Coming face to face with the pelt of a now-extinct Salish woolly dog was an emotional experience for Jordan Wilson.

The curator from xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band) attended an unveiling at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver as the ancestor was welcomed back to its home territories earlier this month.

The pelt is on loan from the Smithsonian institution, where it was in storage for more than a century. It will be at Museum of Anthropology until August of 2027. 

Belonging to a dog from Stó:lō territories known as Mutton, it’s the only known Salish woolly dog pelt in existence.

As the pelt was unveiled to its Salish relatives on Sept. 4, Wilson attended along with other Salish community members from Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley.

“For me personally, I was caught off guard at the emotional quality of it,” Wilson told the Narwhal.

“Seeing this pelt in person, seeing its little paws and seeing its little nose, realizing that this was a living being that was alive 160 years ago.”

Renowned Musqueam weaver Debra Sparrow was there with her daughter and grandson.

“You watch as they unveil it, pieces of the wood come off, and then the containers open, and there he is. There’s a sense of welcome you feel instinctively,” she said.

“It’s historical that the woolly dog arrived back home.”

Once ubiquitous among Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest, Salish woolly dogs went extinct during the late 1800s, as settlers arrived on the coast. Through storytelling, oral history, literature and artwork, woolly dogs have remained a sacred part of Coast and Interior Salish culture. 

The pelt came to Vancouver from Seattle, where it was on loan from the Smithsonian and temporarily exhibited for the first time.

Indigenous people travelled from up and down the Salish Sea to spend time with the woolly dog pelt at MOA before it was open to be viewed by the public on September 4th.

“They were very important to every village, all through the territory of Salish people,” Sparrow said about the dogs. Their traditional territory spans from southwestern B.C., into Washington state and Oregon.

“People will come to feel connected to it. It’s amazing how one little pelt can bring all the people back together.”

Genetic makeup confirms Salish oral history

This specific dog, with Stó:lō roots from the Chilliwack area, belonged to an American naturalist George Gibbs, who named the dog “Mutton.” 

Because of specific storage requirements, the pelt is being hosted at the Museum of Anthropology on Musqueam territory at the request of Stó:lō leaders.

It’s a caretaking responsibility that museum curator Wilson takes seriously. He began working on the Pacific Northwest and contemporary Indigenous art exhibit, where the pelt is being shown, last year.

“This is the highlight of the work that I do … being able to help facilitate things like this,” he said.

“This specific breed dates back thousands of years,” he added. “That goes to show how important this breed was to our ancestors.”

Sparrow recalled that, as settlers arrived in British Columbia, “the first thing many of the European sailors said was that the people have these little dogs with them in their canoes.” 

Combined with mountain goat wool, Salish woolly dog fur was spun into a weaving fibre, used to make clothes, blankets, regalia and other textiles. 

The woolly relatives were fed a rich salmon and elk diet to keep their coats soft and shiny, and in exchange providing Salish communities with safety, companionship and fluffy white hair. 

But the deep connection between Salish people and the woolly dog was severed as the important animal went extinct.

Kwulasultun, Eliot White-Hill, an artist from Snuneymuxw First Nation, said he never heard about the Salish woolly dog while he was growing up.

Once he became an artist and started asking Elders in his community questions, knowledge and stories about them began resurfacing.

“It’s profoundly meaningful to have that woolly dog come back to this part of the world, to be able to reconnect with the communities that it came from,” he said. 

“These blankets are almost like currency to us. They’d be given away at potlaches and they were robes of nobility and protection, and there’s a very important spiritual aspect to them.”

He curated his own exhibit about Salish woolly dogs at the Field Museum in Chicago. They have one of the largest collections of Coast Salish materials outside of the Pacific Northwest. 

“Woolly dogs are so important to Coast Salish culture. They were at the centre of so many different artistic, cultural and economic systems that our ancestors had in place,” White-Hill said.

“Where I come from on Vancouver Island, we didn’t have sheep prior to contact. Mountain goats, another major source for fibre, were only on the mainland. It was expensive and hard to trade for that, so instead we had the woolly dogs.”

The dogs were often raised on small islands to avoid interbreeding with other dog breeds, and passed down through the matrilineal line in families.

These woolly dogs were genetically distinct from the European dog breeds settlers were familiar with. According to the book The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog, “very few dog breeds have any precolonial [ancient DNA]. An exception is the Chihuahua, which has two to three per cent precolonial DNA.” 

Mutton’s genetic ancestry has been analyzed by numerous specialists in Canada and the United States. Though he died more than a century ago, techniques exist to analyze ancient DNA, or aDNA, which is drawn from sources that lived long ago. 

“Mutton himself has 16 per cent European ancestry. This means he had one great-grandparent that was a European dog … The rest, or 84 per cent of his [ancient DNA], points to precolonial ancestors from thousands of years ago,” the book reads.

“That little being is not a canine, it’s its own entity,” Sparrow said. “It doesn’t belong to the canine world. People always want to compare European philosophies with ours, and it’s not.”

How the pelt, from a dog named Mutton, was found

The woolly relative’s journey home has been decades in the making. In 2002, historian Candace Wellman was undertaking archival research that would eventually lead her into asking a question with lasting impact for Indigenous nations situated along the Salish Sea.

“I was researching the life of Dr. Caleb Kennerly, who married an important Semiahmoo woman,” Wellman said, whose first book was about inter-marriages in the region.

She went to the Smithsonian Museum, where Kennerly had been a naturalist, and obtained photocopies of all his letters back to the museum.

“One night at 3 o’clock in the morning I woke up and realized that one of the things he had sent in was a woolly dog pelt specimen,” she said.

Aware of how important woolly dogs are to Coast Salish culture, and women in particular, Wellman wrote to the Smithsonian curator of mammals, who later confirmed the pelt was there, intact and in a drawer.

“I wrote and said, this is really important because the Coast Salish women alive today have never been able to see the hair that their great-great-grandmothers used to weave the beautiful white blankets,” she said. 

Wellman asked for a hair sample to show Coast Salish women on the West Coast. The museum took it to a committee and they agreed. 

