The Bloodvein blockade of Crown land is illegal. Canadians must insist on the rule of law, or watch public land quietly slip away

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The Bloodvein First Nation in northeastern Manitoba has erected a blockade on Crown land, barring non-Indigenous hunters from accessing a large area surrounding its reserve. While the move may reflect frustration with provincial policies or rising tensions over land use, there’s one inescapable fact: it is illegal.

Yet you wouldn’t know that from media coverage. CBC, for instance, referred to the affected area as “its land,” quoting First Nations leaders and provincial politicians who appear to believe that land surrounding a reserve belongs to the First Nation itself. It does not. The land in question is Crown land—public land owned and managed by governments on behalf of all Canadians, not by any individual or group.

Bloodvein is governed under Treaty 5, which, like other numbered treaties, involved the full cession of land to the Crown. The numbered treaties, signed between 1871 and 1921, were formal agreements between Indigenous nations and the federal government. In exchange for surrendering large territories, First Nations received reserved land, annual payments and the right to hunt and fish on unoccupied Crown land, among other benefits.

Canadians deserve clarity on treaty rights, property ownership and the rule of law.

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