Mad as a Hatter – Dominion Paper

Mad as a Hatter
Canada’s mercury pollution on Indigenous lands

August 15, 2008
by John Schertow

If a thermometer breaks in a classroom, spilling mercury, most children are taught to stay away. “That’s all it takes to poison an entire body of water,” teachers will tell them. Many children also read Alice In Wonderland at school, and are familiar with the Mad Hatter. Few, however, know that the crazy character in the children’s story is suffering from “mad hatter’s syndrome,” or mercury poisoning. Even less likely to appear in schoolbooks is the fact that there are hundreds of sites in Canada contaminated with this highly toxic metal, many of them on Indigenous land.

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