Now, that sample is housed at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Wash, where Wellman has resided for most of her life. 

Wellman explains the dog hair has never been displayed to the public, but has been used to authenticate items, such as a Coast Salish blanket woven with woolly dog fibre that is on display.

The woolly dog’s return to B.C. for the first time in more than a century is historic but bittersweet.

“I have really complicated feelings about the pelt, the name Mutton, and the whole story behind that dog,” White-Hill shared.“It’s really sad to me.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Sparrow. Reflecting on the woolly dog pelt, she said, “It makes me sad — happy that he’s here, but sad they’re non-existent now.”

While the woolly dog pelt is set to return to the Smithsonian next year, White-Hill hopes that it can eventually make its way back to its homelands permanently.

“We need to return this ancestor to its home so it can rest.”

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On a grassy slope in Kanaka Bar, a herd of goats frolic and play. But this isn’t a farm or a petting zoo — it’s an innovative wildfire mitigation effort from the First Nation.

Some of the goats loudly bleat as they chow down on invasive species and overgrown brush. 

“In the last five years, Kanaka community has been experiencing devastation with fire,” Pauline Michell told The Narwhal.

That includes two evacuations due to wildfires, as well as floods and mudslides that have closed roads and cut off her community from the world. And in Kanaka Bar, there is no fire truck or fire hall. “Kanaka has solely been on its own in regards to fire,” said Michell.

Located in Nlaka’pamux territory, 20 kilometres south of Lytton, Kanaka Bar Indian Band also goes by T’eqt’ aqtn’mux, “the crossing place people.” 

In 2021, the Lytton Creek wildfire devastated the area, evacuating numerous First Nations for years, while burning structures and homes to the ground. 

Later that year, an atmospheric river raged through the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, washing out roads and cutting people off from leaving Kanaka Bar.

According to a new report from the office of the B.C. human rights commissioner, between 2000 and 2024, First Nation reserves accounted for 36 of 37 communities where at least half of the total land area was burned by wildfire, with the only non-reserve community being Lytton.

Further, First Nation reserves in B.C. are four times more likely to be impacted by wildfire than non-reserve communities. 

This prompted Michell, an elected councillor in her community, to take a proactive approach to the wildfire season. 

Since late July, a herd of goats have been eating their way through the Kanaka Bar Indian Band, targeting areas with built up fuel and brush that would burn up in a fire. 

About 80 goats have been clocking in this summer, while a few goats like Dandelion and Cuddley are part of a rebel club in their own separate enclosure.

“This is a trial for Kanaka, to look at fuel management in this way,” said Michell. 

“Hearing about these goats being able to do this sounded really intriguing and interesting,” she added.

The idea came by accident, after an area grazed by sheep acted as a fire stop during a wildfire three years prior.

“Back in 2023, the Kookipi Creek fire came through … We had been grazing the sheep that we had out in this back area, and when that fire came through, it actually came pretty much all the way down to community, and then it stopped where the sheep had been grazing,” Emma Bryce told The Narwhal.

She recalled thinking, “This is really cool, we just kind of made our own fire break without really intending to.”

Bryce has been the nation’s food self-sufficiency lead since 2022, and after the sheep experience, started researching different animals to graze in the community.

“In conversations with chief and council, I brought it up and was like, ‘What if we used goats to do wildfire risk reduction?’ They were like, ‘okay, let’s do it.’” 

“This goat grazing project has been a passion project of mine for the last couple of years,” Bryce said, after she took the green light from Kanaka and ran with it. That’s when she met Bruce Bradley, who does contract work across B.C. with his herd of goats. 

Based on Vancouver Island, it took three trips by ferry to bring his herd to the mainland and then to Kanaka Bar this summer. But the Ainslie Creek and Brunswick Creek wildfires impacted initial operations back in July. 

As of Sept. 11, those wildfires remained burning 31 kilometres down the road from Kanaka Bar, though they  are now contained. Once it was safe, the goats got to work. 

Goat grazing benefits for biodiversity and wildfire

The goats have grazed about 12 hectares of ground since arriving in the community earlier this summer.

“We’re trying to get in all the nooks and crannies, especially around the houses and around the roads, the important spaces to make them more defensible and resilient to fire,” Bradley told the Narwhal.

On top of reducing wildfire risk, “the ecological benefits are huge because the goats are trampling, they’re fertilizing … and they’re especially effective for invasive weeds.”

“We’ve tackled this year quite a bit of Canadian thistle, Himalayan blackberry and Scotch broom.” 

Bradley’s been deploying his fire-mitigating goats since 2018, through his company BC Timber Goats.

“It’s a very unique tool, and I think a powerful tool to get wildfire risk reduction benefits and silviculture benefits on the same site, at the same time,” he said. 

According to the B.C. government, silviculture is “the thoughtful, deliberate and balanced management of forests and surrounding local ecosystems” that encourages tree diversity to increase resilience against threats like pests, climate change and disturbances.

The idea to start a goat grazing business came from Bradley’s experience in farming.

“I grew up on a farm that had lots of weed control issues. I’d always spray and mow, and we’d break the mowers. I’d get sick with the spray and so I thought, there’s got to be a better way,” he said.

Bradley said that in areas of the farm sprayed with pesticides, “everything would just turn brown, and half the time it would burn in wildfire in the summer.” 

Goat grazing achieves similar outcomes as pesticide use but is much healthier for the environment.

According to the University of Calgary, which piloted a goat-grazing project at their main campus last year, “targeted grazing is a proven land-management technique that uses livestock to naturally control vegetation growth. Unlike herbicides, which can have a lasting environmental impact, goats provide a natural way to reduce unwanted plant growth while encouraging native vegetation to thrive.”

Animals grazing through southern Interior communities has become less common with wildlife populations declining.

“Using goats actually mimics what you would have typically seen if you had large herds of elk moving through. … Goats mimic a natural system that this landscape would have evolved with already,” Bryce said.

An addition to the FireSmart toolbox 

Over the summer, the goats have been working alongside Kanaka Bar’s fuel management crew.

As the FireSmart team gathers fuel and brush into a pile, the goats eat until it’s gone. It’s a win-win situation: feeding the goats and disposing of the community’s built-up fuel.

