That the Secretariat of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River hereby enters in the Register the founding instrument of the BlueBelt + Grand River Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy, being the first charitable foundation constituted under the jurisdiction of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Country, commissioned by the Mohawk…
The instrument
Gazette No. 60 — BlueBelt + Grand River
Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy — Founding Instrument
3 April 2026 (Date of Registration) · Original: May 2022
Gazette No.: GZT001-050400-000060 [now GZT001-261406-000060]
Register Entry No.: REG001-050400-000060
Tracking Code: SG1403-050000-000059 Status: Perfected — Registered and Published
NOTICE OF RETROSPECTIVE REGISTRATION
BlueBelt + Grand River — Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy — Founding Instrument
Retrospective entry under Rule 11. Founding documents produced: May 2022. Municipal broadcast to 200+ Ontario clerks: 5 May 2022. Date of formal registration: 3 April 2026. The Register recognizes what has been operative; it does not create it.
Be it known and placed on record:
That the Secretariat of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River hereby enters in the Register the founding instrument of the BlueBelt + Grand River Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy, being the first charitable foundation constituted under the jurisdiction of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Country, commissioned by the Mohawk Charitable Foundation for Grand River and managed by Mohawk University for the benefit of the United Empire Loyalist Mohawk descendants.
I. IDENTITY AND CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS
Full Name: BlueBelt + Grand River, Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy
Commissioned By: The Mohawk Charitable Foundation for Grand River / Mohawk University
Managed By: Mohawk University, for the benefit of the UEL Mohawk Descendants
Website: bluebelt.org · info@bluebelt.org
Founding Documents Produced: May 2022 (three documents)
Municipal Broadcast: 5 May 2022 — every Ontario municipality clerk, County and Regional clerks, 200+ recipients
The conservancy takes its name and geographic boundaries from the days of early Mohawk settlement in acquired territories along the Grand River and the granting of the Haldimand Tract to Tyendanaga (Colonel Joseph Brant UEL) of the Mohawk Nation for the benefit of the Loyalist Mohawk descendants forever in perpetuity. The name “BlueBelt” denotes the riparian and ecological corridor of the Grand River system constituting the natural boundary of the Haldimand grant.
II. THE TERRITORIAL SCOPE
The conservancy operates across the full geographic extent of the Haldimand grant, which is properly understood in two dimensions:
The Haldimand Tract: 950,000 acres / 3,844 square kilometres — the six-mile corridor on each side of the Grand River from source to mouth as described in the Haldimand Proclamation of 25 October 1784.
The Grand River Watershed: 6,800 square kilometres — the largest inland river system in Oniatarí:io (“beautiful lake”), extending from the Grand River headwaters to the mouth of the Grand River at the Lake Erie shoreline, thereby establishing riparian rights over the full watershed.
The significance of the watershed frame is constitutional. The Haldimand Proclamation’s “six-mile corridor” describes the land grant. The watershed frame describes the riparian rights and ecological jurisdiction that attach to the grant. The full territorial sovereignty of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River is not confined to the six-mile corridor — it extends to the full riparian system of which that corridor is the core. This is the operative territory for the purposes of environmental protection, stewardship, and land recovery under the conservancy’s mandate.
III. THE MISSION
The mission of the Haldimand Tract Land Trust Conservancy is to protect, care for, and connect people to the extraordinary lands that make this area special. The conservancy protects the scenic, natural, agricultural, and open landscapes of Grand River for the benefit of the community and future generations by:
● Developing long-term land protection strategies;
● Promoting private and public funding for land conservation;
● Acquiring land and conservation easements;
● Practicing stewardship, including the restoration of conservation properties;
● Promoting a sense of place and a land ethic through activities, education, and outreach;
● Developing and sustaining a robust financial reserve ensuring stewardship in perpetuity;
● Becoming a recognized conservation leader and model for other land trusts seeking to protect critical habitat, managed forests, agricultural land, open spaces, and wetlands.
IV. THE THREE FOUNDING DOCUMENTS
The conservancy was constituted through three founding documents produced in May 2022:
(1) Mission and Vision Statement — BlueBelt + Grand River. Sets out the mission, vision, and institutional character of the conservancy. Confirms the conservancy is the first charitable foundation formed under the jurisdiction of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Country. States that the Trust is managed by Mohawk University for the benefit of the UEL Mohawk descendants.
(2) Conservation and Stewardship — BlueBelt. Sets out the stewardship framework, conservation tools, and operational approach. Confirms that the conservancy’s territorial scope encompasses the Haldimand Tract (950,000 acres) and the Grand River Watershed (6,800 km²), with riparian rights extending to the Lake Erie shoreline.
(3) Haldimand Tract — BlueBelt. An interactive map document dividing the Haldimand Province into smaller tracts based on the documented history of land appropriation. This document cites United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) on the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force as an analytical and legal framework for the Haldimand Tract land assertion. This is the Secretariat’s formal application of international law norms to the Haldimand land claim.
