Combine every Indian reserve in 10 canadian provinces and together they wouldn't cover one-half of the Navajo reservation in Arizona. While canadian Indian reserves appear as small, disconnected pinpricks scattered across the country, just south of the border Indian reservations are vast, contiguous landholdings. There are 200 significant reservations in the U.S. (98 are small "rancheria" settlements in California). In Canada there are 2,370 reserves in the 10 provinces, 1,600 of them in BC with average size less than 250 hectars.
According to cartographer, lawyer and writer Robert White-Harvey:"Isolated reserves tend to be poorer. But there is no one magic formulafor development. Generally,though,the larger the land base, the greater the potential for development."
The average size of a U.S. reservation in the lower 48 states is 72,487 hectars(283 sq.miles), which is 64 times larger than the 1,139(4.5 sq.miles) hectare average size of a reserve in Canada's provinces.
Source: Canadian Geographic, SEP/OCT 1995 .
More information
Temagami First Nation: land claim negotiations.
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