“I don’t think there’s ever going to be a scenario where we don’t need people out on the ground, going out and doing the bigger fuel management,” Bryce said, adding goat grazing complements other fuel management strategies. 

“They can go in and defoliate, which is great to have more visibility when you’re out there working in really dense brush,” she said. 

Bryce and Bradley estimate the goats haven eaten 0.25 hectares of ground each day. They’re scheduled to wrap up their work on Sept. 21.

“The goats are going in and doing a really efficient job at something that is really challenging to do with just human crews alone,” she said. 

When the project was first brought forward to the community, residents were interested in learning more about it, but not exactly excited about goats – that quickly changed.

“Now it’s to the point where members want a couple of goats to tackle the brushes in their yard as well, so that’s really good,” said Michell.    

“When wildfire comes to Kanaka, we’ll be more prepared.”

Updated on Sept. 16, 2026, at 11:11 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to correct the dates that the goats are in Kanaka Bar.

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Sherry McIntyre lives an hour’s drive away from the nearest grocery store. Between gas prices, vehicle maintenance and rising grocery costs, the bills add up quickly. 

“Bringing all that food back is also a challenge. You need coolers,” McIntyre told The Narwhal. 

She’s an elected councillor from the Skuppah Indian Band, located two kilometres south of Lytton, B.C.

Forgetting your standard grocery bag will cost you a few dollars, while purchasing a cooler or thermal storage bag to properly store cold foods during long drives will cost you at least $20 during the summer months.

It’s one small way her remote community and others in the southern Interior experience inequities accessing food, while larger disasters have cut the community off from grocery store access completely.

But long before grocery stores existed in B.C., First Nations harvested and preserved salmon during summer fish camps, creating food security throughout the winter months.

Today, accessing wild salmon is more challenging, contributing to food insecurity and an overall disconnect from traditional food. But it’s also more important than ever.

McIntyre grew up fishing the country’s largest salmon run with her father and says that for younger generations today, including her children, “fishing has become so scarce.”

“When your harvest is not as big, you don’t get to fully process all of the salmon that you need. If you only end up with 20 fish a year, you’re just going to freeze it,” she said.

As of August 25th and according to the Pacific Salmon Commission, this year’s sockeye salmon run came in at 2.8 million. The organization estimated 7.7 million last winter.

As salmon are declining across the province, communities are stepping up to keep their access to traditional food strong.

A place to gather, process and store food

In August, Skuppah Indian Band members taught specialized fish preparations, including wind-dried fish, smoked fish and canned fish — all at the community’s food security centre.

The nation decided to build a food security centre back in 2019. Food access and affordability were already challenging at the time. 

During the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, food became even harder to access amid lockdowns, staffing shortages and supply chain disruptions. Indigenous and remote communities were hit the hardest by food insecurity linked to the pandemic. Then came a year full of climate disasters in British Columbia. 

“In 2021, the Lytton fire took out all of the services in town and cut us off from travelling to get groceries,” McIntyre said. It was only the first record-breaking disaster of the year.

“The atmospheric river came in November and decimated any hope we had of feeding ourselves, because it blocked grocery trucks from coming.”

Those disasters informed the final stages of the Skuppah food security centre including adding private food storage for community members, with a generator installed in the event of a power outage.

“We really honed in on what the needs were for emergency response and climate change, building on the original concept of providing a place for community to gather and prepare food,” McIntyre said.

The space is equipped with a commercial kitchen, high-end pressure canners, freeze dryers to create shelf-stable food that lasts years and more, all designed to make community gatherings and food distributions as easy as possible. 

Since opening in 2022, the food security centre has served as a place for the Skuppah Indian Band to process and store food, including huckleberries and salmon.

The centre has a stockpile of food, a disaster precaution learned in 2021 when roads were flooded out or closed due to fire.

“We’ve had so much positive feedback from our members. Having a space like this does something special when you can come and gather, because it’s a space for loving one another and for supporting one another,” McIntyre said.

At Nlaka’pamux fish camp, traditional fishing techniques are passed on to the next generation

Raymond Phillips, a member of Lytton First Nation, facilitated dip net tying at this year’s community fish camp in Incluckcheen. He says that fish camps are a place for the community to exchange knowledge and create food security within the nation. 

“People leave the fish camp with food. This is survival food, but it’s also really good food. It’s high quality and very nutritious … it has sustained us for thousands of years,” he said. 

Phillips grew up fishing the Fraser and Thompson rivers, learning how to tie dip nets back in the 1980s. Dip nets are a traditional way of harvesting salmon in B.C., only allowed for First Nations in the province.

Tying the dip net and making the hoop and pole requires technique, patience and practice, all of which Phillips has spent decades accumulating.

“There’s a complexity to it,” he said, but once people get the hang of tying a certain knot, it becomes repetitive and easier to teach others.

His station at fish camp had people of all ages in attendance, wanting to learn about traditional fishing tools and harvesting techniques. In the Interior, dip nets are passed down in families for generations, but handmade nets are harder to come by these days.

“It’s becoming a lost art, so many people are buying commercially made aluminum or nylon nets,” he said. 

Traditionally, fir saplings were used to make the pole and hoop, with Spatsin used to make the net. Phillips and other Nlaka’pamux dip net makers hope to pass those skills on by sharing their knowledge at fish camps.  

Phillips is a provincial judge based out of Kamloops. Before that, he worked as a lawyer and represented Indigenous people charged by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

“As a lawyer I ended up helping quite a few people who were being charged with fishing at closed times, so it became a real challenge for the community to feed themselves in times of scarcity. That’s the cycle we’re in now, the salmon resources are becoming scarce,” he said.

When he was younger, salmon were abundant, but as time went on fishery closures became more common.

“The salmon, it’s one of the largest migrations in the world. They go from the Pacific, go into the Fraser and travel all the way to their spawning grounds. Every community along the way waits for that salmon to get there. It’s disheartening to wait and be told you can’t fish. The populations are dwindling, so it is concerning,” Phillips said. 

Despite those challenges, Indigenous communities work together each run to provide Elders, families and those experiencing food insecurity with salmon. 

