Six Miles Deep

R. v. Powley

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  1. Case Title & Citation
    R. v. Powley, [2003] 2 S.C.R. 207, Supreme Court of Canada.

  2. Decision Summary (Neutral Overview)
    This case concerned whether two Métis hunters in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, had a constitutionally protected right to hunt moose for food without a provincial licence. They were charged under Ontario’s Game and Fish Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled:

  • The Métis are a distinct Aboriginal people recognized under s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

  • A Métis community existed in the Sault Ste. Marie area with its own pre-contact continuity and practices.

  • The accused were members of that rights-bearing community.

  • Their hunting fell within a protected “Aboriginal right” as Métis.

The charges were dismissed, and the Court articulated the now-standard “Powley test” for Métis rights.

  1. Historical & Legal Context
    After 1982, courts had to clarify who counted as “Aboriginal peoples of Canada” and how rights would be recognized. Prior decisions focused mostly on First Nations and Inuit. Métis people had often been treated as culturally Indigenous but legally invisible.

Powley was the first major Supreme Court decision to affirm Métis rights under s. 35 and to construct a framework for identifying Métis communities and rights.

  1. Key Legal Principles Identified in the Case

  • Recognition of Métis as distinct Aboriginal people under s. 35.

  • A fact-based test for identifying a rights-bearing Métis community.

  • Emphasis on historical continuity between pre-control practices and modern practices.

  • Rights are community-based, not purely individual.

  1. Implications for Haldimand, Loyalist, and Mohawk Questions

  • Powley shows that courts can build a specific rights framework for a historically rooted group (Métis of Sault Ste. Marie).

  • By analogy, a similarly careful framework could be crafted for Mohawk Loyalist posterity on the Haldimand Tract.

  • It supports the idea that not all Indigenous or colonially affected peoples are treated generically; law can recognize distinct communities tied to distinct instruments like Haldimand and Dorchester.

  1. Points of Interest to Mohawk of Grand River Posterity

  • Powley undermines the notion that Canada must treat all Indigenous interests as one undifferentiated “Aboriginal rights” category.

  • If Métis can be recognized as a rights-bearing community with tailored tests, the same logic invites a recognition framework for:

    • Mohawk Loyalist families,

    • Tied to specific Crown promises (Haldimand, Dorchester, Simcoe),

    • On a defined territory (Grand River, six miles deep).

  1. Unresolved Questions / Future Research Directions

  • How might a “Powley-style” test look if applied to Mohawk Loyalist posterity rather than Métis communities?

  • Could courts recognize a Haldimand-specific rights-bearing group with its own test (bloodline, Loyalist service, Mohawk national identity, etc.)?

  • How do Powley’s principles intersect with quasi-international instruments like Haldimand, rather than purely “Aboriginal rights” claims?

  1. Sources

  • R. v. Powley, [2003] 2 S.C.R. 207.

  • Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35.

  • Secondary scholarship on Métis rights and the Powley test.

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“Ignorance may explain how we got here. It doesn’t erase the duty once people are put on notice.”

B. Doolittle UE

Categories

About Benjamin Doolittle U.E.

Benjamin Doolittle UE is a Lower Mohawk of Grand River and a direct descendant of the Mohawk Loyalist leadership that secured the Haldimand Tract. In his capacity as Secretary-General for the Mohawk Nation of Grand River, he works to uphold the hereditary rights and responsibilities carried by his line. Through his matrilineal line, he descends from Esther Springstead (Shatekariwate), a clanmother married to Captain David Hill, U.E.L.

Matrilineal line: Tracey → Beverly → Mabel → Bertha → Lydia → Esther → Ellen (daughter of Isaac Brant) → Mary → Esther Springstead (Shatekariwate)

This makes Benjamin a sixth-great-grandson of Joseph Brant U.E.L. (Thayendanegea) and Isaac Brant of Canajoharie, one of the three named Mohawk villages carried into the Grand River settlement. Band Council has certified that he holds 100% Mohawk blood quantum under their rolls, reflecting both his hereditary standing and his rootedness in the community.

In his role as Secretary-General, Benjamin’s work with Six Miles Deep focuses on recovering and enforcing the original Crown-recognized framework for Mohawk title along the Grand River — not as a generic “aboriginal rights” claim, but as a specific hereditary interest grounded in Loyalist service, the Haldimand Proclamation, and the subsequent Crown instruments that confirmed it.

