I had a fabulous sleep last night.  It was a quiet morning and I took time to speculate at how surprised and pleased I am to be ‘weathering’ so well.  I suspect others are feeling similar feelings.  Going in, I imagined that by the end of a full month, I’d be in far rougher shape than I am, energy/strength-wise.  Could it be that I continue to hold up so well because what I am doing here feels/is ‘right’ and, in conjunction with the efforts of others, the path remains clear.

Having internet service has definitely changed the look of my day.  I only spent about four hours outside today, compared to the usual 14 or more.  On the up side, the time was spent networking, mostly with radio stations across Ontario, and on an interview with Global TV.  They will air tomorrow night at 5:30 on Shawn Mallin’s show (I’ve likely spelled that incorrectly).  A positive response has quickly come back from radio-ecoshock, where they have already planned to speak with Jim Harding, author of  Uranium – Canada’s Dirty Secret, and will add a bit on our struggle here.

I neglected to mention that we had an unusual guest at the site last night.  Her (new) name is Mori (short for moratorium) and she is a feline, about 5 months old, mostly grey in colour, with very short hair.  Incredibly thirsty and hungry, she was inclined to devour the single can of dog food that I found, but, to give her stomach a chance to stretch, we fed her in little bits.  (That’s how we’ll be feeding me one of these days.)  I’m not sure whether she is lost or has been dropped off.  We’ve had a cat food donation and she is gradually getting her fill. Personality wise, she is a charmer. One of our MELT OPP officers has already fallen in love and I suspect that Kassia, Zephyr and Taegan will too when they visit on Wednesday.  We’ll wait to see if someone shows up to claim her before doing anything drastic.  Meanwhile, she is a lovely mascot for the site.

Today’s visitors included a couple of ladies who have been very active in Ottawa and in Carleton Place.  One, a member of Ottawa CCAMU, has written a newsletter and distributed 200 copies, with more to come.  I didn’t realize it when she visited, but she’s also responsible for the red ‘no uranium’ bumper stickers that you may have spotted.  The other has sent numerous handwritten letters to the Premier, the Prime Minister and various ministries and has had her ‘letter to the editor’ published in several area newspapers.  She’s planning to invite friends, feed them (potluck?) and have a letter writing party at her home.  This is an excellent idea for others to entertain and to spread around.  Maybe we could do it from here at some point, now that we have a nice warm spot to work from.   If you can join us at the ‘sit-in/picket’ at Premier McGuinty’s office on Friday, Nov 16th, throughout the day, how about handwriting a letter to deliver in person.

Scott Reid’s office called tonight and he will be out for a visit on Wednesday morning.  Scott is the MP (Conservative) in this riding and I’ve a personal connection to him, through Mike.

Blessings
Donna (and Mori – she enjoys ‘helping’ me type by walking over top of the keyboard)

Rock and Soul

Janice Kennedy

The Ottawa Citizen

SHARBOT LAKE, Ont. - The lake country west of Perth, a landscape of clear waters and boreal forests, could be a postcard for the True North Strong and Free. On the road up from Highway 7 into the interior, its sides defined by crags and dark outcroppings, travel is not so much across the Canadian Shield as through it. Precambrian rock, old as time, holds the planet's secrets.

One of those secrets is uranium, the heavy-metal element that offers new power sources through nuclear reactors -- and the dark possibility of destruction, through weapons and radioactive pollution.

It is uranium's dark side that has a 53-year-old woman spending hard days and nights by the side of a county road in the area, stubbornly cold and without food. For 28 days now, Donna Dillman has been on a hunger strike.

"It was something I felt I could do," she says simply, explaining this particular protest. "It was an attention-getter." She plans to take no food until the provincial government declares a moratorium on uranium mining in Eastern Ontario.

Dillman's home these days is a roadside patch of the rugged terrain 12 kilometres north of Sharbot Lake. A stretch of gravel and grass, it is dotted with flags, temporary shelters and signs announcing that "Our spirits will not be broken." The site is outside gates opening on to more than 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) marked for uranium exploration and open-pit mining by Frontenac Ventures. Nineteenth-century provincial legislation allows the company to enter private and Crown land without permission and mine underground minerals -- like uranium, whose market popularity has skyrocketed in recent years.

The project exploded into controversy when a private landowner was outraged to discover last fall that Frontenac had staked some of his property and, subsequently, when the area's First Nations communities set up a blockade June 28. In a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty, Chiefs Doreen Davis and Paula Sherman pointed out that the land is unceded Algonquin territory, and, "while we generally permit activities by non-Algonquins in our territory, and indeed welcome settlers and the development they bring, we cannot accept uranium exploration."

Their concerns are understandable. When released from the rock that encases it, radioactive uranium can contaminate both air and water. The tailings, pulverized rock left over after extraction, possess elevated concentrations of radioisotopes. They release radon gas into the atmosphere and seepage water contains radioactive material and other toxins. From the proposed mine area, that water would end up in the Mississippi River watershed and ultimately in Ottawa, where it could filter into the capital's water supply.

Frontenac Ventures, which says its extraction method is safer than earlier methods, claims its mine would have no measurable impact on an environment that already has plenty of natural uranium contamination.