That holds true for Cheam First Nation, located near Chilliwack, which hosts an annual community canning day.

Cheam community canning day

Every year, Cheam members look forward to gathering at the local gymnasium, ready to gut, fillet and preserve the year’s salmon. It’s a tradition Stó:lō nations in the Fraser Valley have fought to continue for decades. 

“The whole community is coming together on an assembly line to get our fish canned and vacuum packed,” Justin Pike said.

“We get the community together to help try and get fish out to everybody, not everybody knows how to do it, so it really helps,” he said. 

Pike is an elected councillor in Cheam, and one of many who harvested this year’s sockeye salmon haul to distribute among the community.

He was hands-on at the fish gutting station, with youth and community members watching closely, eager to learn and participate. Reflecting on the number of young people engaged, Pike is confident that his nation will continue its tradition of caring for salmon and harvesting and preserving salmon as a food source for the winter.

“We’re always super grateful to get some fish,” said Pike. 

While cultural knowledge remains strong in Cheam, wild salmon is becoming harder to access. Along with the dwindling salmon numbers and costly fishing gear, Cheam also has a history of facing off against the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada for their right to fish. 

“Cheam is known for defending our right to be on that river, our inherent right to these fish,” Wendy Kelly, a salmon processing facilitator, told The Narwhal.

“Years and years ago, they were one of the only bands that battled to go out fishing when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada said ‘no, you can’t go fishing,’” she said. The nation had numerous stand-offs with the department in the late 1990s and early 2000s over access to salmon in their traditional waters, led by the late Chief Siōliya June Quipp. 

Cheam is located an hour-and-a-half from downtown Vancouver, home to some of the most lucrative seafood ports in the province and country. Communities located closer to the city are heavily monitored on the water, and with fisheries opening for a few days at a time, the struggle to access wild salmon persists. 

It makes Cheam’s annual canning day a powerful assertion of Indigenous Rights, following the footsteps of their ancestors.

Those rights are inherent to Cheam, but also affirmed in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, and by the renowned Sparrow and Marshall decisions made in the 1990s, which affirmed the rights of First Nations to fish, hunt and harvest without unjustified government interference. 

“It’s really medicine when you’re handling those fish,” Kelly said. 

In the Pacific Northwest, salmon is a sacred part of the culture, and has been a main food source for millennia. It’s a connection the Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society works to keep strong.

Urban access to culture and salmon

This month, the Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society is hosting salmon processing and jarring workshops, servicing cultural food and knowledge in the heart of the Downtown Eastside.

“This run came from Boston Bar, right from the river to the centre and processed within hours from the time it came out of the water,” Ruby Harry told The Narwhal.

They have access to salmon all year now,” she said, referring to workshop participants, who had the opportunity to clean, process and learn how to can salmon. 

Harry is from Tl’etinqox t’in, located near Williams Lake, but like many Indigenous people, now resides in an urban setting. She grew up eating traditional foods, and after moving to the city, wanted to help create that access for others.

And with Vancouver being one of the most expensive cities in North America, access to nutritious food can be a challenge. Salmon distributions help to fill that gap.

“Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society is one of the only organizations I know that has given the Downtown Eastside this opportunity to process cultural food,” Harry said. 

Harvesting traditional food must be done within your own territory, so for Indigenous people living away from theirs, wild salmon becomes harder to access. 

Salmon workshops create that opportunity for urban Indigenous people, and support food security with rising grocery costs. The workshops hosted by Harry have no cost for participants and create openings for cultural knowledge to be shared.

“Salmon brings lots of good medicine,” said Harry.

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Summary

• Indigenous culture camps are happening across Canada this summer. Revitalizing cultural practices, spending time on the land, and participating in ceremonies is the focus of most camps. 
• Despite dozens of wildfires across B.C., organizers are fulfilling their commitments, highlighting the importance of hosting communities and organizations.
• Some culture camps have been happening for decades, while other communities hosted their first camp this year.

For 10 days in July, Qaqaqam Chris Wells spent time on the land camping with Líl̓wat youth, teaching Lil̓wat7úl cultural protocols, songs and stories. The Kwáozán̓tsut cultural summer camps have been “a long time coming,” he said. 

“Bringing our children back onto the land is teaching them land based healing and learning,” Wells told the Narwhal. “It was really awesome to bring back our culture.”

Hosted at Klháka7min, previously known as the Coast Mountain Outdoor School, two separate age groups camped for five days each between July 6th and July 17th. 

Though the youth were a bit shy at first, Wells and fellow camp leaders Ánwasúlmec Brett Wallace and Sík Sík Joshua Anderson say that by the end of each cohort, seeing how the participants had come out of their shells was a highlight.

“It was extra special for me: I had two of my daughters there, one in each age group,” Anderson said. “It was an opportunity to spend more time with them during the busy summer.”

During this year’s culture camp, a wildfire prompted evacuations in Pemberton, located approximately 25 kilometres down the road. Despite the nearby fire, the culture camps were a success — connecting youth with tradition, the land and culture. 

“We were pretty safe from all the fires happening around us,” Wells said. He’s stewarded the territory since he was a youth.

Land-based learning, education and connection

Between the two age groups — 9 to 12-year-olds, and teens — 30 youth attended the camps. 

Líl̓wat Elders took youth out onto the land, teaching them about edible berries and teas that grow in the area during that time of year.

“Every evening we had singing and drumming, and talked about cultural protocols. We talked about the origin of the songs. We talked about our ceremonies,” Wells said. 

Archery, axe throwing and rifle shooting with the older age group all took place with laughter and storytelling throughout. 

Youth had the opportunity to make traditional rattles and smudge bowls, ceremonial items that can be hard to access for a young person. Anderson said numerous parents reached out to him after the camp, sharing how their child went home wanting to practice their culture more through smudging. 

The youth even made a swimming hole to jump into cold glacier water, adding some casual fun into the mix, and relief from the hot summer days. 

“You can’t forget the fun part of it. We had the opportunity to play bone game in the evening time,” Anderson said, which showed the youth “how disputes were settled in a traditional manner.” 

