Article content

Ktunaxa elder Chris Luke Sr. lives in B.C.’s Purcell Mountains, about 600 kilometres east of Vancouver. He uses a translator to communicate in English and he knows how to keep his silence.

Still, Luke is a powerful man.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Douglas Todd: Who decides the land is 'sacred'? Back to video

For eight years, the elder’s religious vision has seized the attention of Canada’s top courts, demanding the focus of hundreds of lawyers, judges, civil servants and politicians.

Their work became necessary because Luke said he had an epiphany in 2004 — which he did not reveal to his people until 2009 ­— that the grizzly bears that inhabit a large chunk of public land in the Purcells are sacred, divine protectors.

As a result, Luke’s small tribal group entered into years of hard political negotiations with the B.C. government, which turned into a precedent-setting court case against developers of a ski resort called Jumbo Glacier.

The case, which Luke and his people lost this month in the Supreme Court of Canada, not only raised profound questions about Canada’s commitment to protect religious freedom, it opened a bigger cans of worms. It highlighted philosophical, ethical, anthropological and religious issues.