Salish Sea Sentinel March 2018

Volume 14 . Issue 2

March 2018

SAYSUTSHUN

A Hawaiian connection PAGES 6-11

Clam bed rock PAGE 5

NAUT’SA MAWT TRIBAL COUNCIL NATIONS

Naut’sa mawt - Working together as one EDITORIAL TEAM Cara McKenna – Editor editor@salishseasentinel.ca Todd Peacey – Photographer Celestine Aleck (Sahiltiniye) - Columnist DESIGN & LAYOUT Kelly Landry & Carmel Ecker ADVERTISING & DISTRIBUTION Todd Peacey ads@salishseasentinel.ca PUBLISHER Gary Reith, CAO Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council 330-6165 Highway 17A Delta, B.C., V4K 5B8 604-943-6712 or 1-888-382-7711

The Salish Sea map was created in 2009 by Stefan Freelan at Western Washington University

PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #42922026 Undeliverable mail may be returned to: 330-6165 Highway 17A Delta, B.C., V4K 5B8 circulation@salishseasentinel.ca

1. HALALT

(250) 246-4736 chief@halalt.org www.halalt.org 2. HOMALCO

(250) 923-4979

The Salish Sea Sentinel is published monthly, ten times a year, by the Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council, representing 6,500 people in 11 member nations. © Salish Sea Sentinel is all rights reserved. Contents and photographs may not be reprinted without written permission. The statements, opinions and points of view expressed in articles published in this magazine are those of the authors. The publisher accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, transparencies or other materials.

COVER PHOTO: A welcoming post carved by Snuneymuxw artist Noel Brown sits on Saysutshun (Newcastle Island). Photo by Cara McKenna.

3. KLAHOOSE

Qathen Xwegus Management Corp

(250) 935-6536 www.klahoose.com 4. MALAHAT

(250) 743-3231 caroline.harry@malahatnation.com www.malahatnation.com 5. TLA’AMIN

(604) 483-9646 clint.williams@tn-bc.ca www.tlaaminnation.com 6. SNAW-NAW-AS (Nanoose)

(250) 390-3661 chris.bob@nanoose.org www.nanoose.org

7. SNUNEYMUXW (Nanaimo)

(250) 740-2300 www.snuneymuxw.ca 8. STZ’UMINUS (Ladysmith)

(250) 245-7155 Ray.Gauthier@coastsalishdevcorp.com www.stzuminus.com 9. TSAWWASSEN

(604) 943-2122 info@tsawwassenfirstnation.com www.tsawwassenfirstnation.com 10. TSLEIL-WAUTUTH

(604) 929-3454 cao@twnation.ca www.twnation.ca 11. T’SOU-KE (Sooke)

(250) 642-3957 administrator@tsoukenation.com www.tsoukenation.com Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council 8017 Chemainus Road Chemainus, B.C., V0R 1K5 (250) 324-1800 • www.nautsamawt.org

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STANDING TOGETHER IN THE FACE OF ‘GRAVE INJUSTICE’ Indigenous leaders in B.C. demand change after ‘not guilty’ verdicts in deaths of Boushie, Fontaine People across the country are calling for justice and reform after two unsettling not-guilty verdicts in the deaths of two Indigenous youth that have laid bare the racism that exists both in and outside of Canada’s court system.

Colten Bushie, a 22-year-old from Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, was shot and killed by Gerard Stanley while sitting in an SUV that was driven onto Stanley’s farm in 2016.

Stanley was charged of second degree murder but acquitted on Feb. 9 after a jury trial – a decision that sparked outrage and calls for change across the country.

“I’m not just angry I’m enraged,” Musqueam activist Audrey Siegl told a group of hundreds during a #JusticeforColten event in Vancouver.

“I’m not just hurting, I’m broken.”

Her words were echoed by legal experts who said the trials exposed racism and deep cracks in Canada’s criminal justice system—saying the lives of

Indigenous people are discounted.

Others wondered whether themselves or their family members would be next.

Just two weeks after the verdict in Boushie's case, a second not-guilty verdict was given to the man accused of killing of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine.

Raymond Cormier was accused of second degree murder but acquitted by a jury on Feb. 22.

A statement from the B.C. Assembly of First Nations said the two cases show that systemic colonialism and racism must be addressed.

“There can’t be reconciliation without justice. All the systems have been tested and have failed us,” said Regional Chief Terry Teegee.

“We are calling on immediate changes from Prime Minister Trudeau and Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould…First Nations are fed up. We must do better now before more of our children are killed.”

Doug White III from Snuneymuxw First Nation, a co-chair for the B.C.

Aboriginal Justice Council, said after the verdict in Boushie’s case that he will use his role to push for change.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder with our relations across Canada and will work to ensure that this grave injustice is acknowledged,” he said.

The B.C. Aboriginal Justice Council is recommending that Canada’s attorney general establish an immediate national committee led by experts to put a lens on Indigenous justice and human rights and to provide strategic advice on improving the country’s legal system.

White said the verdict should awaken the conscience of everyone in Canada.

“The trial (in Boushie’s case) began with a jury selection process that reportedly excluded all potential Indigenous jurors by peremptory challenges,” he said.

“The reality of this verdict drags Canada’s justice system out from behind the window dressing of reconciliation rhetoric and exposes real problems that we must urgently address together.”