Native protesters temporarily left the blockaded site two weeks ago to await the outcome of legal wrangling between them and the mining company. But Dillman is in for the long haul.

She has spent her nights in a sleeping bag inside a cramped camper van and, more recently, a hut. During the day, she walks about the small area or sits by a fire that warms shins and little else.

Even in the crisp sunshine of a late fall day, it is cold, with gusts of wind funnelling up the road to the site. This is the worst part of it, she says, this cold that penetrates her five layers of clothing and seems to come from both outside and in.

Matter-of-factly, she reports that she has headaches, sleeps poorly and gets dizzy if she stands or turns too quickly. To maintain her strength, she drinks herbal tea, juice and a concoction of maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper, which neutralizes stomach acid. She has dropped more than 12 pounds.

But she is awash in support. A nurse checks her every two days, and there are always people around to offer warm socks, fruit juice and companionship. From down the road, Hedy Muysson, 68, drops by three times a week. A former Torontonian who once worked with refugee children, she is profoundly opposed to uranium mining and hopeful about Dillman's protest.

"It has to work," she says. "There's no maybe about it. We can not have a mine here." The protest signs outside homes up and down the road echo her words. The Green Party, to which Dillman and her husband belong, has publicized her hunger strike, and leader Elizabeth May called her "inspirational."

Outside the area, and outside the environmentalist community, reactions to Dillman vary. Many are impressed by the obvious courage of her convictions, but others view her in a less kindly light.

She angers defenders of nuclear power and critics of newer alternative power sources, who see her position as unreasonable and extreme. She gets under the skin of people put off by the implied arrogance of her action, by the suggestion that one ordinary person should make a difference, by the maddening persistence of her self-denial, by her unspoken reproach to the comfortable. Some people just call her a flake.

"Hmm," she says, her smile wry. "I don't consider myself a flake. And I don't think what I'm doing is crazy. I'm here to make a statement."

Wife, mother of four, devoted grandmother, entrepreneur, all-round busy bee, Dillman lives a full, rich life she has no desire to endanger. Nor does she enjoy creating anxiety for her family who, she says, are torn about what she's doing, both proud and worried.

"But I believe in it. I wouldn't be able to keep going if I didn't."

Every second day, she writes Premier McGuinty, who has not yet responded. She wants him to know that uranium and nuclear energy are not benign. That area real estate values are being threatened. That the proposed mining project could endanger a million of his constituents, including family and friends in his home town of Ottawa.

Yes, she admits calmly, her politics and lifestyle probably belong to the "loony left." "But maybe it's time people started listening to the loony left. They've been saying things about cancer and asthma since the '60s, and it's all been proven to be true."

She met her current husband, environmentalist Mike Nickerson, at a 2002 Green Party convention. She has the gentle speech of the "alternative healer" she is in her other life. She practises reiki in the Lanark County home she shares with Nickerson and her youngest daughter.

But the strike and uranium fears transcend polarizing politics, she suggests. "We're doing this for our grandchildren. We could have the Band-Aid solution of power for 30 years, then we'd run out of uranium, too -- except we will have left a lot more hot spots behind and gene damage going into forever. It's not the legacy we want to leave, and I don't think it's the legacy McGuinty wants to leave."

She's willing to give an inch, though. If the government even announced an inquiry into a moratorium possibility, she'd start eating.

"Beyond that, I don't have an end date," she says, wind whipping her words, ancient rock beneath her feet.

"I'm here for the duration."

Janice Kennedy is a senior writer at the Citizen.

Up until this point, Donna has been reaching out to folks with the help of friends.  Some of us are keeping this blog going (a huge thank you to Nathan Sloniowski!!) and are unable to respond to all the kind words of support you are sending Donna's way.  Please know that she is hugely appreciative of your thoughts and prayers.

We are very grateful to Sheila MacDonald for taking the following footage of Donna.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

The following is a press release from the Green Party of Canada

26.10.2007

Green leader lauds federal councilor for hunger strike against uranium mining

OTTAWA – Green Party leader Elizabeth May today lauded the efforts of Green federal councilor Donna Dillman, who has received national media attention for a hunger strike she began on October 8th in an effort to end uranium mining in Eastern Ontario.

Ms. May, who staged a 17-day hunger strike herself in 2001 to get federal action on the Sydney tar ponds, renewed the Green Party’s call for a moratorium on uranium mining and prospecting, calling Ms. Dillman’s hunger strike “inspirational”.

“Donna’s effort plays an important role in the campaign to end uranium mining and prospecting in Canada,” said Ms. May. “Her actions are indicative of the broad-based, community opposition to uranium extraction and the severe environmental and health effects posed by a uranium mine in Eastern Ontario.”

Ms. Dillman has been camped out at a mine site in Robertsville, near Sharbot Lake in Eastern Ontario, where thirty thousand acres have been staked out for uranium exploration by mining company Frontenac Ventures. Ardoch Algonquin and Shabot Obaadgiwan First Nation have blockaded the mine site at Robertsville since June 29th of this year.

