Negotiating Belonging and Basic Rights in Settler Colonial Canada: How Shoal Lake 40 First Nation's Freedom Road Campaign Succeeded

This paper presents a case study of a successful Indigenous-led social movement. After decades of struggle, amid ongoing colonialism, the Freedom Road campaign achieved meaningful change for a small First Nation in Central Canada, in part by appealing to and helping to generate a more inclusive vision of citizenship and belonging.

Shoal Lake 40 (SL40) First Nation is an Anishinaabe community on the Manitoba-Ontario border in Treaty #3 Territory. In 1913, without SL40's consent, the Canadian government approved a 150-kilometre aqueduct from Shoal Lake to supply the predominantly settler city of Winnipeg with clean drinking water. This development rendered SL40 an artificial island, impeding access to jobs, groceries, healthcare, and other services. Ironically, SL40 also endured one of the longest boil-water advisories in Canada. For decades, the First Nation lobbied for essential infrastructure, but settler governments consistently refused.

Based on interviews, sharing circles, and archival research, and by taking a decolonial storytelling approach, this paper examines how SL40’s longstanding campaign for all-season road access and clean water succeeded. It identifies the critical roles of visionary Indigenous leadership, creative strategies and tactics, and relationship-building in generating meaningful change. It emphasizes how, in the context of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2010-2015) and the opening of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg (2014), SL40 members framed their struggle in terms of human rights and reconciliation, and cultivated alliances with local and international groups and individuals who used their resources and networks to help advance the First Nation’s goals. In doing so, they promoted an expansive vision of citizenship and belonging whereby ensuring access to basic rights like clean water widely came to be seen as “everyone’s issue.” While drawing broader lessons on how to facilitate change, this research aims to honour the efforts of everyone who made Freedom Road possible.