Young added lyrics to the song, which originally appeared on his album Ragged Glory. “Respect Mother Earth and her healing ways,” he sings. “Don’t trade away our children’s days.” The Honour The Treaties concerts –held in Toronto, Regina, Winnipeg and Calgary — raised funds for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Legal Defense Fund. It also sparked debate among Canadians about the oilsands and some criticism of Young.
An insightful blog posting by Angelina Pratt – a beneficiary of Neil Young’s 2014 Canadian tour and member of the First Nation Athabasca Chipewyan.
She has mixed feelings about everything that happened with Neil and the tribe and publicity and treaties and the anti-oil message. She expresses herself in a way that brings new perspective.
She writes: “The title of the benefit concert series was ‘Honouring the Treaties,’ although the organizers ought to have titled it ‘Canada’s Hiroshima’ because our Treaty was not the main focus. There was no real conversation on the Treaty, certainly not in any meaningful way, because the emphasis was placed on what Neil was saying.”
“However, Neil didn’t seem to know enough about the Treaty to speak on this subject, so he talked about what he knew, and his message was overwhelmingly anti-oil and anti-industry. Even our Chief deferred to Neil. Like the large wooden Indian that occupied Neil’s stage, our Chief, who was on stage for all of the pre-concert press conferences was virtually silent. It appeared to those of us on the sideline that it continues to be acceptable to allow well intended non-natives speak for a Chief, even in the 21st century.”
“Neil pulled no punches at his first press conference at Massey Hall, in Toronto, Ontario, where he repeated his earlier analogy of Fort McMurray’s oil sands industry to that of Hiroshima. The intent was to be provocative and controversial, and it was that and more. “
“I am of very mixed feelings about the tour. On one hand, I am very proud that our Chief was able to gain the attention of and partner with a high profile celebrity to draw attention to our plight and to raise much-needed funds for litigation. In my immediate family, Neil Young has always been held in high esteem for his musicianship and songwriting. Last Christmas, long before Neil became involved with our First Nation, I bought Hubby a very expensive set of Blu-ray discs that are the first instalment of Neil’s Archives as well as Neil’s book Waging Heavy Peace.”
“On the other hand, I also feel cheated and duped. I feel that the response to Neil’s celebrity and his flamboyant rhetoric overrode our First Nation’s interests and the balanced message our Chief started out expressing. Clearly, the entire tour was on his terms, or at least the media coverage of the tour gave that strong impression. One of the organizers admitted as much, that it was Neil who decided who was on stage with them when an appeal was made to include Dene elders at the press conference. When I recommended that the message be clarified and moved to a more balanced one, away from the virulent anti-oil and anti-industry position, I was told that Neil’s publicists and the inner group didn’t want to appear they were backing down. At that point, it became clear that the tour ostensibly about Treaties, was really about anti-oil at all costs.”
The blogger states her intent is to stay true to her core being.
“What this means to me is to stand in integrity,” she said.
The backlash to Neil Young’s anti-oilsands crusade now has a slogan Neil Young Lies, a website and a twitter feed which savages the singer’s environmental activism, according to Huffington Post.
@NeilYoungLies launched yesterday with this tweet:
NEW SITE exposing @NeilYoungLies in his campaign of abusing celebrity status to wage a campaign of deceit & propaganda against #cdn oilsands.
But their #NeilYoungLies hashtag was quickly, and hilariously, hijacked by snarky Twitter users.
Protestor Merle Terlesky, left (wearing toque) talking to Neil Young associate Dave Toms. Photo: Christopher Walsh.
Oil sands supporters protest Neil Young show in Calgary
Christopher Walsh | January 19, 2014
Neil Young says concerts got Canadians talking about oil sands, which equals success
A half dozen oil sands supporters took to the street outside the Jack Singer Concert Hall Sunday night in anticipation of the Neil Young Calgary show to protest the rock legend’s comments about the Alberta oil sands that they call “lies.”
“We want Neil to know we’re here,” said Merle Terlesky outside the final Honour the Treaties show of the tour. “We’re not here to shut him down, we just want him to tell the truth.”
Terlesky and other protesters say Young’s comments surrounding the development of Alberta’s oil sands are ill-informed and don’t reflect what the oil sands means for Alberta and the rest of the country. Neil Young came under fire last week for comparing the oil sands to Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. His four-city tour which wrapped up Sunday in Calgary was meant to raise funds for the Athabasca Fort Chipewyan First Nation’s legal battle to hault further development of the oil sands area.
The protesters said Sunday that Neil Young has confused his message about the oil sands and First Nations’ treaties.
“I’m a proud Albertan. I think Neil Young has a right to free speech, but he needs to tell the truth and separate the issues of the natives and the oil sands,” Terlesky said.
“It’s interesting that they say it’s not about the oil, it’s about the treaties; but all they’re doing is slamming oil,” said protest organizer Craig Chandler. “We got some people down here because we want to stop the lies and get the facts out.”
The group handed out info flyers and held signs that read, “stop the lies” and “proud of the Alberta oil patch.”
Arguments with concert-goers and Aboriginals were heated, but remained peaceful .“We don’t want to shut anything down,” Dave Toms told the oil sands supporters. “We just want you to clean up your mess. They’ll never fix it up the way it was.”
“Throw out the oppressors,” he told Terlesky. “This is an occupied city, dude, occupied by big oil and the CAPP.”
At a press conference earlier in the day, Neil Young told reporters the Honour the Treaties tour has accomplished what it set out to do by raising well over $75,000 for the Fort Chipewyan First Nations’ legal defence fund and raising awareness about the oil sands and aboriginal rights.
“Crazy Horse did not like white men because they
encroached upon his beloved wide-open prairie. He
detested their developments that chased away the
buffalo his people depended on for food and clothing.
When the cold came roaring down the Plains, the
buffalo faced those raging winds with its head into the
white storm, as if it were cleaning itself from hardship
and discomfort.
Those were the same winds blowing
against Crazy Horse’s face as the footprints of white
men stamped more and more across the land.” by -- Neil Young, 2012, Americana
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
This video from the Neil Young channel is being passed around social media.
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
liza on 
Baz on 
