Black top stopped

May 25, 2007)
Plans to extend and pave the Baptist Church parking lot in Caledonia were put to an end this week when native protesters showed up at the site and blocked workers. The work stoppage began Thursday, May 17 and and continued early Friday, May 18th.

Half a dozen native protesters, some wearing camouflage, stood in front of earth movers and on top of a gravel pile defying workers.

When the crews from Norton Construction arrived back on May 18th (Friday morning) the protesters shut them down and said they were not doing any more work. “They blocked our truck and trailer up then blockaded us in,” says McMaster.

The protesters said the Norton employees could not go anywhere because they wanted their five loads of dirt back. “We said no problem, you can have your dirt back, but that wasn’t good enough.”

Norton Construction even offered to put the dirt on the protesters’ trucks for them. “They said that wasn’t good enough.”

McMaster says the protesters wanted the dirt dropped on the property at DCE. “We didn’t want to do that because we thought that once we dropped the dirt off they would keep the trucks.”

The protesters were not removed from the site by police.

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