The bone game is a traditional game used historically as an alternative to war by nations along the Salish Sea, and has other names such as “stick game” or “hand game” in other regions of Western Canada.

Youth were also split into three groups and tasked with helping in the kitchen. Local Lil̓wat7úl chef Casey Gabriel taught them how to cook for the group and clean up afterwards. 

The Kwáozán̓tsut Cultural Summer Camps were championed by the organizing trio of Anderson, Wells and Wallace, who are no strangers to hosting culture camps. But despite hosting camps in St’át’imc Nation communities for years, it took some time to prepare and build the trust required to host youth camps in their own nation. 

Now the Líl̓wat Nation wants to host another culture camp this fall. Wells, Wallace and Anderson are all looking forward to sharing their knowledge and helping out.

Now in its 15th year, Nlha’7kapmx annual culture camp is a ‘safe haven’

Excitement for future camps is a sentiment shared by Michelle Isaac, who always lends a helping hand at an annual Nlaka’pamux culture camp hosted at Pasulko Lake, located in B.C.’s Southern Interior.

“My stepmom at the time, Amy Chapman, brought me up to what used to be called the healing gathering. All I remember from there was how much of a difference it made in my life,” Isaac told the Narwhal. 

She attended the healing gathering after surviving a severe car accident, but over the years, the annual gathering lost volunteers and resources. 

Having experienced the healing energy of gathering herself, and meeting with the service agency about how to support community members, Isaac and a group of ladies working for Nlha’7kapmx Child and Family Services decided to spearhead a community based culture camp.

Now in its 15th year, people in the area look forward to gathering at Pasulko Lake each summer, practicing culture and being together on the land. 

This year, a mix of cultural activities, including drum making, cedar weaving and language friendship bracelet making took place, along with activities such as a tug-of-war game between youth and the local firefighting group, the Lytton Rattlers, and a performance by local band Ritchie and the Fenderman.

Isaac attends camp each year with her children, who are part of the Lower Nicola Indian Band community. While Isaac is not Indigenous herself, she still attends with an open heart and mind, supporting in any way she can. When wildfires are burning, she sees the camps as an especially important place for youth. 

“They’re able to come up there and do the activities, do the crafts, I find it takes a lot of stress and fear from the fire away from them,” Isaac said. This year, it’s also been an important refuge for her as well, after she was evacuated in July due to the nearby Brunswick Creek wildfire.

“Fire-wise, for me it was a safe haven. My one daughter came up as well, who was also evacuated, and hung out all week there. It gave me a safe place,” she said.

Across B.C. and Canada, wildfires disproportionately impact First Nations communities. Though they represent only five per cent of the population, it’s estimated that First Nations make up 42 per cent of all wildfire evacuations. 

As wildfires blaze all around the Interior, the camp offered a break from smoke for those in attendance. On event posters this year, air quality warnings were addressed, with evacuation routes marked along the way to camp as a precaution.

People who attended camp were asked to register at the sign in desk daily, to track who was there, and were informed about a muster point in the event of evacuation. 

The decision to continue on with both culture camps was deliberated by organizers carefully, with designated people monitoring surrounding wildfires.

Renegerating the land through fire

B.C. was the first province or territory in Canada to ban cultural burning in 1874, prohibiting generations of Indigenous people from stewarding their territories with fire. In 2024, 150 years later, the province officially amended wildfire regulations to support cultural burns. Today, many nations are in the process of reclaiming this practice, including Líl̓wat. 

“We can’t look at fire as dangerous all of the time. We gotta look at it as an element that helps us regenerate, and help us repurpose the land,” Wallace added.

An example of fire regenerating the land was visible to those at Líl̓wat’s culture camps through an abundance of berries, following a cultural burn several years before.

“That specific area was culturally burnt seven or eight years ago and now finally it’s starting to reproduce huckleberries,” Wallace said. “It’s not just a small piece of land, it’s a really big area, and the whole area was covered in huckleberries and raspberries because of these cultural burns that happened.”

Youth were able to harvest these berries, and surrounding wildlife have a tasty treat. 

And in the era of technology, culture camps give youth the opportunity to disconnect from the internet, and to connect with the natural world. 

“Back in our time, we didn’t have technology to hold us back from being out on the land,” Wells said. “It’s important to return to land-based healing … to be St’át’imc, and to do St’át’imc things.”

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Summary

• Research published in the The Journal of Wildlife Management highlights an important gap in translocation mitigation practices: whether species survive their relocation is not tracked in B.C.
• Translocation mitigation is when plants and animals are moved from one location to another in advance of development. B.C. has the largest proportion of at-risk amphibians, which are frequently relocated for industry.
• As B.C. gears up for a number of major projects, scientists worry about mounting impacts on vulnerable species.

“We all loved frogs growing up, then we forgot about them,” Megan Winand says. Now, the conservation biologist is hoping to remind B.C. of their existence — and how they’re impacted by industry in the province. She contributed to a study published in The Journal of Wildlife Management earlier this year, looking into the effectiveness of translocation mitigation, or the practice of moving animals to new locations to make way for development. 

Between 2019 and 2022, B.C. issued 629 translocation mitigation permits. The review found that 227 of them included reptiles and amphibians, with most of those projects happening in the South Coast region.

The review found over five million reptiles and amphibians have been relocated in B.C., most commonly for pipeline and culvert developments. Winand has worked on some of those projects. 

“I spent a lot of time questioning whether what I was doing was actually effective, if I was truly saving all of these amphibians from the harm that was being caused by development,” Winand says.

Translocation can be difficult for wildlife because successfully establishing in a new environment is never guaranteed. Research has identified several risks, including stress, increased mortality, increased movement due to homing behaviour, disease transmission and genetic concerns.

With no legal requirement to track if species survive their relocation in B.C., Winand and others decided to start tracking data themselves. 

In collaboration with provincial government scientists, the Martin Conservation Decisions Lab based out of the University of British Columbia published their findings in April. 

In a province like British Columbia, salmon, orcas and bears often make headlines — but amphibians are incredible indicators of the environment and health of an ecosystem.

“I truly believe amphibians are canaries of the wetland coal mine,” Winand said.

