![]() The Lamms, however, decided to close their profitable business. Fearing economic losses, some lodge owners issued bounties for confiscating signs. In May 1970, the Ontario government banned commercial fishing in Ball Lake and the English–Wabigoon rivers, and posted “Fish For Fun” signs throughout the region to discourage consumption. For his support, Barney was made an honorary chief by leaders of the White Dog and Grassy Narrows reserves. A lodge highlight was the “shore lunch,” where guides prepared freshly caught fish. They employed more than 75 indigenous Ojibwa people, including as fishing guides for wealthy tourists. ![]() Marion and Barney Lamm owned the multimillion-dollar Ball Lake fishing lodge at the confluence of the English and Wabigoon rivers, 150 km downstream of the factory. Residents noticed strange behaviour in animals cats stumbling in circles and salivating, and turkey vultures flying in disordered patterns. On multiple occasions between 19, when the Dryden Chemical Company claimed it had stopped releasing mercury, Ontario officials found levels 30 times above normal and absence of fish for 64 km downstream. 4 He estimated it would take 12 weeks before the mercury levels lowered in local fish however, scientific reports estimated between 50 and 70 years for recovery. George Kerr, the Ontario Minister of Energy and Natural Resource Management, ordered the company to cease mercury dumping by March 1970. Daily, between 1962 to 1970, the mill dumped 2–4.5 kg of mercury effluent, totaling more than 10 tonnes, into the English–Wabigoon river system. The Dryden Chemical Company’s pulp and paper mill generated mercury waste from bleaching paper. 3 Before the disaster in Minamata, the scientific community was unaware of the effects of methylmercury on humans.Īs the environmental catastrophe devolved in Japan, another emerged in Dryden, Ontario. Human consumption of mercury-laden fish provokes nervous system damage. When larger fish eat these animals, mercury undergoes biomagnification, reaching toxic levels. Methylmercury is a lipid-soluble compound formed when mercury enters aquatic ecosystems and is consumed by small animals. For over half a century, mercury poison has contaminated the river that is our lifeblood. The story of my people, the Grassy Narrows First Nation, weighs heavily on the collective conscience of Canada. In the words of Chief Simon Fobister Sr., The Asubpeecho-seewagong/Grassy Narrows First Nation still grapples with the ravages of mercury contamination. However, in the Canadian case, problems would persist for more than 50 years. ![]() 1 As investigations proceeded in Japan, a similar story began to unfold in Northern Canada. By 1958, Doctors Shukuro Araki and Douglas McAlpine established a link between methylmercury contaminated fish and human neurologic symptoms. In 1956, the first affected human entered Japan’s Chisso factory hospital. There, in the mid-1950s, sightings of ataxic cats heralded signs of a bizarre neurologic condition. ![]() The history of mercury poisoning among indigenous people in Canada is entangled with a mid-20th-century industrial incident in Minamata, Japan. ![]()
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