At 5:30 a.m., on 6 October 2008, seventy-five members of the Barrière Lake Algonquin First Nations (BLAFN) along with twenty non-native supporters set up a nonviolent blockade on Hwy 117, approximately 300 km north of Ottawa/Gatineau.  The Algonquins were calling on the federal and provincial governments to honour a resource-sharing agreement signed twenty years ago, and to respect their customary governance structures.  They dragged logs across the highway, and set up ‘lockboxes’: cement-filled barrels designed to allow individuals to insert their arms so that the authorities cannot easily pull people participating in a public witness away from a site.  Three members of Christian Peacemaker Teams were present as human rights observers.

Haudenosaunee prophets are speaking some hard truths that Canadians, especially Canadian Christians, need to hear about land claims.  Two Row Understanding through Education (TRUE) is an attempt by some settler (i.e., non-indigenous) neighbours of the Six Nations (Haudenosaunee) community to create a meeting space for learning more about the first agreements that made it possible for newcomers to settle on this land.  "Two Row" refers to the Two Row Wampum Treaty—the first agreement between Haudenosaunee inhabitants and Dutch settlers—not to interfere with each other but rather to live in cooperation and harmony.

TRUE emerged in the context of organized non-natives harassing and attacking the Haudenosaunee after the latter reclaimed land that non-native commercial development is altering beyond repair.  Since the original Haldimand Tract—ten kilometers on either side of the Grand River source to mouth—was deeded in 1784 to Chief Joseph Brant and the Haudenosaunee for their allegiance to Britain during the American Revolution, agents of the British and successor Canadian governments have seized land and misappropriated funds from leases held in trust for the Haudenosaunee.  Less than 5% of the Tract remains under the control of the Haudenosaunee.  Of the twenty-nine well-documented land claims registered with the Federal government on portions of the other 95% of the land, only one has been settled.  All claims have languished in the Government’s hands from thirteen to twenty-eight years.  

On 26 May 2008, an estimated one thousand people gathered in Queen’s Park, seat of the Ontario Provincial Parliament, to support of the rights of the indigenous people of Canada. Members of the First Nations communities of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation) were joined by many others, both First Nation and non-indigenous.