V. SERVICE OF NOTICE TO 200+ ONTARIO MUNICIPAL CLERKS
On 5 May 2022, the Secretary-General broadcast the three founding documents to every Ontario municipality clerk — including the clerks of all cities, towns, townships, regions, and counties — together with a covering letter asserting BlueBelt + Grand River as the Mohawk Nation’s institutional response to ongoing development on Haldimand Tract lands. The covering letter:
(i) Named the three villages of Canojaharie, Tikondarago, and Aughugo as the named beneficiaries of the Haldimand Proclamation and their posterity as the people for whose benefit the conservancy is constituted;
(ii) Asserted that the Haldimand Tract territory is promised to the Mohawk descendants and their posterity to enjoy forever;
(iii) Noted that the Grand Back Project was launched on 8 May 2021 to study the development process on the Grand River and become a learning organization;
(iv) Placed every Ontario municipality clerk on constructive notice of the conservancy’s existence and the territorial claim.
Mailtrack confirmed that the municipal clerk broadcast was opened across the recipient list in the week following dispatch. This constitutes constructive notice to every Ontario municipal authority of the conservancy’s existence, the Haldimand territorial claim, and the conservancy’s standing as the land stewardship institution of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River. This notice predates the formal opening of the Register by four years.
VI. THE DOCTRINE OF DEDICATION
The legal framework underpinning the conservancy’s territorial mandate includes the Doctrine of Dedication. The Haldimand Proclamation dedicates the Grand River Territory to the Mohawk Nation and their posterity to enjoy forever. A dedication in perpetuity is irrevocable without the consent of the dedicating party and the beneficiary. The lands within the Haldimand Tract were dedicated to the Mohawk posterity. They have never been formally un-dedicated by any instrument involving the Mohawk Nation as a consenting party.
The principle of laches does not bar the Mohawk Nation from asserting its rights. The observance obligation under the Haldimand Proclamation is perpetual. The Nation’s delay in registering the conservancy as a formal institutional instrument does not extinguish the underlying right or the Doctrine of Dedication. The conservancy’s establishment formalizes an assertion that has been operative since 1784.
VII. RELATIONSHIP TO MEPSI AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION FRAMEWORK
The BlueBelt + Grand River conservancy is the land stewardship institutional expression of the Mohawk Environmental Protection and Sustainability Initiative (MEPSI, SG0500-241102-010001, GZT001-050400-000048 [now GZT001-260905-000048]). The MEPSI directive formally names the Blue Belt Conservation and Stewardship Platform as one of its core implementation strategies. Together, MEPSI and the BlueBelt conservancy constitute the complete environmental governance framework of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River:
● MEPSI — the regulatory, enforcement, and policy framework (operative from 2 November 2024);
● BlueBelt + Grand River — the land stewardship, acquisition, and conservation trust institution (operative from May 2022).
VIII. CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMING
The Mohawk Nation of Grand River asserts that the Haldimand Tract and the Grand River watershed, as the territory dedicated to the Mohawk posterity by the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784, are governed by the following constitutional principles:
(i) The territory was set apart before Confederation and the Haldimand Proclamation has never been formally denounced. No act of Parliament, provincial legislation, or treaty has lawfully extinguished or diminished the rights thereby conferred.
(ii) United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), which declared the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, applies to the historical appropriation of Haldimand Tract lands. The Haldimand Tract map document produced by the conservancy applies Resolution 242 as an analytical framework to the documented pattern of land appropriation since 1784.
(iii) The Grand River watershed, extending to the Lake Erie shoreline, establishes riparian rights over the full watershed system. These rights are not limited to the six-mile corridor and were not extinguished by the Haldimand Proclamation’s boundary description.
(iv) Compliance with the Haldimand Proclamation is a duty imposed by law on all who swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown. Municipal governments, conservation authorities, and development entities operating within the Haldimand Tract and Grand River watershed operate within the conservancy’s territorial mandate whether or not they have acknowledged it.
EXECUTION
Executed under the authority of the Secretariat of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.
Secretary-General
Date
CERTIFICATION OF THE REGISTRAR GENERAL
I certify that this instrument has been duly received, examined, and entered in the Register of the Nation of the Mohawk Nation of Grand River Secretariat as a retrospective entry under Rule 11 of the Rules of the Register.
Gazette No.: GZT001-050400-000060 [now GZT001-261406-000060]
Register Entry No.: REG001-050400-000060
Original Date: May 2022 (founding documents); 5 May 2022 (municipal broadcast)
Nature: Retrospective — Rule 11
Cross-References: GZT001-050400-000048 [now GZT001-260905-000048] (MEPSI); GZT001-050300-000022 [now GZT001-260106-000022] (Land Registry); GZT001-010300-000027 [now GZT001-260609-000027] (Haldimand Accounting Instrument); GZT001-260114-000031 (ECR, Section XX); GZT001-260304-000059 [now GZT001-261406-000059] (Panattoni 423-acre Notice)
Registrar General
Date of Registration
This instrument forms part of the permanent record of the Secretariat.
Mohawk Nation of Grand River · Grand River Territory
Published in the Two Row Times — Publication of Record
