Magnetawan First Nation

Highway 69 Expansion – Land Use Study

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) was seeking to widen Highway 69 from Parry Sound to Sudbury, creating a four-lane highway with road realignments, new overpass bridges and potential impacts on communities and the environment.  The proposed corridor passed directly through Magnetawan First Nation reserve lands and their broader traditional territory.

Our consultants coordinated a Traditional Land Use Study with Magnetawan First Nation and the Ministry of Transportation to document traditional hunting, fishing and gathering, occupancy and settlement movements over time, and the use of sites for cultural, medicinal and ceremonial purposes.

Our work included significant community capacity building for undertaking land use and occupancy mapping, oral history interviews, the use of videography for interviewing and geographic system mapping.

Project Impact

Overall the study resulted in increased understanding and trust among the parties, value for the community in terms of knowledge documented, culture building and capacity building and improved decision making among all parties to mitigate the potential effects of the project.