A day of confrontation between natives and non-natives in Caledonia, Ont. finally seemed to have died down by early Tuesday morning.

"A lot of people from Caledonia have gone home. There are still some people in front of the police, but it's not nearly as many as there was before," CTV's Scott Laurie reported from Caledonia early Tuesday.

The line of town residents had been facing a line of police in riot gear.

However, they are going home to homes without electricity. The overnight low is expected to drop to an unseasonable 3 degrees Celsius.

Caledonia is about 14 kilometres southwest of Hamilton and is very close to the Six Nations Confederacy reserve.

Vandalism and fire early Monday afternoon at a transformer station caused a blackout in Caledonia and Norfolk.

"We did see at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which coincides when the electricity went out in the entire town, a big fire that was burning over the hill. We don't know how that was caused," Laurie said.

Hydro One spokesperson Laura Cooke told CTV News that crews found significant damage to the transformer station and determined that it was caused by vandalism and fire.

Power is slowly being restored in pockets of Norfolk, but due to the extent of the damage in Caledonia, restoration is not expected for about three days, she said.

Good start, bad finish

On Monday morning, aboriginal protesters dismantled a blockade along Caledonia's Argyle Street, leaving one in place along Highway 6, a major thoroughfare.

The native protesters had removed the blockade on Argyle Street as a Victoria Day gesture of goodwill to help with talks to end the dispute.

"As the world has seen, our protest has been firm but peaceful ...," said Allen McNaughton of the Six Nations Confederacy. "We can appreciate the inconvenience to many decent-minded local people by the blockage of roads."

But, non-natives then blocked the road themselves, arguing that the natives' gesture was not genuine and that if they were serious, they would remove the blockades on both roads.

Things started to escalate, and one spokesman for Caledonia residents blamed the OPP.

"They were the people that allowed those confrontations to occur," said Ken Hewitt, spokesman for Concerned Citizens of Caledonia. "Those people should not have been belly to belly, and there should not have been a vehicle that drove through the human blockade here."

An SUV driven by a native protester tried to force its way through the residents' line.

The natives then made good on a threat to re-establish the blockade if the non-natives didn't end theirs.

The natives used portions of a hydro tower, then brought in a backhoe to start tearing up the road's asphalt surface.

"And that ignited things," Laurie said.

As tensions rose, there was pushing and shoving. Rocks were thrown, he said.

Ontario Provincial Police officers had trouble keeping the two sides apart.

While police were on the road between the two blockades, members of the opposing groups ventured off into a nearby field where violence broke out.

"Two melees which involved people coming to blows, fights, pepper spray. Police had to get involved to intervene and separate both sides," Laurie said.

"Some people were bloodied; ambulances showed up to take a couple of people away, some officers were hurt as well."

Police eventually cut off both sides from access to the field.

Due to the situation, Hydro One was initially unable to access the station because of the blockade. In total, 1,500 Caledonia customers have been affected by the outage and another 6,300 in Norfolk are without electricity.

Municipal officials declared a state of emergency following a meeting that went late into the night, in part because of the power issue.

David Peterson

The natives are angry over the development of a 40-hectare piece of land they claim belongs to them, although some argue it was sold to the Crown.

The group has occupied the construction site since Feb. 28. The road blockades went up on Apr. 20 after OPP officers tried to forcibly remove the natives.

At the end of April, the province asked former Ontario premier David Peterson to help negotiate an end to the dispute.

On Monday, he rushed down to Caledonia and told reporters he hoped the situation could be resolved peacefully.

"I think we have to appeal to the calmer heads to try to think carefully about the consequences of their actions," Peterson said.

"It's the future of the community and the reputation of the community that's at stake here."

Despite the fighting, Peterson said officials were still trying to prevent it from escalating further.

"All of us were praying and working hard to try to make sure something ugly didn't develop out of this, like an Oka or a Wounded Knee," Peterson said, referencing previous aboriginal standoffs that ended in violence.

"Hopefully we can get through this in a peaceful way and start a peaceful, meaningful engagement in some of these issues. That is the only solution to this problem."

Peterson said negotiations were scheduled to resume Tuesday, but this new eruption of conflict has made that uncertain.

"We were on a very constructive track until everything fell apart.''

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty issued a statement Monday night, saying: "The confrontation we saw today has no place in our society and it does nothing to help resolve this difficult situation."

With reports from CTV's Scott Laurie and Lia Rosekat