Part 3 — The Mohawk Skywalkers: Indigenous Ironworkers Who Built North America
There is a famous photograph from 1932:
eleven men sitting on a steel beam, dangling their boots over Manhattan, eating lunch as if they were on a park bench.
Most people don’t know this, but several of those men were Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) ironworkers.
And that photo only scratches the surface of their story.
For more than a century, Mohawk communities from Kahnawà:ke, Akwesasne, Tyendinaga, and Six Nations have sent their bravest workers into the sky — literally — helping build the most iconic skylines in North America.
These men became known as the Skywalkers.
This is their story, and it deserves to be told with dignity, truth, and honour.
🌎 The Origins of the Mohawk Ironworkers
The story begins in the late 1800s when a bridge over the St. Lawrence River was being constructed near Kahnawà:ke.
The job was extremely dangerous — dozens of men died in the early attempts.
When the company needed workers who had balance, skill, and calm under pressure, they hired Mohawk men.
Indigenous men, who hunted, trapped, paddled canoes through rapids, and navigated rugged lands their whole lives, had natural balance and fear-management abilities.
These skills translated directly into working the steel.
From that moment on, a new tradition was born.
By the early 1900s, companies across the U.S. and Canada were specifically sending recruiters to Mohawk communities.
🏙️ Building the Skyline: From New York to Vancouver
Mohawk ironworkers helped build:
- The Empire State Building
- The Chrysler Building
- Rockefeller Center
- The George Washington Bridge
- The Golden Gate Bridge
- The World Trade Center (Twin Towers)
- Many of New York’s most famous skyscrapers
- Major bridges and towers across Canada
- Vancouver’s own skyline
They travelled thousands of miles for work, often leaving home on Monday and returning on Friday.
They lived in bunkhouses, small city apartments, or worker hotels.
Back home, their communities survived on their paycheques.
The skyline of every major city you can name has Indigenous fingerprints on it.
🧗♂️ What It Meant to Walk the Steel
Hollywood romanticizes high steel work, but the truth is much harsher.
Working the steel meant:
- walking beams the width of your boot
- climbing 40–80 storeys with no harness
- enduring freezing winds and swaying steel
- risking a fall with no second chance
- guiding red-hot rivets thrown through the air
- balancing on a skeleton of a building before walls even existed
There were no safety rules in the early years.
No helmets. No nets. No lifelines.
And yet the Mohawk ironworkers gained a reputation for being calm, grounded, and almost meditative in the sky.
Not fearless — focused.
Not invincible — disciplined.
Not reckless — skilled.
🖤 The Trauma the World Didn’t See
For every iconic skyscraper, there were funerals.
Many workers fell.
Many families mourned silently because “that was just the job.”
Women in Kahnawà:ke and Akwesasne said they lived in fear every time a car pulled into the driveway — afraid it was someone arriving with terrible news.
Entire communities were shaped by both pride and grief.
Some workers still carry survivor’s guilt.
Some lost brothers, cousins, fathers.
Yet they kept building because there were few economic opportunities for Indigenous people, and ironwork was one of the few jobs where racism didn’t block their entrance.
The steel didn’t care what colour you were.
🔥 The Twin Towers and the Legacy of Courage
One of the most powerful parts of Mohawk ironworking history is their connection to the World Trade Center.
Mohawk ironworkers helped build the Twin Towers in the 1960s and 70s.
When the towers fell on 9/11, Mohawk ironworkers returned — not because they were asked, but because they felt called.
They helped with recovery.
They helped cut steel.
They helped search for bodies and survivors.
They helped clear the rubble of the buildings they helped raise.
The story comes full circle there.
It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also heroic.
🌿 A Tradition That Still Continues
Today, younger generations from Mohawk communities still become ironworkers.
You can meet them on job sites across North America:
- Seattle
- Toronto
- New York
- Vancouver
- Boston
- San Francisco
They carry union cards, steel-toe boots, and traditions that go back more than 100 years.
They still work the high steel.
They still send money home.
They still honour the men who came before them.
Some are now women — the new generation breaking barriers.
The legacy lives on.
🧡 Why This Story Matters
This story isn’t just about buildings.
It’s about:
- Indigenous excellence
- erased contributions
- the dignity of labour
- the courage of working people
- the importance of community memory
- the rewriting of history so the truth can finally be seen
As we look at city skylines, we should remember the men who walked the iron bones of the towers — men whose names never appeared in newspapers or history books.
But we remember now.
And we honour them.
Coming Next in the Series
Part 4 — The Immigrant Builders of the Golden Age
Italian stonemasons, Irish labourers, Chinese workers, Japanese gardeners, South Asian carpenters, Filipino metalworkers, and Eastern European tradespeople who helped build Canada and the U.S.
Part 5 — Whose Name Gets Remembered?
A deep dive into why workers, artists, women, and Indigenous creators get erased from monuments and architectural history.
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