Waawaate Fobister’s ‘Omaagomaan’ raises awareness of decades-long mercury poisoning of Grassy Narrows First Nation – kawarthaNOW
January 15, 2023
Public Energy presents award-winning two-spirit Anishinaabe artist’s latest work at the Market Hall in Peterborough on February 2
The decades-long impact of mercury poisoning on a northern Ontario First Nations community is the basis for Dora award-winning Anishinaabe artist Waawaate Fobister’s performance Omaagomaan, presented by Public Energy Performing Arts on Thursday, February 2nd at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough.
The contamination of the Anishinaabe community of Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation (also known as Grassy Narrows First Nation), located around 100 kilometres northeast of Kenora, began in 1962 when Dryden Chemicals Ltd. — which used mercury to produce large amounts of chlorine and sodium hydroxide for the Dryden Pulp and Paper Company for bleaching paper — discharged almost 10,000 kilograms of the toxic substance into the Wabigoon River, upstream from Grassy Narrows.