The saying “canary in the coal mine” originates in the mining industry, where early miners used canaries to detect toxic gases.

A 2023 paper from the Climate Change Resource Centre says amphibians are similarly sensitive indicators of ecological changes, due to their “moist, permeable skin” and their important position in the centre of many food webs. 

“Amphibians especially, despite the fact that they are so important … they are extremely vulnerable,” Winand said.

B.C. has the largest proportion of at-risk amphibians across Canada. Around the world, 41 per cent of amphibians and reptiles are facing extinction.

One is the northern leopard frog, which declined in the 1970s. Their vulnerability to extinction prompted the province to create a specialized northern leopard frog recovery team in 2001.

Male tadpole numbers have slowly increased thanks to translocation efforts: while only 19 have been documented in recent years, that represents an improvement over the sporadic one or two male tadpoles recorded prior to 2010. 

Another endangered species is the Oregon spotted frog. The long-legged friends used to roam from northern California into southwestern B.C., but have declined drastically. Only a few hundred frogs remained in 1999, prompting the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to give the amphibian its first-ever emergency listing. Populations in California have gone extinct, while an estimated 364 frogs remained in B.C. in 2025. 

Climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, disease and development are all impacting these animals. 

And while B.C. has taken extra measures to step up conservation during projects by relocating all species during a development, outcomes are still not monitored, making the effectiveness of these initiatives unknown.

Translocation adopted during development for 2010 Olympics, but now experts call for reversal

In a paper published in Conservation Biology, 59 translocation projects were reviewed from around the world. The paper found “mitigation translocations have not achieved their potential as an effective applied science,” because long-term impact to receipt ecosystems were not addressed in the data samples, and metapopulations were not addressed either.

Most species exist within a metapopulation, linked together by the same landscape. According to the Government of Canada, “when disturbances occur in a habitat patch, there is an effect on that particular population, and there could be effects on other populations that are linked to it through dispersal or the broad metapopulation that occurs at the landscape scale.” 

Another paper published by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, about fresh water fish and mussels, acknowledges the practice as a last resort, stating, “Ultimately, mitigation translocation is performed when no other options remain for preventing the imminent loss of individuals at their natal location.”

The push for translocation mitigation in B.C. was born out of the 2010 Winter Olympics, from public pressure to preserve wetland habitat during improvements to the Sea to Sky highway, which connects Vancouver and Whistler. 

Sixteen years later, amphibian and reptile lovers are calling on the province to avoid relocating species whenever possible, to invest in habitat creation or restoration projects and to enforce transparent reporting after species are relocated. 

There are several examples of habitat restoration projects that have supported amphibians in B.C. On Salt Spring Island, the Stqeeye’ Learning Society is restoring native vegetation and wetland to improve conditions for wildlife, including amphibians, at Xwaaqw’um (Burgoyne Bay). 

Near Tofino, Parks Canada and the Raincoast Education Society installed amphibian crossing tunnels and fencing along Highway 4, to reduce road mortality and improve habitat connectivity.

In an email to The Narwhal, B.C.’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said that “long-term survival and population outcomes following relocation would require multi-year studies, specialized monitoring methods and significant resources.”

“While it is not always feasible to employ long-term tracking, it is within this process that appropriate risk management takes place,” the ministry wrote. 

“We need to have proper monitoring and research in place to better the outcomes, or at least understand the outcomes, because currently we don’t,” Winand said. 

And as Canada embarks on an ambitious slate of major projects, Winand says that reptiles and amphibians face mounting risks of fragmented landscapes and loss of habitat. To her, the path forward is clear.

“We really need to push to avoid translocation,” she said.

Updated on July 15, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to correct the names of scientific journals. The study on translocation mitigation was published in The Journal of Wildlife Management, not in The Wildlife Society. Additionally, the paper reviewing 59 translocation projects was published in Conservation Biology, not by the National Library of Medicine.

Updated July 17, 9:45 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to correct the number of translocation mitigation permits related to amphibians and reptiles. It is 227, not 229.

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Summary

• In Simpcw First Nation, women are continuing traditions practiced by generations of women before them, including animal-hide tanning. 
• Tiffany Bowser and Roberta Haller are Secwe̓pemc women who grew up immersed in their culture and now teach others who want to learn through community workshops.
• While women have always tanned deer hide in B.C.’s interior, a smaller number practice the skill today, making the workshops hosted by Bowser and Haller a powerful assertion of Indigenous Rights.

Working with animal hides can be a messy process — and children in Tiffany Bowser’s community of Simpcw First Nation “absolutely love it.”

“They love scraping the hide. They love stretching it,” she shares.

“I don’t know why, but brain water is one of their favourite things,” she adds, laughing. “I’m like okay, just don’t get it in your mouth.”

Bowser hosts hide-tanning workshops in her First Nation, come-and-go style, so people with different needs can attend. Her workshops are also hosted during the school day, so children and youth from the Secwe̓pemc community — located north of Kamloops — are able to participate.

From hunting the animal, to skinning and tanning the hide, it is a lengthy, expensive and labour-intensive process that many people struggle to make time for. And finding people who carry the knowledge about how to properly tan an animal hide is becoming rare.

Despite those challenges, the tradition lives on in the Simpcw First Nation. In Secwe̓pemc culture, women are typically tasked with preparing animal hides — a responsibility that Bowser takes seriously.

“There’s not too many people on the reserve who know how to tan a hide,” Roberta Haller, who also teaches hide tanning in the community, says. “I feel very proud that I’m one of them.”

“I’ve been hunting since I was about three years old,” Bowser told The Narwhal.

“Some of my earliest memories are sitting on my dad’s shoulders, packing a handful of gophers around and fishing. It’s just something I grew up doing.”

This year, she hosted a 10-day workshop, calling her mentor Haller over the phone for advice each day. Haller was mentored by the late Virginia Donald, her aunt, who was known in the area for her tanned deer hides. 

“I’m probably pretty biased, but she was one of the best hide tanners out there. Her deer hides came out white and perfect,” Bowser says. 

Following the tradition of women who came before and taught them, Bowser and Haller support one another, teaching the next generation of hide tanners in their community how it’s done.