“Radioactive particles released by mining are carried downwind and downstream and have the potential to poison hundreds of thousands of Eastern Ontarians. Nuclear energy is no solution to the climate crisis and is inevitably linked to nuclear weapons proliferation. The Green Party would end mining and refining uranium in Canada and put a stop to perverse subsidies to the nuclear industry.”

After a quiet start to another t-shirt and shorts, beautiful day, (can this really be Oct 22?) we were pleased to greet a film crew from The National this a.m.  After my interview, they spent time with Bob Lovelace before heading to Frank Morrison’s to film the staked claims on his property.  It will likely have aired by the time you read this, as it is scheduled for Tues. at 9 and 11 p.m. on News World, and at 10 on The National. 

It feels very strange to me to be in the ‘limelight’ having been content to be the major support person, behind the scenes, for so many years.  During the filming and throughout the day, the site was abuzz with folks milling about, meeting new people, talking about yesterday’s meeting, this a.m.’s filming and various strategies to insure a moratorium.

Long distance visitors included a family from England, a couple from Killaloe, who brought along firewood, warm clothing and other gifts; Green Party representatives from Renfrew County; and Eric Walton, who is the Federal Green Party Candidate from Kingston – and a personal friend. The Greens and NDP representative, Ross Sutherland, who has been at the site several times over the duration, continue to take an interest in what is happening here.  Our new MPP, Randy Hillier would be most welcome, as would Liberal Party reps. Perhaps they need more letters and phone calls to encourage them.

I’ve not mentioned that Mike is off on book tour in Montreal.  He and I have spent most of the last year and a half on the road with his latest book. Before my life took a turn and I ended up here, I had planned a Vipassana Retreat south of there.  Mike was to spend the ten days doing discussions in the area.  When my plans changed, he consolidated his and is away for just a week.  At the same time, Kassia and her family, having been in a car accident (they are all fine) on their way to spend a day with me a week ago Saturday, decided to go to Nova Scotia, while her car is in the shop being repaired.  They are visiting with her older sister, Terra Nova, in Halifax and helping celebrate Eliza’s 9th birthday.  All to say that I’m missing family, so it’s really great to be seeing so many community members, from near and far, that I have come to love and admire over the years.

Again today, I was fatigued by midday.  I actually considered a nap, but that time will come soon enough.  I’ve a letter to get off to Premier McGuinty today, and, as well, one to our new MPP to advise him of what I am up to out here in Robertsville, just in case he has not heard.

Love
Donna

The OPP landed in first thing to do their surveillance.  There was a bit of a stir when the landowner and a neighbour wanted to come onto the property and were denied access (by the OPP) while that was happening.

Around 70 people attended the open Native council meeting this afternoon to hear Ardoch’s lawyer explain where things sit currently.  Lots of people stopped by during the day – it didn’t hurt that the weather was bright and beautiful. It is clear that support is strong and growing.  The prize for longest distance traveled goes to a couple of gentlemen from N.B., while our highest profile guest was Frank DeJong, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario, and a personal friend, who stopped in to check up on me. Soon the trailer will be heated and the hut is already cozy and warm, so please come by for a few minutes, a day or several.  Just bring your sleeping bag, pillow and toothbrush.

News came from CBC Morning Show that they were not going to come for an interview after-all because they had heard, erroneously, that the blockade was down.  (Although they are showing good faith and continuing their move to this side of the gate, until the ‘I’s are dotted and the ‘T’s are crossed, the Natives continue to hold the gate.)   I explained that to the young woman who called, but she was not convinced that there was still a story here.  From my perspective, whether or not there is a blockade matters not to my purpose and presence here.

In the meantime, I know that we will win this by people power and with the power of the Internet.  Whatever you are doing – whether it is writing Letters to the Editor; attending the site; getting a ‘Bring Gramma Home’ sign where people can see it; speaking to your MP’s or MPP’s and the Premier, sending emails far and wide, including this blog; copying the petition; speaking, or having someone speak to your group; getting together a coalition of grandparents (and honourary grandparents) in your town or city; making donations or holding a fundraiser, please keep doing it – something each and every day.  If you have some other ideas please run with them and let us know so that we can share them.

CCAMU is looking for people to picket the Premier’s office and hand out info at city hall in Ottawa (and possibly Queens Park, too).  If you are in Ottawa or Toronto, or can be, please let us know when you can spare a few hours.

Thanks to Philip Thompson for the fabulous sleeping bag - good to 25 below.  With some hot rocks and a hot water bottle inside with me, the cold problem should be licked (and just in time too).  Up till now, I had not been naming the people who have been supporting just in case they’d rather not have their name on the site, but I was assured that Philip would be ok with that.  Thanks for the note too, Philip. It’s incredible how the needs of the camp are met sometimes even before we put out a request.  Thanks everyone.

Today was the first day that I felt fatigued and my blood pressure was up, though still in the acceptable range.   Weight loss is in the 10 lb. range.  Mentally, I’m good and I’m feeling both disappointed - to think that what I am doing is not of interest - at least to one news program (expectations will get ya every time) and blessed to have the support that is here (and out there).  I’m also grateful for the break in the weather.
Love
Donna