Nuclear-Free Anishinaabe Aki Rally Sets Stage for Intensifying Opposition to Nuclear Waste
[Thank you — Miigwetch — to We the Nuclear-Free North, in whose e-newsletter this article and photo appeared. Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, had the honor and privilege of meeting Fort William First Nation officials and members while in Thunder Bay speaking out against the highly radioactive waste dump scheme on Earth Day 2025, at Environment North’s annual meeting. A dump at Revell Lake, near Ignace, Ontario would require transporting the highly radioactive wastes from the Great Lakes shorelines to the east and south, as well as from as far away as the Atlantic coast. The area to the west of Thunder Bay, Ojibwe country, has been targeted in the past, as in the 1970s and 1980s, for nuclear waste dumping, but the scheme was fended off.]
Nuclear-Free Anishinaabe Aki Rally Sets Stage for Intensifying Opposition to Nuclear Waste
[Anishinaabe means The First People; Aki means Country or Land]
THUNDER BAY [ONTARIO, CANADA] – An estimated 400 people gathered in Waverley Park in Thunder Bay [the largest city on Lake Superior’s shorelines] on July 4th for powerful speeches by First Nation leaders speaking in opposition to the transportation and burial of nuclear waste in northern Ontario.
The event in Waverley Park was followed by a march through Thunder Bay’s north-end downtown area to the Spirit Garden on the shore of Gitchegami [Great Lakes]/Lake Superior, where many gathered to hear further speakers into the early evening.
Speakers included Fort William First Nation Chief Michele Solomon, Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, Land Defence Alliance Chair and former Chief of Grassy Narrows First Nation Rudy Turtle, Neskantaga First Nation Chief Gary Kwisses, and former Neskantaga Chief Chris Moonias. A local Indigenous women’s drum group opened and closed the Waverley Park event, and Chrissy Isaacs of Grassy Narrows First Nation served as MC.
The emphatic consensus among speakers was that nuclear waste must not be brought to northern Ontario – given the risk of contamination that would threaten the lands, the waters, and the traditional way of life – and that opposition is strong and growing.
The rally was organized by Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong) First Nation and supported by many First Nations and by We the Nuclear Free North, an alliance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups and residents opposed to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s intent to use the Revell site between Ignace and Dryden for the processing, burial and abandonment of all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste.
The evening before featured a premiere screening of the film The Moth, by Thunder Bay Indigenous filmmaker Michelle Derosier. It portrays a possible future of industrial contamination and desolation in northern Ontario. The full story is HERE
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