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Originally Posted by shimmy2
all of the above is true bman. though i have to admit the natives have it better on the canada side of the border in terms of monies and services. i've lived and worked on reservations in both countries. unfortunately most reservations look really 3rd world. you will often see shiny brand new cars/trucks parked in front of a shack with no windows or doors. they have government money coming in and get all sorts of kickbacks yet they still struggle to get by. so they do scenes in between checks haha... but think about it, if u got a taxfree indian status card, a monthly percapita check just for being indian, casino earnings kickbacks, and huge government reparations settlements every few years (the latest big case check in canada was the settlement over how schoolteachers treated indians badly 30yrs ago... 100% of canadian status indians alive got paid big if they're still living today) man i'd be indefinitely set for life and want probably wait for the mailman to bring my check too. you're so right about prices being inflated on the reserves too. everything costs BIG money because so few vendors do business there.
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Way back int he day I used to work as a swamper on a hydrovac truck. Our truck's territory was mostly situated in and around a northern alberta indian reservation. You could tell where the reservation boundaries started, because that's where the refrigerators and washing machines in the ditch start, and they continue down any road you follow until you leave the rez. Oh, and watch the fuck out for stray dogs and children, they are everywhere. They run out on the road like deer from the strangest places.
They don't drill water wells out there, they have giant freshwater tanks. Why? Because it is cheaper to truck them water for the lifespan of the house than it is to drill a well! The entire reservation looks like a post apocalyptic wasteland. Beautiful new houses, gutted, destroyed and left to weather.
I almost thought my driver was joking when he told me, then a while afterward I was rigging up to a tank just behind a yard on the rez mid afternoon. I see a school bus roll up on the road, and 4 little native kids come strolling off. At this point I usually stand around on the edge of the oil lease and smoke cigarettes for an hour or so trying not to fall asleep while the truck pumps, so I have a goof extended period to watch these kids. What do these little shits do?
They go into the backyard which was facing our worksite, so I can see everything they are doing. They start throwing rocks at the wall. Then they're beating it with sticks. Once they get some nice holes broke in the siding, they get their sticks underneath and start prying it up. Then they tag up on it and start ripping the fucking siding off the house. Brand new house getting just thrashed, and this is how 90% of the homes there look. It's fucking sickening.
Go hang out in Onion Lake, Hobema, Sunchild. Fucking ghhhhhhhetto. You better hope you don't run out of gas on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Your vehicle won't make morning without being a smashed heap of shit...
Obviously this isn't every reservation or every native person, but jesus fuck are there some bad ones. It reminds of way back I was sitting in a little northern oil town bar having some drinks and I'm talking with this old indian dude, real funny guy. He tells me this "You know, there's indians, and there's
fucking indians, and there's a WHOOOOOOOLE LOT of
fucking indians..." I just about shat myself laughing.