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AROUND THE SALISH SEA

A FISH HATCHERY FOR HALALT Chief James Thomas is taking action on dwindling salmon populations in the community’s waters

By Edith Moore Chief James Thomas of the Halalt First Nation has a dream for his children and grandchildren; a dream to be able to fish in our river the same way he and his brothers did when they were younger.

Back in 1983, they would effortlessly be able to catch 200 fish a night. But just two years later, he remembers, the numbers had dwindled so much that they needed to fish with a flashlight.

James’s vision around replenishing our river with fish has been crucial for the community. Before he became chief, James was the nation’s fisheries officer, and he still holds that position today.

For the past five years, it has been his goal 4 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

to build a fish hatchery.

In 2016, the local municipality was replacing the Chemainus River Bridge and this created an opportunity to work together to gain the settling ponds and reservoir that was needed. TimberWest contributed a steel container that would become the main part of the hatchery. As the many donations rolled in so did the volunteers, and many more contributors.

By the end of March, we will be witnessing the official opening of the hatchery. The hatchery has the capacity to stalk 760 thousand eggs, and chief is proud to report that the stock is 70,000 fry that are re-hatched and swimming.

The expected return from this release will

be 21,000 fish.

This is just the start to one man’s vision.

We are so thankful to his dedication and hard work as we see that this is just the start to great success. Keep your eyes open for more news on the hatchery, as the official opening will also be reviving the “Salmon Ceremony,” celebrating who we are as the “Salmon People.” Pulling together with Stz’uminus, Lyackson, and Penelakut to make this happen is just a small example of Naut’sa mawt. What we can accomplish when we are willing to work together as one.

Edith Moore is Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council’s communications liaison and a member of Halalt First Nation.

COAST SALISH STORIES

CLAM BED ROCK ON SAYSUTSHUN Snuneymuxw has always treasured Saysutshun (Newcastle Island).

It has been used for three things: to harvest traditional medicines, for training grounds for canoe pullers where they had run the trails, and as a place of healing.

Since Saysutshun was used all year, there had been a family that had lived on the island to help maintain the trails, ensure the medicines were harvested properly and that the beaches were well cared for. With this family lived a young man who would go out to a point where Stlilnup (Departure Bay) can be seen. The young man would see a young lady across the way and every day they would talk.

Well, one day he had decided he had wanted to finally go and meet her. He jumped into the water and swam across, but as he had gotten halfway, the water started to thlapqwum (boil) and a stleluqum (monster) came up and swallowed the boy. Then the sea monster went back down into the water. The girl on the other side in Stlilnup began to scream, and everyone came down the beach where she was, and the elder of the village had asked what had happened. She said that her friend had tried to swim across but was swallowed by a sea monster.

The elder of the village told the men to go home and get their spears and paddles and come back, and he then told the women to go down to the beach and gather as many clams as they could and put them into canoes. When the men had come back with their spears and paddles, and the women came back from putting the clams in the canoes, the elder of the village had told the men what to do She said that when you go out into the middle where Stleluqum lives and hit the top of the water with paddles, then wait until you see the water thlapqwum (boil)

Told by Celestine Aleck (Sahiltiniye) of Snuneymuxw First Nation then throw the clams in the water. The stleluqum will eat the clams. Eventually, she said, he will pop his head out of the water and want to be fed more clams.

When he does that, you feed him a few times and then spear him in the mouth.

So the men had gone out into the water and done as the elder had told them to.

In the end, they speared the stleluqum and dragged him to the beach where the elder was. The elder told the men to gut the stleluqum, and out jumped the young man with no bites or scratches.

That fine day long ago when they had thrown the clams over the canoe, the clams had washed up unto Saysutshun and had turned into a perfect bed of rocks that were shaped as the clams.

Celestine is a published writer/illustrator who considers herself very fortunate to have learned some of the rich stories of Coast Salish territory from her elders. She can be contacted at celestinea@snuneymuxw.ca.

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HAUNTED

ON SAYSUTSHUN Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) writer and educator. During a trip to Snuneymuxw territory, she was unsettled to find an apparently violent connection to her people on Saysutshun (Newcastle Island) when she came across Kanaka Bay and the story of so-called “Kanaka Pete.”

Celestine Aleck, a Snuneymuxw author and cultural support worker, said she has never come across any information in Snuneymuxw archives about the story, but that she has heard versions of the story from elders while she was doing research about Saysutshun.

“I know that when the coal-mining era began Saysutshun was purchased for $1.00, so Snuneymuxw never had a say as to Kanaka being buried on their land that has always been used as a place of healing,” Aleck said. “Since he was not from Nanaimo, he could not be buried there, so he was buried in the last place he was alive, which is now known as Kanaka Bay.” Continued on page 8

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INTERWOVEN HISTORIES:

A KANAKA’S STORY ON SNUNEYMUXW TERRITORY

By Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua As Canadians celebrated the150th birthday of their confederation and tell stories about the founding of their settler state, many Indigenous people celebrated 150 years of resistance. I am thinking about the thousands of First Nations women that have been murdered or gone missing in the past century and a half. I am thinking about the Canadian government’s insufficient inquiry into this issue.

I am also thinking about a story that has possessed me since my recent visit to Nanaimo. It is a story about a Hawaiian man who settlers have come to call, “Kanaka Pete,” and who slayed his “Indian wife,” Que-en; their infant daughter; and Que-en’s parents, Squash-e-lik and Shil-at-ti-Nord. Retellings of this ghost story speak of an axe murderer whose spirit still haunts the uninhabited island where he was buried. But so many of the other horrors that provided the backdrop to this violent act are hidden in these narratives. I felt compelled to retell this story in solidarity with #Resistance150.

