MOHAWK+GRAND RIVER

Gazette No. 59 — BlueBelt + Grand River

Be it known and placed on record: That the BlueBelt + Grand River Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy is hereby retrospectively established under Rule 11, recording the founding documents transmitted on 5 May 2022, as the foundational conservation institution of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

I. Mission

To protect, care for, and connect people to the extraordinary lands of the Grand River corridor for the benefit of the Mohawk Nation and future generations. The BlueBelt + Grand River Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy is the first charitable institution constituted under the jurisdiction of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

II. Territory

The Haldimand Tract proper: 950,000 acres / 3,844 square kilometres within the six-mile corridor. The Grand River Watershed: 6,800 square kilometres extending to the Lake Erie shoreline. Together these constitute the full landscape of the Mohawk Nation’s territorial claim — the corridor granted in 1784 and the watershed that defines its ecological and riparian extent.

III. The 5 May 2022 Broadcast

On 5 May 2022, the Secretary-General broadcast the three founding documents of the BlueBelt + Grand River Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy to every Ontario municipality clerk — 200+ recipients. This constituted constructive notice to every Ontario municipal authority of the conservancy’s existence and the Haldimand territorial claim, predating the formal opening of the Register of the Nation by four years.

IV. The Doctrine of Dedication

The Doctrine of Dedication applies. The dedication of the Grand River Territory to the Mohawk posterity by the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784 is irrevocable without the consent of both the dedicating party (the Crown) and the beneficiary (the Mohawk Nation). No formal act of un-dedication has ever occurred. The lands have never been formally un-dedicated. The dedication stands.

V. Conservation and the Constitutional Programme

The BlueBelt conservation mission and the constitutional programme are not in tension. They are the same programme viewed from two angles. The constitutional programme establishes the legal framework within which the conservation work will be done. The conservation work demonstrates that the Mohawk Nation’s interest in the land is not merely historical but present, active, and committed to the landscape’s future.