The Skywalkers and September 11th

It was a beautiful morning. Several Mohawk Ironworkers from the Akwasasne Reserve were already at work 50 stories above the streets of New York City. The first plane flew by closer than 100 feet to their crane. They watched as it crashed into one of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, only 10 blocks away. While on the phone with Ironworkers Local 440 at Akwasasne, the second plane struck. These men, with an almost eye-level view of the horror, were among the many ironworkers of American Indian descent working in New York and New Jersey that day. The “Skywalkers” rushed to the Towers their fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins and they, themselves had built. They assisted with evacuation, and searched the rumble for survivors. Many worked for months in the recovery efforts.

The history of catastrophe among these men is long. The cemeteries at several reservations in the US and Canada are crowded with crosses made from steel and iron, the grave markers of fallen Skywalkers. The 1907 collapse of the Quebec Bridge is still referred to as the “Disaster.” Of the ninety-six lives lost, 33 men were from the small Kahnawake (Caughnawaga) band of the Mohawks, the first Skywalkers.

The Kahnawake Reserve, one of the oldest in Canada, began as a Catholic Mission populated in 1668 by Indians of the Iroquois Confederacy. Most were Mohawks from today’s western and northern New York State. The men of Kahnawake were skilled canoe freighters until the fur trade declined. Afterwards, many became renowned timber rafters, running huge lumber rafts over the Lachine Rapids near their home. The mission lands were converted in 1830 to a tax-free reservation by the Canadian government, however, the Band was able to maintain considerably more control than on other reservations.

In 1886 Grand Trunk Railway contracted with Dominion Bridge Company to build a rail bridge over the St. Lawrence River. The Kahnawake men were originally hired as day laborers to unload stone for the bridge abutment on Reserve land. But the workers, and the young men and boys hung around the worksite, and were much more interested in what the steelworkers were doing. In a 1949 New Yorker article by Joseph Mitchell, a Dominion official states, “It was quite impossible to keep them off…These Indians were as agile as goats.” About a dozen teenagers were hired to learn and work the iron spans. At this time, it was mostly sailors, experienced in working on tall ship masts, who worked the high structure of bridges. However, the young men of the Kahnawake were “natural-born bridge men.”

Dominion’s next bridge, connecting the twin cities of Sault St. Marie in Ontario and Michigan, turned into a trade school for the Kahnawake. Once an apprentice was trained and integrated into a work crew, another arrived from the Reserve. The training continued on each new project, and by 1907, there were over 70 experienced bridge men in this small Mohawk band. The challenge of the iron and to prove one’s courage did not wane for the men after the “Disaster.” But the women did institute a new rule, limiting the number of work crews on each construction project.

The Indian bridge men, known then as the “Fearless Wonders,” ventured out across Canada, and made their way into the United States. They recruited from other Tribes, and worked on skyscrapers and bridges from the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge. A coveted workforce for their skill, experience, and workmanship, they kept their language alive on the job site and taught co-workers. They customized “sign language” into hand signals. This system of communication continues, and is a requirement of ironwork apprentice training. A retired ironworker, Orvis Diabo, was also interviewed in Mitchell’s article. Having worked in 17 states in the US, he said, “When they talk about the men that built this country, one of the men they mean is me.” Native American Skywalkers were included in a famous photo taken during construction of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City in 1930. It shows two ironworkers straddling a girder and preparing for lunch. There is a white table cloth on the steel, and on either side, two other ironworkers dressed as waiters with serving trays. But American students of the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s saw this photo in a text book without knowing the Indian connection.

It was a beautiful morning on September 11, 2011. Ironworker Steve Cross was no doubt proud of the progress on the new One World Trade Center. He worked on cellular towers for a while, but had returned to “skywalking” the tall buildings of America’s cities. In June, 2011 he commented in a Postmedia News article. “…on this job right now, there’s Mohawks all over…It’s a good feeling building this project. It’s a long time coming.” The steel of America’s skyscrapers is as much a part of him as his Kahnawake Mohawk heritage. That iconic photo from 1930 included his Great-Grandfather and his Great Uncle.

Joseph Mitchell’s 1949 New Yorker article The Mohawks in High Steel