Looking for things to do in Nanaimo, my kāne (man/husband) and I came upon a map of a small island off the coast. The name “Kanaka Bay” caught our attention,

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and we knew immediately that we had to go check it out. So, the next morning we caught a 10-minute boat ride over to Newcastle Island. Upon arrival, we found a sign maintained by the Snuneymuxw First Nation indicating that the island is part of their territory and its real name is Saysutshun. Intrigued, ʻĪmai and I pressed on, eager to find out how Kānaka had left their mark on this place. We figured it had something to do with the hundreds of Kānaka who had come to the Pacific Northwest on whaling and fur trading ships.

My excitement turned to horror when we reached the bay and found a small sign that made brief mention of how the bay was named for a Hawaiian man who slaughtered his family in Nanaimo, then fled to, and was apprehended at, Newcastle.

After being hung for his crimes, his body was buried in an unmarked grave at this site, and it became known as “Kanaka Bay.” Knowing the bones of a Kanaka might be somewhere under our feet, I wanted to give him proper respect. But I also wanted to learn more about this crime for which he was killed and to honor the people on whose territory he is buried.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him and about his wife and her people. The swirl of emotions that standing at the edge of this bay stirred in me stayed with me for days, actually for weeks.

The gruesome story of Peter Kakua and Que-en, and the conflicting feelings that churned in my na’au, focused my attention on questions that have been posed by Indigenous feminists for many, many years now: How do we fortify our nations by reclaiming our own notions of family, gender and sexuality? How do we confront the violences of patriarchy while loving and honoring our men, as vital parts of our nations? How do we raise up our women? How do we hold people in our communities accountable for individual acts of violence while not losing sight of the larger systems of violence and exploitation in which they are situated?

How do we mourn Native women and men who have been murdered, gone missing, or taken their own lives, remembering them and retelling their stories, without replicating the traumas they suffered? How do we rematriate?

I chanted softly at the mouth of the bay, not knowing the protocols of the Snuneymuxw people. We stood in silence

before we left the shore and crossed over to other parts of the island that were quarried for sandstone and mined for coal. If emptiness and thick presence can coexist, I felt them here.

Settler retellings of the story of “Kanaka Pete” draw on the worst, dehumanizing stereotypes of Indigenous people— drunken, violent, incestuous, irrational, at times pitiful and at others straight up evil, and certainly barbaric slaves to their own impulses. In some versions, Peter is represented as so drunk that he had practically no control. In some versions, seeing his wife having sex with her father sends him over the edge. In no version do we learn much about Que-en herself. It took me digging up a 1972 article published in the Hawaiian Journal of History to learn that she and her parents were from the Penelakut tribe, not Snuneymuxw.

But the horror stories tell us nothing of her, usually not even her name.

So many structural and material violences are left out of the sensational ghost

stories. I recount a few of those violences here. In so doing, I do not mean to exonerate Peter Kakua. But how can I visit the sands of his grave on this island so far from the sands of his birth, without bringing him some aloha, some recognition, some attempt to understand the life he was living? Where would I go to pay homage to Que-en and her daughter? How can I visit the territories of the Snuneymuxw and Penelakut peoples without offering some mihi (repentance, remorse) for the part that one of my people played in violences against their people and lands?

The Snuneymuxw nation’s signage tells us this is a sacred place: “Those who carried the gift of spirituality and healing came to the island for spiritual training.”

The tiny island was also part of the Snuneymuxw people’s migratory patterns; they moved with fishing cycles.

In the late 1840s, white settlers heard there was coal on this island. Once they confirmed the presence of coal on Saysutshun, settler companies began dig-

ging mine shafts, and a short but intense period of extraction ran from 1853-1856.

The Hudson’s Bay Company owned the fields for some time but sold them by 1862. Colonial miners dubbed the island “Newcastle,” after the port city in the UK that was part of the oldest and most intensive coal mining industry in England. By 1854—in the midst of the coal rush—colonists in Nanaimo pushed for a treaty between the British Crown and the Snuneymuxw, alienating the first people and fixing them in place.

It was in 1853 that Peter Kakua left Hawai‘i and began working for Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). It was a time of population collapse and rapid change in Hawai‘i. We don’t know why Kakua left—for adventure, opportunity, tragedy, necessity? But we know that he was one of hundreds who were recruited by HBC. In any case, he worked for the company on contract, as did many Kanaka, and then he went on to work for James Douglas, Continued on page 10

SALISH SEA SENTINEL • 9

Continued from page 9

the Governor of Vancouver Island (who was also the head of HBC in that region).

Since the 17th century, the British crown had given HBC monopoly trading rights over about 15 per cent of all the lands in North America, and the corporation was de facto colonial government over much of that territory through the mid19th century. By the mid-1860s, Kakua found himself working for the Vancouver Coal Company at Nanaimo. It was there that he and his common-law wife, Que-en, set up a modest home and had their baby girl.

Many of the stories begin with a drunk Kanaka Pete running, returning home from a night of drinking just as his wife, assisted by her parents, was packing up to leave him. A “failed marriage,” they say.

Colonial legal records show that in December 1868, Peter Kakua admitted to having killed his wife, daughter and parents-in-law with an axe in their home.

He was hunted, tried and executed by white authorities.

