Gregory J. Sarazin is a traditional artisan and knowledge holder residing in Pikwakanagan First Nation with his wife Helen and teenage son Kaleb. Greg is also a successful business person and currently owns and operates 2 businesses in the community, employing a dozen community members.
Greg is born and raised in Pikwakanagan and has made Pikwakanagan his life long home. He is one of seven children born to Stanley and Jacqueline Sarazin and also has seven children and seven grandchildren. Having been raised on the land he has a strong and unbreakable connection to our Algonquin homeland. He is an avid outdoorsman: hunting, fishing, trapping on his own registered trapline and gathering materials from the forest for his traditional birch bark canoes.
In addition to his professional experience, Greg is a published author “220 years of Broken Promises”, featured in “Drumbeat”, and the recipient of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Commissioners Citation for Lifesaving.
You can find "DrumBeat, Anger and renewal in Indian Country" here
You can find the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Commissioners Citation for Lifesaving here
Greg is a Pikwakanagan Indian Day School Survivor and after Catholic school in Eganville and high school in Douglas, he furthered his education in colleges in Lindsay and Pembroke, then University in Peterborough Ontario.
As a child Greg lived next door to his grandfather Daniel Sarazin and has vivid memories of his grandfather building birch bark canoes. Greg’s father Stanley learned to build birch bark canoes from his father Daniel and eventually established his own Birch bark canoe building workshop. This is where Greg, along with his mother and his brothers learned birch bark canoe building from Stanley and where they continue to build them today.
As a traditional artisan and knowledge holder, he continues to honour his traditional responsibilities of passing that knowledge on to the next generation of Algonquin people as his father did before him and as his grandfather did before that.
Most recently, he along with his brother Henry have just conducted another birch bark canoe training course in their father’s canoe shop in Pikwakanagan in the fall on 2022.
Greg has always worked for the betterment of Pikwakanagan. In the early 1980’s he was elected to his first term in council. After serving Pikwakanagan in that role for 2 years, he went on to work for the Ontario government as Native Economic Community Development Officer for Eastern Ontario. Pikwakanagan was one of the communities that he serviced and along with successful projects in many other First Nations communities, he was instrumental in the successful achievement of our community centre, our community rink and the regulation lighting for our community ball field.
Greg was elected Chief of Pikwakanagan in 1987 and throughout his tenure he worked tirelessly to support our continuing Algonquin Rights, to bring attention to unsurendered Algonquin land title and to achieve the beginning of the Land Claim Negotiations. In addition to the many many letters to government officials and meetings with government officials lobbying to establish the Land Claim Negotiations, Chief Greg Sarazin led the people of Pikwakanagan on several protest marches to Parliament Hill where he garnered the support of thousands of people.
Timeline of Chiefs of Pikwakanagan
In September of ’88 Chief Greg Sarazin accompanied the people of Pikwakanagan to the Eastern Gate of Algonquin Park where we held our blockade. Here, we stopped all vehicles and passed out our information on our inherent land rights and title struggles and we gathered much public support. Many of our members and supporters from Whitney area and other areas came out and joined us at the blockade.
See The Original Eganville Leader Articles here
During this time, Chief Greg Sarazin was contacted by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) who wanted to publish a book outlining all of the hot spots in aboriginal Canada. Apparently, we at Pikwakanagan had raised enough awareness to be included in that project. My contribution was “220 Years of Broken Promises” and was published by the AFN in the book “Drumbeat, Anger and renewal in Indian Country”.
You can find "DrumBeat, Anger and renewal in Indian Country" here
While being Chief of Pikwakanagan, Greg was elected by his peers, the Chiefs of the Southeast Anishinabek First Nations, as their Grand Chief. Grand Chief Gregory James Sarazin was tasked with the responsibility of providing leadership to, and representation of, the Southeast Anishinabek First Nations Chiefs on aboriginal policy and rights issues as those issues were being developed within the greater Anishinabek Nation and as those issues were advocated to federal and provincial governments.
Greg moved on from his role as Chief of Pikwakanagan to become the Manager of Economic Development and continued in that role until 1991 when he was approached directly by the new Chief and Council to be the Chief Negotiator of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan Land Claim Negotiations which was finally accepted for negotiation.
During his time as Chief Negotiator, he was also tasked with managing the human and financial resources assigned to the negotiations as the Director of Negotiations. Under his management and leadership, Algonquin Law concerning hunting and fishing was enacted and the Algonquin Harvest Department and Algonquin Tribunal was established.
Greg held that post until 2001 when internal political differences caused the negotiations to collapse.
Afterward, under the banner “Kagitawe Consulting”, Greg and Helen worked in and advocacy role, helping community members with everything from business plans to proposals for funding to preparing tax returns and advice and liaison and so on.
After another term on Band Council in 2006, and the passing of his father, Master Canoe Builder Stanley Sarazin, Greg and his mother Jacqueline and his siblings put to good use the lessons of his father and together they built a birch bark canoe for Parks Canada’s Rideau Canal. That canoe is currently on display at the Rideau Canal site in Smiths Falls, Ontario along with the video of that project.
Greg is now successful business person and currently owns and operates 2 businesses in the community, employing a dozen community members.
Most recently, he along with his brother Henry have just conducted another birch bark canoe training course in their father’s canoe shop in Pikwakanagan in the fall on 2022. Discussions are now ongoing with the Pikwakanagan Cultural Centre, Omamawanini Pimajiwan about conducting future training sessions in 2023 and beyond. Greg is proud to continue the legacy of his father and his grandfather by teaching the traditional art of birch bark canoe building so that the knowledge and skill will continue in Pikwakanagan and not be lost to the ages.
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