The unusual cooperative purchase of provincial lands by three competing Vancouver-area First Nations may yield a new way to unblock outstanding land claims in B.C., chiefs involved in the purchases said Friday.

After years of dispute over overlapping land claims, the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh agreed to set aside differences and acquire the land that was being sold off by the province to balance its budget.

“We realized we could not continue to compete among ourselves for lands in our overlapping claims,” said Ian Campbell, a hereditary chief of the Squamish First Nation. “We had to find a new way to reconcile our differences but also to celebrate our similarities.”

The first results of that agreement were the fee-simple purchase of the 16-hectare Willingdon lands in Burnaby by the Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh for $57.9 million, and the purchase of the three-hectare Liquor Distribution Branch block on Broadway in Vancouver by all three nations. (The price of that block has not been disclosed.)

Both properties were bought for commercial investment and the bands say at this point they aren’t considering trying to convert them to reserve lands. That means they would be subject to municipal zoning and planning rules.

Court have ruled that government must consult with First Nations when disposing of public lands, which First Nations have often listed as part of land claims. As a result, bands essentially have a first right of refusal.

Campbell said the bands could have stuck to their overlapping claims but the lands would have become bound up in a court fight. Instead, by joining, they will be able to generate cash flow through commercial leases to support their education and health programs, he said.

The cooperative action was formalized Friday in a “protocol agreement” heavy on ceremony by the three Coast Salish groups.

The agreement had its birth in an equally unusual deal among the three, along with the Lil-wat First Nation, that helped Vancouver win Winter Games in 2010.

Before that, the First Nations had often argued and competed among over scarce land and resources.

The Olympics agreement helped stop that. With language and ceremonies drawn directly from old aboriginal concepts, it set out how the groups would all benefit from economic opportunities created by the Olympics. One of those benefits was a First Nations pavilion built during the Games and later moved to Musqueam. Symbolically it was in that pavilion that Friday’s protocol agreement between the three Coast Salish communities was signed.

Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow said the groups literally laid out maps of their claimed territories and agreed that wherever they overlapped they would work together to resolve differences. The fact the populations of the heavily intermarried First Nations are exploding made that an imperative.

“This protocol finally brings us together. For us to survive as a community, we had to get together on the same page,” he said.

Maureen Thomas, chief of the Tsleil-Waututh, said the three groups realized they were fighting over “lines that weren’t of our doing.”