Mind you, this was not an established Canadian legal system that you might imagine. Corporate interests were deeply tied to what was becoming the settler government. In 1849, the British government leased Vancouver Island to the Hudson’s Bay Company including the right to govern it. So many Kānaka settled in the area around HBC’s headquarters in Victoria that the area was called “Kanaka Row.” The judge, Joseph Needham, who sentenced Kakua was a British barrister who arrived to serve a five-year term as chief justice only three years before Kakua’s trial. He became known for doling out hangings in a few highly-controversial cases involving conflicts between Indians, Blacks and Kānaka. This fact and the ways that the stories of “Kanaka Pete” represent his relationship with Que-en as an unsuccessful marriage remind me of Dian Million’s insights about “the white patriarchal state, a state that first destroyed and then substituted itself for their family and that can then sit in paternal judgment of their ʻmorality.’”

I wonder what it would be like to live in 10 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

such a cold place thousands of miles from home, with no way back, and to suddenly confront the reality that you could be without a family. What is it like to wake in pools of their blood and feel the weight of their deaths sitting on your back?

I wonder what was Que-en’s life was like. What knowledges did she hold in her hands? In her feet? In her gut? How long had she dealt with men who unleashed anger about the conditions of the lives onto her body? How did it feel to give birth in a time of land theft and rapid settlement? In one account, she and her parents were loading her things onto a canoe. What was their intended destination?

If she had escaped, what stories would she whisper to her daughter? Whose names would she speak like medicines?

Settler stories say that the morning after the killings, Kanaka Pete tried to escape to the mainland, near Vancouver, but stopped off at Newcastle to drink some more and to drop off a companion. None of them mention that his friend, Adam Stepney, was Black, nor that there was a substantial population of free Black settlers that had been invited to the area by the Hudson’s Bay Company. In fact, the first large wave of Black settlers to British Columbia were Californians who had

been invited by James Douglas. Douglas’s mother was an African Creole from the Caribbean.

Constables apprehended Peter Kakua and Adam Stepney, taking them back to Nanaimo where Peter was jailed. The Coroner’s Inquest, the first inquiry into the cause of the deaths happened so quickly thereafter that neither the Penelakut nor the Snuneymuxw had the opportunity to bring Kakua into their own sovereign processes of justice and restitution. What authority did settlers have to pass judgement for violence committed on Penelakut bodies, on Snuneymuxw territory? Were Penelakut relatives able to come and collect the remains of Que-en and her family? Did they conduct their own mourning ceremonies? The settler narratives don’t ask these questions.

Ghost stories do not mention that Kakua’s defense attorney requested several documents from the Attorney General, Henry Crease, but never received them. They don’t mention that the Hawaiian Consul—representing the independent Hawaiian Kingdom— requested on this Hawaiian subject’s behalf that Kakua’s counsel draw up a petition for commutation and mercy. The Hawaiian Consul offered evidence from a

statement collected from Kakua in Hawaiian at a meeting two weeks after his trial. Peter admitted to killing his family, but he indicated there was self-defense involved because his father-in-law had come at him with an axe when Peter tried to pull him off of Que-en. The petition was ineffective.

There was never an opportunity to make such a petition for Que-en, her life cut short at the convergence of threatened Native masculinity, extractive corporate industries and a nascent settler state.

Peter Kakua was executed on the morning of March 10, 1869, making no public remarks. The year after Que-en, Squash-e-lik, Shil-at-tiNord, and the baby girl were killed, the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company began quarrying sandstone from Newcastle Island.

The company had been contracted by Joseph Emery of the United States Mint in San Francisco. Much of the sandstone that was taken from Saysutshun went to the construction of monoliths to settler colonialism and settler capital, so deeply intertwined.

That same year, 1869, the Hudson’s Bay Company turned most of its lands—the ancestral and unceded territories of numerous First Nations—over to the newly-formed Canadian government.

Thirty years later, in 1899, workmen of the New Vancouver Coal Company unearthed Peter Kakua’s body accidentally. In just thirty years, his story had become so invisible that settler authorities undertook a physical autopsy just to figure out who they had disturbed.

They eventually reburied him, but the story of “Kanaka Pete” was resurfaced and took on a new life.

While haunted by Peter and Que-en’s story, I learned that Saysutshun has traditionally been used by the Snuneymuxw as a place of healing. When someone passed away in the community, loved ones would go to the island to yu’thuy’thut, to fix up their heart, mind and body; to “let go of their tears.” Little did the colonists who buried Kakua know, Kānaka often buried our dead in unmarked graves at sandy shorelines.

And so, we sat between the resting place of this Kanaka, the earthy caverns emptied of coal, and the piles of discarded sandstone next to the old quarry. We walked about trying to find the best way to move amongst these skeletons, giving them due respect without stepping too boorishly or making too much noise, and yet remembering Dian Million’s insight: “colonialism’s strongest defense”is silence.

E Peter, e Que-en, e Squash-e-lik, e Shil-at-ti-Nord, e pē, e Stepney– There may be no stories that can make up for the violences Kānaka inflicted or were complicit in on these lands, but our genealogies are woven together, for better and for worse. Let the protective curves of this bay hold the fullness of your stories, the complexities and colors of your emotions. Let the rotting seaweed become nourishment for new life. Let the abandoned mine shafts fill with potential energy. Let the logs cut by corporations, yet escaping capture, float into this bay and line the shore like an amphitheater for audiences of ancestors.

