Partners in conservation

I spoke to Enns at Ogden Point in Songhees territory (Victoria) on Tuesday, and he took me back in time, explaining what life was like on this territory in the 1700s.

“The first contact between Indigenous peoples and Europeans on the west coast of Vancouver Island didn't happen until the 1770s,” Enns began. “There was a period of successful fur trading, but also many conflicts between newcomers and Nuu-chah-nulth peoples well into the early 1990s.”

In the 1880s, Enns explained, Indian agents were delineating reserve boundaries. When chiefs and elders expressed their concern, Gilliad, that first agent, arrived and attempted to reassure them, Enns said.

“Mr. Gilliod said not to worry, you can continue living your life, no foreigners would want to settle here, because the weather is too wild for agriculture,” Enns said. “That’s where it stood… there was a level of trust at that time.”

But things changed.

From 1909 to 1984, he said his people “lost control of their lands and waters.” The residential school system grew (the last residential school in B.C. didn’t close until 1996) and settlers imposed the British North American Act (1867), which prohibited Indigenous laws, ceremonies and cultures.

By the 1980s, logging companies were devastating old growth forests on Meares Island, and the government failed to recognize Indigenous sovereignty over traditional territories which were never sold, ceded or surrendered to Canada, Enns explained.

In the early 1980s, people were increasingly charged and jailed for being "outside of the reserve boundaries," he added.

In 1955, most of the island’s forests were involved in two tree farm licenses, and massive clear-cutting. MacMillan Bloedel Limited obtained permits to log on the island, but in 1984, Nuu-chah-nulth land people stood together to block loggers.

People from the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht First Nations, two distinct communities of the Nuu-chah-nulth nation, bonded together to protect their territories and at the time, Enns said his uncle Moses Martin (Tla-o-qui-aht’s elected chief at the time) had invited the newcomers, the loggers, to feast and learn about their laws, customs and land.

Moses knew from his people’s ceremony and laws that the people coming to take from the island weren’t necessarily bad people at heart, but were misinformed, and that misinformed people can behave very badly. The medicine then, was education, he said, which is what the community tried to provide at the time, likening their sacred territory to the Christian understanding of a “garden of Eden” or ‘Wah’nah’juss Hilth’hooiss (our garden).

“We’d like to welcome you and invite you for a meal, but you have to leave your chainsaws in the boat,” Enns recalled his uncles’ words at the time.

Failing to reach a level of understanding about the need to protect the largest trees in Canada, Moses Martin resorted to joining the others, to stand on the logging blockades, declaring the island a Tribal Park.

The fight to protect the land and waters continued to attract allies from all directions in the years following 1984.

“There was an influx of hippies, draft-dodgers from the Vietnam War, civil rights activists, women’s liberation rights activists, environmentalists…” Enns said. “That whole movement to protect Meares Island brought people from down south and from out east to the west coast.”

Thousands of Canadians descended on Vancouver Island’s Clayoquot Sound in 1993 to take part in what was the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

Stories about the 1984 Meares Island Tribal Park declaration, Clayoquot Sound protests, and the continued efforts to assert jurisdiction in the nation’s territories will be shared at the White Eagle Hall in the provincial capital, Victoria, on April 17.

The feast will welcome Indigenous leadership from other nations, as well as celebrated environmentalist David Suzuki, who has been a vocal supporter of Indigenous-led conservation efforts in Canada. There will be performances by Cree musician Art Napoleon (who is also co-host of APTN show ‘Moosemeat and Marmalade’) and others, in the spirit of celebrating the progress of the past 35 years, and casting another vision of traditional stewardship into the future.