my grandma and my dad told me everything. They said my parents ate a lot of fish, and explained about the pulp mill, which dumped mercury into the river system in the 1960s.They told me we were sick.Every day I have headaches, and I can’t feel my hands sometimes. They get numb. My speech was way ...
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