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A soldier’s helmet, a gas mask and a knife feature prominently on a shelf.

There are stacks of gun magazines and books for everything a soldier might need in the field, including a survival manual and a U.S. Army Special Forces medical handbook.

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This isn’t some military barracks, but Chris Big Eagle’s home on the Ocean Man First Nation, located almost 20 kilometres north of Stoughton in the province’s southeast.

Sunlight from outside pours in with a red tint, filtered through a flag that hangs in a window. It’s the flag of the Mohawk Warrior Society, depicting the head of an Indigenous man at the centre of a golden sun on a blood red backdrop.

On a wall decorated with newspaper clippings and pictures, one photo shows an Indigenous man clad in camouflage, sunglasses and a mask. He stands face-to-face with a Canadian soldier.

It’s an iconic image captured during the Oka crisis in 1990. Opposed to expansion of a golf course and condos on land claimed by the people of the Kanesatake reserve in southern Quebec, the Mohawk Warrior Society faced off against the Canadian Army.