Billy Two Rivers dies at 87

said that during his two decades as a politician

Two Rivers was involved in many of the turning points in Canadian history, including constitutional talks throughout the 1980s, and the Oka Crisis.

Joseph Tokwiro Norton during the Oka Crisis, the council said.

The Oka Crisis started July 11, 1990, when Quebec provincial police moved in on a barricade erected by Mohawks to protest the planned expansion of a golf course on what is ancestral land. A provincial police officer was killed and the situation escalated into a tense, 78-day standoff between Mohawks, Canadian soldiers and Quebec provincial police.

Russell Diabo, a Kahnawake Mohawk and Indigenous policy analyst,

Diabo said Two Rivers went to Ottawa to represent Kahnawake in political meetings during the 1990 crisis, while Norton stayed on the ground. Two Rivers advocated for Mohawk rights in different meetings with political leaders, including former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, Diabo said.

``He wasn't intimidated,'' Diabo said in an interview Monday. ``He was a good man.''

Diabo also got to see the other side of his friend when the two of them spent a week in London for a museum exhibit opening in the late 1980s.

``He was very good at being, I guess you could say, a good showman,'' Diabo said.

The council said Two Rivers stayed active in his later years, acting in sev- eral movies and television shows and remaining a prominent advocate for the Mohawk language. In 2019, he was one of 38 elders honoured for their contributions to the development of the Kahnawa:ke Language Law, the council statement said.

His IMDb credits include the TV series ``Mohawk Girls'' and the 2004 movie ``Taking Lives.''

In 2017, Two Rivers reached an agreement to settle a lawsuit against singer Van Morrison, whom Two Rivers accused of using his photo on an upcoming album cover without permission.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald expressed her condolences to Two Rivers' family on Twitter, and praised his ``articulate and powerful'' speeches at national chiefs meetings.

Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was among the many Canadians who expressed their condolences on Twitter.