Let us sit and tell stories that heal. Let us make spaces for the multigenerational legacies of sexual trauma that our peoples continue to carry be aired, so that no man or woman commits such harms again.

Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua works as Associate Professor of Indigenous Politics at the University of Hawaiʻi. You can contact her and view more of her writings at noegoodyearkaopua.com.

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NEW CHIEF, COUNCIL SWORN IN AT SNUNEYMUXW

Coun. Paul Wyse-Seward, left, and Chief Mike Wyse make their election official.

Photos by Todd Peacey Snuneymuxw’s new chief and council was sworn in during a ceremony at the nation on Feb. 1.

Chief Mike Wyse (Xumtilum) was elected to lead the nation with 311 votes on Dec. 2. He was running against John Wesley.

Councillors Chris Good, Emmy Manson, Erralyn Thomas, Joe White Jr. and Paul Wyse-Seward were also elected.

Snuneymuxw holds staggered elections for half of its council every two years.

Coun. Emmy Manson, left, and Coun. Chris Good.

Snuneymuxw's elected councillors.

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SALISH SEA SENTINEL 13 Chief Mike•Wyse

SECOND HƐHƐWŠƖN CANOE UNVEILED AT TLA’AMIN Elders gave the small canoe the name ƛičos (springtime) to represent a fresh start Photos and story by Cara McKenna The unveiling of a second Hɛhɛwšɩn canoe at Tla’amin marks the beginning of a greater understanding between the nation and wider community.

A small, 4.5-metre canoe for children and youth was revealed at a Powell River high school on Jan. 29 before making its way back to be presented and named at the nation.

A first, larger, Hɛhɛwšɩn canoe was revealed during a celebration in November.

Both canoes were shaped by a team of carvers, youth from local schools and hundreds of others who came by to participate in the effort as it took place on a beach in Powell River over many months.

Hɛhɛwšɩn, meaning “the way forward,” is a growing initiative that was started

With this canoe, what I was hoping is that we would get conversations going...

I’m hoping that the nonIndigenous community understands just how powerful this can be.

by Phil Russell (k̓ʷʊnanəm), Tla’amin citizen Cyndi Pallen (čɩnɛ) and Elder John Louie (Yahum).

Russell is originally from Ireland and has many close friends at Tla’amin. He said in an interview that he believes non-Indigenous people should take more responsibility to change this country for the better.

“I noticed that a lot of the work was coming from the Indigenous community and not so much from the non-Indigenous community,” he said. “With this canoe, what I was hoping is that we would get conversations going…I’m hoping that the non-Indigenous community understands just how powerful this can be.”

Russell said the canoe project idea was originally presented to Tla’amin with a ceremony and feast last June – but it was non-Indigenous people who led it all.

“It was a bit disconcerting for the Indigenous people at first,” he said. “But by the second event they were more comfortable with what the concept was, that we were actually coming in with respect and to learn.”

Continued on page 16

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Continued from page 15

Pallen and Louie have both been in the background since the outset to support and gently lead the process.

“We said if you’re going to do this, you’re doing it the same way we would do this, which means you’re bringing the teachings forward,” Pallen said.

“It’s all about healing and honour.”

Hɛhɛwšɩn builds on years of work done within the community to heal from residential schools.

Pallen and Louie both do healing work with survivors and have also hosted reconciliation-centred gatherings at Tla’amin.

Louie, a survivor himself, agreed that the non-Indigenous community must do more to learn about, and from, Indigenous people. He said he hopes that the new canoes will be an education tool for years to come.

The vessels will be dried out and painted, and will then be used by the community for canoe journeys and teachings.

“Every year at Tribal Journeys it’ll become a talking point to carry on with 16 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

this,” Louie said. “It’s a tremendous tool for creating awareness.”

During the second canoe’s presentation at Tla’amin, Elder Elsie Paul announced that she and a group from the community decided to give it the name “ƛičos,” meaning “springtime.”

“Keeping in mind it is for the youth, it is for the upcoming young people,” she said. “It’s awakening from a long cold winter and the sunny days are coming…

Young people can be proud of who they are. A bright future. Moving forward in a good, healthy way.”

While the canoes were being carved on Willingdon Beach in a process being led by skilled canoe builder Joe Martin from Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, more than 1,000 schoolchildren visited to watch, participate and hear stories.

Hegus Clint Williams said he is impressed by the project and that the name is fitting for the canoe.

“Because this canoe is intended for the youth, and I really hope it stays around and that all the schools get to use it and feel proud of the canoe,” he said.

“This is a beautiful thing.”

Russell said work will continue on Hɛhɛwšɩn, as a committee is now formed that will have regular meetings and outline the next steps for “the way forward.”

Louie said that even though society still has a long way to go in terms of truly reconciling and fixing relationships, “the canoe is starting to move forward,” he said. “We’re a long way, but at least we’re going in that direction.”

SALISH SEA SENTINEL • 17

INVESTING IN CULTURE: HOMALCO CHIEF ENVISIONS BRIGHT FUTURE FOR YOUTH

By Cara McKenna Homalco Chief Darren Blaney has a vision to help the next generation to have a strong cultural understanding, thriving resources and big dreams.

The recently elected leader ran on a campaign of investing in youth and reconnecting them back to their language, songs and territories, along with bringing healing to the community after residential schools and the loss of its lands and resources. He is working to regain Homalco’s access to its territories, including the fish in its own waters which it struggles to access because of government rules, and to improve the nation’s troubled finances.