Beyond Six Miles Deep, Benjamin has founded and developed several initiatives to strengthen Mohawk continuity and stewardship, including Grand Back, the Bluebelt conservation concept, Mohawk University, and the Kanien’kehà:ka Language Development Institute. Together, these projects aim to restore land-based governance, protect the Grand River watershed, and support language and cultural renewal for Mohawk posterity.

Earlier in his career, Benjamin operated a community photo studio for several years, specializing in weddings, newborn, and family portraits across the Grand River region. He later helped launch the Indigenous newspaper Two Row Times, supporting its development as a platform for Onkwehonwe voices and treaty-based perspectives.

Benjamin is also an independent music producer, releasing work under the name One Way Current, published by Corn Press Publications. Through his music and writing, he explores Mohawk history, land, and spiritual continuity in contemporary forms that speak to both youth and elders.

He is a member of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada, the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, and the Monarchist League of Canada. These associations reflect his conviction that Crown honour, hereditary recognition, and proper heraldic and historical process are essential to resolving the long-ignored duties owed to Mohawk posterity on the Grand River.

Benjamin maintains an active working relationship with ministers, local officials, and church representatives, regularly greeting dignitaries and visitors at the Mohawk Chapel and using those encounters to remind them of the Crown’s ongoing duties to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

Benjamin is also a survivor of the Indian Day School system, an experience that informs his understanding of how imposed systems of education, identity, and governance have tried to overwrite Mohawk continuity while leaving the underlying treaties and Crown obligations intact. His lived experience sits alongside his archival research, legal studies, and community work, grounding Six Miles Deep in both documentation and reality on the ground.

Through Six Miles Deep and related projects, Benjamin works to:

re-establish lawful recognition of Mohawk hereditary rights along the Haldimand Tract clarify the distinction between band-council trust structures and the underlying Mohawk title educate institutions, governments, and the broader public about the continuing force of Crown promises to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River

His goal is not simply to revisit history, but to restore living jurisdiction, stewardship, and continuity for Mohawk posterity, “six miles deep” on both sides of the Grand River, in a way that honours both the ancestors who secured the land and the children who will inherit it.

listen to BLOODLINE

“Bloodline” follows the Haldimand Proclamation from its original promise to the present fight to have it honoured. The track moves through Crown grants, broken commitments, and the legal and political road back to enforcement, asking listeners to hear the Proclamation not as a relic of the past, but as a living obligation that still binds the Crown to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

Artist: One Way Current
Writer: Benjamin Doolittle UE
Producer: One Way Current
Publisher: Corn Press Publications
Affiliation: Six Miles Deep / Mohawk Nation of Grand River

WHITE PAPER

CROWN PLUS

Crown Plus is an initiative of the Mohawk University, dedicated to restoring truth, lawful continuity, and honour in the interpretation and application of the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784 — the foundational covenant between the Mohawk Nation and the British Crown.

This paper is divided into three parts, each exploring a distinct dimension of the Haldimand covenant: its legal origins, its modern violations, and the path toward lawful restoration. Together, they form the living record of a truth that has been long buried beneath colonial misinterpretation.Crown Plus stands for the principle that the Mohawk Nation is not a subject of the Crown, but a co-sovereign pillar upon which the Canadian state itself rests.

The phrase “Crown Plus” reclaims the language of Canada’s political history — a response to the White Paper (1969) and Red Paper (1970) — and reframes it in the Mohawk context. Where others spoke of “citizens plus,” we assert “Crown Plus”: the indivisible bond of alliance, honour, and hereditary right between the Mohawk and the Crown.

Part I — The Legal Foundations and Historical Continuity

Explores the origins of the Haldimand Proclamation, the Dorchester correction, the Mohawk–Crown alliance since Queen Anne, and the constitutional distinctiveness of the Mohawk Loyalist posterity.

Read Part I

Part II — Modern Violations, Fiduciary Duties, and Institutional Responsibility

Documents the breach of fiduciary duty by Crown agents, the propagation of false land acknowledgements, and the complicity of academic, corporate, and judicial institutions in sustaining unlawful occupation.

Read Part II

Part III — Framework for Restoration, Recommendations, and the Path Forward

Outlines a ten-year restoration plan, proposes the Mohawk Posterity Registry and Royal Commission of Continuity, and reaffirms the spiritual and legal covenant through the Crown Plus Initiative.

Read Part III