Virtual Event – The Grassy Narrows Living History Forum

Friday, 22 May 2026

PT 12:30-13:30; MT 13:30-14.30; CT 14:30-15:30; ET 15:30-16:30; AT 16:30-17:30

Canadian Society for the History of Medicine (CSHM) Living History Forum

Between 1962 and 1970, in a terrible and deeply racist case of environmental injustice, a pulp mill in Northwest Ontario discharged ten tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon River, upstream from the First Nations community of Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows). The mercury contaminated the river system’s fish. It poisoned the community’s major traditional food source and halted their commercial and sport fishing industries when the Ontario provincial government closed fisheries in the region after 1970. “Our people are a river people,” says Judy Da Silva, Grassy Narrows community member and advocate, “Historically they lived from the water. When we found out the mercury was in the water it had a really devastating effect in our community, economically, socially and all that. It’s like a genocide of our people.”¹

“Our people are a river people … Historically they lived from the water. When we found out the mercury was in the water it had a really devastating effect in our community, economically, socially and all that. It’s like a genocide of our people.” – Judy Da Silva

By 1975, the neurological effects of mercury poisoning had been identified on Grassy Narrows reserve by Dr. Masazumi Harada, a Japanese physician who had first identified Minamata disease, a neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning in the Japanese fishing town of Minamata. Community members have consistently registered symptoms including numbness, slurred speech, difficulty with balance, constricted vision, muscle loss, and paralysis. A recent study conducted by scientist Donna Mergler, in partnership with the Grassy Narrow community, concluded that long-term mercury exposure “can contribute to premature mortality,” meaning that the community has fewer Elders over age 60 to pass on traditional knowledge and teachings.²

Health justice has been slow in coming to the Grassy Narrows community. Provincial and federal governments have consistently ignored or downplayed the catastrophic impacts of the mercury contamination. Neither the federal nor provincial government have done anything to clean up the river; the Ontario provincial minister claimed shortly after the contamination was discovered that the mercury build up would take twelve weeks to clear without any intervention. It was later revealed that this figure was entirely fictitious.³ The mill owners have never been fully called to account as a 1977 lawsuit against the company resulted in the liability for the mercury spill being shifted onto the provincial government.

Thinking about the mercury poisoning of the English-Wabigoon River System as living history is apt; the effects of this environmental event have endured into the present and will continue into the future. Grassy Narrows First Nations members still do not have access to clean drinking water. The mercury concentration in fish has been reduced but remains high. Yet, as Da Silva points out, the Grassy Narrows First Nation remains strong. They have fought “for river remediation, recognition of the long-term health effects of Hg [mercury] exposure on their community, and support for appropriate health care” since they “discovered the fish were dying.”⁴ The Nation filed a lawsuit against the mill in 1977 and won a compensation fund (Mercury Disability Board) to offset the damage to the health of their people. Da Silva, Mergler, and Chantelle Richmond (Anishinaabe scholar and Professor of Geography and Environment at Western University) all served on an Expert Panel to Reform the Mercury Disability Board in 2019, opening up the assessment system to allow more people to qualify for larger benefits and disseminating compensation in a way that demonstrated respect for Indigenous culture.⁵ The community successfully blocked logging trucks from entering their territory starting on December 2, 2002, because of the practice’s contribution to mercury contamination.⁶ Generations of band members who have come of age following the contamination have continued a “culture of resistance” through protest, demonstration, action, and art.⁷

Now you can hear the story of Grassy Narrows from Judy Da Silva and Donna Mergler, two powerful changemakers on this issue, followed by a reflection from Chantelle Richmond.

The intent of the CSHM Living History Forum is to bring together individuals who have lived through and shaped a significant event in health history, so we can hear and learn from their shared memories. This event is co-hosted by the Grassy Narrows First Nation (Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek), Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University. Thank you to AMS Healthcare for their generous funding which has made the Grassy Narrows event possible.

Speakers

Judy Da Silva is a Grassy Narrows community member who looks to her five children for energy to continue seeking justice and a solution to the mercury poisoning of their river system in Grassy Narrows. Her lifelong advocacy work for her community and commitment to peaceful, nonviolent direct action has been acknowledged with the prestigious Michael Sattler Peace Prize in 2013 (Germany), a 2019 an honorary doctorate from Wilfrid Laurier University, and the 2018 Art Manuel environmental award from Toronto Metropolitan University. Judy suffers from the effects of mercury poisoning. She works in the band office of her community as environmental health coordinator.

Donna Mergler is Professor Emerita at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Department of Biological Sciences. A member of the Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health in Canada, she studied the health impacts of mercury from fish consumption in Brazil, Quebec, and now with Grassy Narrows First Nation. At Grassy Narrows, she chaired the Expert Panel to Reform the Mercury Disability Board and co-chaired the Detailed Services Plan team for the Paapiiwaaniimaan Mercury Care Home.  She has won many honours and awards for her research, mostly as Radio-Canada Scientist of the Year.

Chantelle Richmond is an Anishinaabe scholar and Professor of Geography and Environment at Western University, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health and the Environment, examining relationships between Indigenous peoples, land, and health, with a particular focus on environmental dispossession and repossession. Working with Katie Big-Canoe, she developed the theory of environmental repossession. She is the author of Because this Land is who we are: Indigenous practices of Environmental Repossession and works in partnership with the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre and Native Women Run. Chantelle was a member of the Expert Panel to reform the Mercury Disability Board and was also a member of the Detailed Services Planning Team for the Grassy Narrows Mercury Care Home.

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1. Judy Da Silva, in The Story of Grassy Narrows, PSAC-AFPC, YouTube video, 1:55, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E06pWtCHIg. ↩︎
2. Aline Philibert, Myriam Fillion, Donna Mergler, “Mercury exposure and premature mortality in the Grassy Narrows First Nation community: a retrospective longitudinal study,” The Lancet, Vol. 4 (April 2020): e142, https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2542-5196%2820%2930057-7. ↩︎
3. Robert Jago, “The Warrior Society rises: how a mercury spill in Canada inspired a movement,” The Guardian 16 October 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/16/canada-first-nations-ojibway-warrior-society. ↩︎
4. Philibert et. al, “Mercury exposure and premature mortality in the Grassy Narrows First Nation community:,” The Lancet, Vol. 4 (April 2020): e142; Judy Da Silva, in The Story of Grassy Narrows, PSAC-AFPC, YouTube video, 1:51, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E06pWtCHIg.   ↩︎
5. Letter from Chief Waylon Scott, Wabaseemoong Independent Nations, to Community Members explain the Mercury Disability Board Letter, August 2021, https://wabaseemoong.ca/explaining-the-changes-to-the-mercury-disability-board-assessment-process/. ↩︎
6. Judy Da Silva, in The Story of Grassy Narrows, PSAC-AFPC, YouTube video, 1:42, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E06pWtCHIg;  Logan Turner, “Grassy Narrows marks 20 years of the blockade protecting its land from logging,” CBC News Thunder Bay 2 January 2023, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/grassy-narrows-blockade-20-anniversary-1.6699763. ↩︎
7. Jago, “The Warrior Society rises,” The Guardian 16 October 2018. ↩︎