Hide tanning process and usage

While methods to prepare animal hides vary from person to person and community to community, Bowser and Haller follow the methods passed down to them from generations of Secwe̓pemc women. 

After harvesting and skinning the animal, Haller explains, the hide gets soaked in water. After it’s soaked, the hair is cut and scraped off the hide before it’s carefully placed on a frame. 

This part can be tricky: experienced tanners know where to cut holes to properly stretch the hide on the frame, without ruining it by piercing in the wrong places. 

Once on the frame, the hide is pounded and stretched, over a gentle heat source. “Not too hot, so it doesn’t try out too fast,” she says. 

After that, the hide is taken off of the rack and smoked, which adds colour, prevents stiffness and makes the fabric not water-resistant, but washable.

The next step is the brain water. 

“We take the brains from the deer and then we dissolve it in warm water so it becomes a milky liquid, in there we soak the hide again. As we’re soaking, we’re stretching it out again … then you put it back on the frame, pound it out again and start the whole process over again,” Haller says. All of this takes days, weeks or months, depending on the animal size, and what outcome the tanner is going for.

But if the steps aren’t completed properly, the whole process must be started over. Smaller game animals can take weeks to complete, while larger animals like moose can take up to a year. 

It takes time, commitment, muscles and know-how to make it all happen.

Passing the tradition through generations

Haller started working with animal hide in her 30s, wanting to pass the tradition onto her children. And since tanning was so intensive, she wanted to help her mentor Virginia continue the practice as she aged, while learning the practice from her. 

“Auntie Virginia didn’t like to take any shortcuts,” Haller tells The Narwhal. That meant skipping modern tools including pressure washers and trimmers to remove animal hair during the tanning process, which weren’t available back in her day.

“She just liked to do it the way she was taught, she didn’t try any other way. She knew one way would work, and that’s how she taught me, and that’s what we still do.”

Since learning from her auntie, Haller has mentored Bowser and anyone else who wants to learn at the community workshops in Simpcw First Nation. Though they focus on involving youth, anyone from the general community is also welcome to attend, as long as they are respectful of the animal hide.

One of those community participants is Fred Fortier, a Simpcw member who has attended many hide-tanning workshops hosted by Bowser and Haller. 

Fortier grew up connected to the land. After recovering from cancer five years ago, animal hide workshops have become a more accessible way for him to practice culture, although he still goes hunting sometimes. 

Visiting, speaking Secwepemctsín, sharing meals, telling hunting stories and laughing together at the workshops are “just a lot of fun,” Fortier says. 

Watching his grandchildren participate in the workshops is exciting. “I think that’s a really important component, our kids wanting to learn and not feeling ashamed to learn our cultural ways … for them to keep their head up and be proud,” he says.

He encourages hunters in the nation to keep the hide, bones and brains in mind when harvesting deer to be in alignment with Secwe̓pemc culture. 

“We have a lot of women in our community who have stepped forward to teach people our cultural ways,” he says. 

“For those people like Tiffany and Roberta, and all of the women who have stepped forward … I think they are the backbone of our community.”

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Summary

• The Squamish Nation has regained some its land back after a lengthy court case against the federal government. Sen̓áḵw is the ancestral village name, and name of the development.
• It’s the largest sustainable housing project in First Nations history, and among one of Canada’s largest developments that will operate at net-zero emissions.
• A blessing ceremony for Squamish members and invited guests was hosted at the first completed tower on May 8, the second ceremony of its kind held in the ancestral village in over 100 years.

On an overcast day in May, hundreds of people are gathered in Sen̓áḵw, an ancestral Squamish village, to celebrate the first completed tower among what will be one of the largest housing developments in Kitsilano’s history.

The first tower, called tl’eltl’élnup (real home) is ceremonially brushed with cedar as guests — many of them Squamish Nation members — look on with pride.

With Squamish songs and drummers, eagles flying overhead and people of all ages in attendance – the blessing ceremony carried laughter and emotion throughout. 

“Very historic day for our Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw people, we’re breathing life back into our village here in Sen̓áḵw,” Wilson Williams said.

Williams is the Council Chairperson for the Squamish Nation, and said that after being removed from the ancestral village for more than 100 years, the blessing ceremonies are “the beginning of something beautiful.”

Sen̓áḵw has made headlines across the country as one of the greenest urban developments in Canada, and receiving the largest investment from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in history. 

In the midst of Canada’s housing crisis, Sen̓áḵw is set to provide 6,000 homes. And in one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in one of North America’s most expensive cities, 1,200 will be delivered under an affordable model.

None of it would have been possible without fighting in court for 25 years. The village site was won back in a 2003 court case — a victory won by Elders from the nation, and renowned leaders such as Chief Joe Mathias. 

“In 1913 our people got put on a barge and pushed into the ocean, our homes were burned as they were going off into the ocean. So it’s been a long battle,” Jacob Lewis said, seated on a cedar bench in the shape of a canoe.

Lewis is Squamish and has been involved with the Sen̓áḵw development since its inception in 2019, when the nation voted in favour to build. He is currently the director of community development with Nch’ḵay̓ Development Corporation, a partner in the project.

“Super excited today, it’s been a long time coming,” he said. “There’s been so much pride, so much honour, so much appreciation and gratitude for our ancestors, for our past leadership and all those people that helped get us here today for the blessing ceremony.”

Beyond making history with the development size and investment, what makes the development special to many is the beauty of the architecture, emphasis on Squamish artwork and environmental considerations taken in the build. 

Three towers come into view from the Burrard Street Bridge, trigon and crescent shapes decorating the buildings.

Coast Salish designs are visible in the concrete, with Sḵwx̱wú7mesh language set to be visible throughout the properties upon completion – there is no mistaking that this is a Squamish village.

The tower is the first of 11 residential towers, with rental priority going to Squamish people, and then Indigenous people, before rentals open to the general public – implemented through an Indigenous participation plan.

The development will be surrounded by a village with amenities including a pool, sauna, cold plunge and more. 