The Sentinel caught up with Blaney during a recent visit to Homalco to talk about his plans.

The Sentinel: Hi Darren. You’ve now been chief since November.

What are some of your major priorities at the moment?

Chief Darren Blaney: The youth. We want to invest in our youth. In my campaign letter, I said that everything that we make from our logging company, our bear tours, everything would be directed at helping out the youth­—and elders—towards culture and healing.

They all are kind of one package.

We have to work on that, because we want them to start to have dreams again. A lot of them are in school and they don’t have much idea about what kind of goal they have for themselves.

So Homalco will be providing opportunities for them to learn and practice culture?

Yes, and that’s what our cultural camp in Church House will do. It will give them a sort-of cultural boot camp over there.

They can connect with the territory, they can start to use the language a bit more out there—I’m hoping it’ll be just all language out there, because if they 18 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

can’t communicate unless they do so in our language, then they’ll have to learn it faster. They can learn about our resources—the fishing, the clam digging in our territory—and get connected with it. Because these kids haven’t been up in Bute, our territory, too often. And in Church House, we lived by the tides and the water and the winds. Storms prevented us from travelling, or if the tides were low we could go dig clams or ling cod, or set nets. My grandfather and I always used to go travelling and go out on his little boat. We’d dig clams or pick berries. We’d be hunting while we were travelling too. All those things we did. Sometimes we’d even pick urchins when the tide was right.

So it’s a matter of bringing back some of those opportunities to the youth, and encouraging them.

It’s part of their identity, but since we’ve come (to our current reserve) part of that identity has been cut off, and we haven’t made the effort to connect them back to their territory. We have these neighbours who think they own the territory and make our people quite often feel unwelcome. Our job is to know our history so that we know not to be impacted by what anyone says.

This is our territory, we know our territory, and what anyone else says is meaningless. A lot of the time our kids feel smaller because they don’t know our history and our culture, so that’s what we have to do to build them up.

If you look at the kids, many of them are lost right now. But if you just put some time and money and effort into them and they’ll build up on their own.

For example, we just found that we have $1,000 a month from London Drugs that was supposed to be going towards our kids but instead it was going into

the band account, and our kids had no money for activities. Now they have that money and they’re starting to figure out a plan for it. Soon, our logging company will be out of debt and we’ll be doing the same. Maybe we’ll give them something for part of the year but they should have a big one for a trip somewhere. I’d like to see them go to the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque. They should go to these places. They should see all these wonders of the world. Because when you come back from trips you have tons more confidence and I think that’s what our kids don’t have. Any place we can build them up, we’ll try to build them up.

Continued on page 20

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SALISH SEA SENTINEL • 19

Continued from page 19

So that’s the wider vision for the next little while—can you talk a bit about some other things that are happening for Homalco right now?

With our logging company we’re starting to change the board around to get more expertise. For me, it’s a focus on our people. We have 20 or 30 jobs in our logging company, but we have maybe three or four of our members working there. With the lack of employment in the community, some of the benefits of that company should be coming to the community. The company itself has a big debt load. We’re trying to work with them because we’ve got a pretty big debt load ourselves, so we’re working on our finances. We’re putting some discipline there, we’re monitoring what we’re spending. Eventually we’ll get to a point where we can make a plan. My example for this is what the Haida do.

They own 50 per cent of their forestry.

That’s where we need to get to, if we have that kind of control of resources in our territory, our rights become

Our job is to know our history so that we know not to be impacted by what anyone says. This is our territory, we know our territory, and what anyone else says is meaningless.

stronger, and our economic development also becomes stronger.

The hatchery has also been pretty neglected. We’ll be meeting with Department of Fisheries and Oceans and other people who are familiar with hatchery work. We’re going to bring them all together and brainstorm our roadmap for the hatchery to start to expand it. I get pretty annoyed with DFO. If the hatchery produces enough, the commercial fishermen will get first shot at it, then the sports fishermen, and Homalco is last in line. If there’s something left over and Homalco can make an economic benefit of it, then Homalco will. But it’s never happened. It’s our work, it’s our time and it’s our investment. So I’d like to change that around a bit and work on something else. Because it is our territory, and our people have managed the salmon stocks

for thousands of years and the fish traps were the way of managing them. When DFO goes in there, they put a gate there and, say 700 pairs of coho salmon gets in there, they block the rest of them off.

That doesn’t necessarily make sense— how do they know that the ones that they blocked off aren’t the stronger ones? Our people managed that in a totally different way. They had fish traps and let the bigger ones go through, and took the others for themselves. That’s what I’d like to see us doing again. Our opportunities for food fish are almost gone now.

We have sockeye in Homathco and we haven’t to start figuring out how do we get in there and start restoring those.

We have lots of ways we can do it and part of that is taking a look at the forest companies and seeing what kind of impact they have on the salmon stocks.

The last thing I wanted to ask you about is the community radio station —is that still moving forward in between all of these other projects now that you’re chief ?

It’s going, I’d like it to go faster but I have to be patient with that. I’ve had some meetings on it and we’re still working on funding for it. We have lots of people who are excited about it. One guy came and saw me yesterday, he wants to be the DJ. We have another lady downstairs, when we had the conference here in May, she did an interview and it was broadcast nationally on Redwire. So our people are practicing how to do interviews with those expensive mics and equipment. It’s pretty neat to see. Our radio station is one of the biggest in Canada so it’ll reach down to Nanaimo and Port Hardy. The profits will go to the youth, elders, and culture and healing. It’ll start to build up a trust fund and I’d like for it to keep building a trust fund.

