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KAHNAWAKE, QUE. — Early on July 11, 1990, when Bryan Deer’s radio crackled with news the Sûreté du Québec was moving in on Kanesatake with tear gas and concussion grenades, he and his fellow Mohawk Warriors in Kahnawake knew what had to be done.

Within an hour, they had seized the Mercier Bridge, preventing rush-hour traffic from crossing the vital link between their reserve on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River and Montreal.

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It was a show of support for their brethren in Oka, a community 45 minutes away that shares close ties with Kahnawake. The Mohawks there had set up a blockade to protest the expansion of a golf course into a pine forest they considered sacred. Many Kahnawake Warriors had already joined the fight at Oka, but taking the bridge shifted attention from a remote road to the doorstep of Quebec’s biggest metropolis and signalled to the province it should back off.

“We knew the outside was going to be upset, but that’s what we wanted,” says Deer, now 51.