Thank you for your time.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TSAWWASSEN LEGISLATURE OPENS FOR SPRING SESSION Session from Feb. 13 to March 8 will involve passing budget Photos and story by Cara McKenna The Spring session of the Tsawwassen Legislature is now in session as leadership aims to build on the community’s successes in 2018.

While it is in session, the legislature— consisting of 13 members plus the chief —meets every Tuesday and Thursday.

The Spring session opened on Feb. 13 and will continue until March 8.

On Feb. 13, legislators gave their opening remarks.

Chief Bryce Williams said the session will be especially important because the budget will be passed through.

22 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

It’s really exciting times that we’re in, and I just can’t wait to break ground on certain things.

“I look forward to passing this budget and moving some of these very important projects and initiatives forward,” he said.

“It’s really exciting times that we’re in, and I just can’t wait to break ground on certain things.”

Williams said the Tsawwassen government has been evolving to meet the demands and responsibilities of

self-government. The nation’s treaty became effective in 2009.

He said last year’s budget focused on increasing staff in the lands department, and as a result revenues have grown.

“We are finally beginning to see some positive results,” he said.

During the first session, two new staff members made a pledge of honour: Tsawwassen’s new Chief Administrative Officer Richard Zerr, and new Chief Building Official Karl Neufeld.

The Tsawwassen Legislature sits twice per year in the spring and fall. Its sessions are open to the public and also livestreamed.

NEW B.C. TREATY COMMISSIONER FROM TSAWWASSEN Tsawwassen Nation Councillor and Legislator Tanya Corbet has been announced as B.C.’s new Treaty Commissioner.

Corbet was elected into the role by chiefs and delegates from the First Nations summit on Feb. 8.

The B.C. Treaty Commission is the organization responsible for facilitating treaty negotiations between First Nations and the provincial and federal governments.

A statement from Tsawwassen Nation said Corbet’s many years of experience of being engaged with the B.C. treaty negotiation process will bring “significant value” to the commission.

Tsawwassen Nation’s final agreement was historic as the first urban treaty in the province.

“We’re very proud of Tanya’s achievement, and wish her all the best in this exciting new role,” the statement said.

SALISH SEA SENTINEL • 23

Left to right: Asivak Koostachin as Lucas, Joey Lespérance as Robert, Rev. Margaret Roberts as Sarah, Madeline Terbasket as Siya and Sam Seward as Joe in Theatre for Living’s šxʷʔam̓ət (home). Photo: David Cooper

INTERACTIVE PLAY ŠXʷʔAM̓ ƏT COMES TO SNUNEYMUXW

Touring production puts lens on relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada

By Julie Chadwick šxʷʔam̓ət (home) is a production with big aspirations.

Directed by David Diamond from Theatre for Living, šxʷʔam̓ət is broken down into two sections. The audience observes the first part part as a traditional play, and then in the second much-longer interactive section, are invited to actually take part.

Taking inspiration from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, Diamond’s work seeks to not merely use theatre just to illustrate and tell a story, but also as a tool of social change.

24 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

In the company’s 30-plus years in operation, it has delved into a range of topics from corporate power to gender, mental health, Israel/Palestine and addiction. For this production, they focused on the theme of “reconciliation.” šxʷʔam̓ət—co-directed by awardwinning Salteaux/Cree writer, producer, actor and documentary filmmaker Renae Morriseau—featured a mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous cast including Snuneymuxw actor Sam Seward (Nekwimetstn). The play showcased a variety of interwoven mixedcultural storylines.

During the production, which was shown to a packed audience at Snuneymuxw’s recreation centre on Totem Road on Jan. 21, Diamond clearly acknowledged his role as a white man facilitating what was taking place, “how often we inadvertently make it all about us,” and how ultimately the task at hand is to “break that pattern.”

The motivation behind the play came from a sense that he needed to take responsibility, he acknowledged.

“There have been a lot of proclamations, good words, promises, and apologies. Even legislation is on its way,”

he said. “But apologies have, of course, no meaning unless the behaviour that made them necessary—and the structures out of which those apologies became necessary—change.”

It was with that sentiment, and with respect paid to the residential school survivors in the room, that the initial half-hour portion of the play began.

At a crucial point in the action, the story stopped, and the house lights came on. At this point the next portion of the show began, in which the play would be re-enacted, but with the opportunity for audience members to shout “stop” at any point, take the place of an actor onstage, and play out how it could go differently.

It was clear that there was immense collaborative effort to create the stories in šxʷʔam̓ət, and both writing the directorial finesse exercised by Morriseau and Diamond resulted in realistic characters that weren’t just caricatures of cultural stereotypes.

In one scene, the character Lucas (played by Asivak Koostachin) struggles with understanding his Indigenous heritage, which has been kept a secret,

Asivak Koostachin as Lucas in Theatre for Living’s šxʷʔam̓ət (home). Photo: David Cooper

Left to right: Asivak Koostachin as Lucas, Rev. Margaret Roberts as Sarah, Joey Lespérance as Robert.

Photo: David Cooper

after being gifted a medicine pouch from his friend Siya (Madeline Terbasket).

His adopted mother Sarah (Rev. Margaret Roberts), a white minister, takes the pouch from him and refuses to return it.

At this point in the re-enactment the play was stopped and an audience member took the place of Sarah. In the discussion that ensued, people talked about the mother’s fear of losing her son and spoke of the son’s right to know the truth about who he is.

Of course, not every issue around colonization and reconciliation can, in Diamond’s words, “bubble up” in the limited timespan of one play (though it did go on for almost three hours). However most of the audience members who participated appeared to be non-Indigenous, and it seemed like much of the conversation remained on a surface level. It brought up some uncomfortable realities about how far we must come in society in order to truly reconcile, and perhaps education is the first step so that we can go deeper.

The concept of “reconciliation” itself has become watered down and co-opted by government and corporations. It is

also often presented as something that “both sides” need to come together on, ignoring the harsh and ongoing realities of colonization and oppression.

In many ways, šxʷʔam̓ət showcased the revolutionary potential of participatory theatre and explored an issue sorely in need of examination, and how at the end of the day non-Indigenous people have much to learn from Indigenous people, and must open their minds and hearts to their experiences, rather than, in Diamond’s words, making it “all about us.” I think Madeline Terbasket said it best when she described how her character Sia is continually expected to educate nonIndigenous people who don’t understand the issues: “Being an ally is exhausting.

Sometimes you’re taking as well. And you don’t even know that you’re taking.” šxʷʔam̓ət will be shown in Vancouver from March 2 to 10, wrapping up with a live, global, interactive webcast showing on March 10. More information as well as the webcast be found at www. headlinestheatre.com.

Julie Chadwick is an award-winning journalist, editor and author living in Snuneymuxw territory.

SALISH SEA SENTINEL • 25

MASTER WEAVER RELEASES BOOK ON ANCIENT SALISH SEA BASKETRY Suquamish Elder Ed Carriere wrote the book with anthropologist Dr. Dale Croes Master Suquamish basket weaver Ed Carriere has released a book sharing his more than 50 years of experience in the craft.

Re-Awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry was written with archaeologist Dr. Dale Croes, a Salish basket expert who specializes in excavating waterlogged sites.

With Croes’s help, Carriere has been able to analyze recovered segments of basket weavings from thousands of years ago and recreate—and revitalize—those styles.

Their book combines their expertise, and talks about the evolution of traditional basketmaking on the Northwest Coast from ancient times until today, and explores their joint research and experience.

Their book had its official release during an event at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver on Jan. 18.

During the event, Carriere showcased some of the baskets he has woven before the authors signed copies of the book.

Carriere said he learned to weave from his great grandmother Julia Jacob, who raised him, at the Port Madison Reservation in Indianola, WA. “I would go out and collect cedar roots for her baskets … and the next day if I’d 26 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

Ed Carriere, left, and Dr. Dale Croes, right.

see them laying out in the yard, I knew they weren’t any good,” Carriere said.

“I learned to be choosier.”

Traditionally, he said, men would only weave the bottom of the baskets, “because the bottom never shows,” he laughed.

But when Carriere was 14, he said, he “got brave enough” to weave his own clam basket. Now, after five decades, he is considered a master at the craft.

“That’s one thing about a basket,

once you make it, then it has a forever afterlife,” Carriere explained.

Croes said it is “so lucky” that Carriere was raised by his great grandmother so that her weaving techniques could be passed along.

One of Carriere’s baskets is now on display at the Museum of Anthropology’s multipurpose gallery.

Re-Awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry is available to purchase on Amazon.

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In collaboration with Klahoose First Nation and Alterra Power Corp, the Jimmie Creek run-of-river hydro project was completed in August of 2016.

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SALISH SEA SENTINEL • 27

TSLEIL-WAUTUTH PLANS MASS MOBILIZATION AGAINST KINDER MORGAN Statement says to save March 10 for demonstration against pipeline expansion Members of Tsleil-Waututh Nation and allied environmental organizations have set a date for mass mobilization against Texas oil giant Kinder Morgan, saying it’s just the beginning of its campaign against the company’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

An initiative called “Kwekwecnewtxw— Protect the Inlet” (Kwekwecnewtx means “a place to watch from”)—has been announced and the nation is inviting thousands of people to stand with them during a peaceful demonstration on March 10.

The initiative’s website says that more details will be announced as the date gets closer. CBC reported that the rally will take place on Burnaby Mountain, where dozens

28 • SALISH SEA SENTINEL

We will reveal to Justin Trudeau and Kinder Morgan just what a wall of opposition looks like. were arrested after defying a court order to clear Kinder Morgan’s work sites in 2014.

Tsleil-Waututh member and project leader Will George is part of the call for people to participate in the mobilization.

A media release said that the callout for support went out to hundreds of thousands of people across Canada.

“We are preparing to gather the huge support we already have in our fight to stop the Kinder Morgan

pipeline,” George said in a statement.

“We will reveal to Justin Trudeau and Kinder Morgan just what a wall of opposition looks like.”

Another statement signed by Will and Tsleil-Waututh Elder Amy George says that Kinder Morgan is threatening to destroy the nation’s lands, water, culture and spirit.

“Our members, spiritual leaders, and youth will be on the land practicing our culture and spirit as we have for time immemorial,” their statement says.

“We will use our presence to stop Kinder Morgan. It is time for you to join us and do whatever it takes.”

More information and updates can be found at www.protecttheinlet.com.

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