Sen̓áḵw development centres environmental considerations

While the physical construction of Sen̓áḵw is releasing carbon into the environment, the operation of the buildings will emit almost no greenhouse gases from the day residents move in, Jennifer Podmore Russell told the Narwhal. 

“It was really important that we bring every environmental standard that we could into this building, as quickly as we could,” she said. Russell is the Chief Development Officer with Nch’ḵay̓ Development Corporation.

Through an investment from Creative Energy, a Vancouver-based green energy supplier, Sen̓áḵw is one of the only housing developments of its size that will operate at net-zero emissions in the world.

Residential towers are designed to be heated and cooled by converted wasted thermal energy, captured from a Metro Vancouver waste line. 

“With a capacity of approximately 4,000 tons, it’s one of the largest cooling towers in the Lower Mainland, efficiently serving the entire Sen̓áḵw development,” the Creative Energy website reads. 

Just two levels of parking are being offered across each tower, reducing carbon emissions and encouraging less vehicle use. 

A number of different partnerships with transportation providers in the area have been established, including Uber, Evo car share, Mobi rental bikes and False Creek Ferries, so that residents can “be able to navigate their life without the burden of a car,” Russell said.

‘I am excited to live in a brand-new building’

The first residents will move into Sen̓áḵw on June 1st, with the next tower set to open in September. It’s a move that some residents have long awaited, including Cody Bugler.

“I’m moving into a one-bedroom suite, 585 sq. feet, market rate. The size and price is comparable to what I’m paying now in a much older building in the West End, with much less exciting amenities.”

Bugler is Plains Cree from Red Pheasant First Nation in Saskatchewan, and has lived in the area for years. He uses public transportation to access his job at the University of British Columbia as an Indigenous Engagement Leader. 

“I’ve been putting off moving for some time, waiting for these buildings to be complete, so it’s exciting to finally see it all come to fruition,” he said. 

Reflecting on the country’s housing shortage, Lewis said that “it feels amazing” being able to host Indigenous people who find themselves living in Vancouver.

As for building at this scale, Squamish cultural values helped guide the process. Providing high-density housing is solving one of the city’s largest problems, welcomes members of the nation back to the territory, while ensuring that environmental impact is as minimal as possible.

“People were saying ‘shouldn’t they be building something that’s more sustainable?’ Expecting us to build longhouses,” Lewis said, addressing negative feedback from the surrounding neighbourhood.

“We’re doing it the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh way, and that’s what we’re gonna focus on,” he said.

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Summary

• Historically, First Nations in B.C. who lived near floodplains respected tides and lived nomadically, until settlers disrupted water flow, creating dikes to pursue agriculture and urban development.
• Xwíʔləm̓nəc, or Addington Point Marsh, has been restored to a wetland after three years of collaboration led by Katzie First Nation.
• Restoring wetlands brings life to countless species and helps restore Indigenous people’s connection to their traditional territories. The marsh is part of Canada’s largest salmon-bearing watershed.

On a late April morning, a group of Katzie First Nation land guardians, conservation workers, government representatives and others trek down to Xwíʔləm̓nəc (Addington Point Marsh).

They gather in the First Nation’s Lower Mainland territory to celebrate the long-awaited completion of a wetland restoration project connecting to the Stó:lō (Fraser River).

Mike Leon leads Katzie’s team of eight guardians, and has been involved with the marsh restoration project from the beginning. After everyone bypasses a locked gate — there to reduce the risk of bear-human encounters — they stop by the water, and he addresses the group.

“I would really like to raise my hands to all of you, to the hard work and willingness to work with us, to be with us, to be with this land,” he said.

The restoration project was funded by the B.C. government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, implemented by Katzie First Nation, Resilient Waters, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Nature Trust of British Columbia, with many helping hands involved.

For three years the partners worked together to reestablish waterflow in the marsh. The wetlands connection to the Pitt River and South Fraser River system was disconnected when early settlers installed a dike, which has since been removed. 

“I love doing the work. I love being on our territory and helping the environment,” Mackenzie Adams, another Katzie guardian, added. Adams monitored the site throughout the project, and collected water and bird surveys to compare data before and after restoration. 

According to the B.C. Wildlife Federation, wetland monitoring is just as important as the initial restoration during a project. “Monitoring, maintenance, and data collection help us evaluate the effectiveness of restoration techniques and improve the performance and function of future projects,” it reads on their website.

Xwíʔləm̓nəc is now letting nature take its course, and with the area being home to one of the country’s largest salmon runs and smallest sandhill crane populations, monitoring the wetland is critical work for Katzie Guardians. 

“I was there one of the first days … comparing the first day to the last day was pretty eye opening because you can already see the differences from the river water coming in. It will be an awesome habitat for all birds and salmon fry,” Adams said. 

While the exact impact is currently unknown, wetland restoration benefits are well documented. Leon’s team will be on top of that data, working with partners to restore and conserve native plants and animals in the area.

Relationships between Katzie Guardians and partners in the project have flourished. A local property owner who attended the celebration shared their initial concerns after seeing excavation equipment clearing a path to the dike, and their relief after learning more about the endeavour. Beyond its environmental impacts, the project has brought people together from all walks of life who want to see salmon and wildlife in and around the Fraser River thrive.

Restoration project had many partners, but Katzie had final say

Dan Straker, the manager for the Resilient Waters project, was a lead organizer under the direction of Katzie Guardians and leadership. 

“With Katzie First Nation, it was determined early on they would have final decision making and be informing the project along the way. All the partners fell in line with that idea and thinking,” Straker told the Narwhal. 

“What we ended up with was this really nice blended way of doing things, from a more two-eyed seeing approach.” 

Leon added that, throughout the endeavour, Katzie brought in their customs, culture and laws.

“It’s really important and special to us to know our place names in our territory. When we have our guardians come out, we’re honored to be on those place names such as Xwíʔləm̓nəc,” Leon said. 

It’s a sentiment shared by Katzie’s guardian coordinator April Pierre. In a quiet moment of emotion in the circle, she addressed a reality shared by many First Nations people: growing up away from her homelands.

The Xwíʔləm̓nəc restoration project gave Pierre an opportunity to spend time on land she had never been to — the land of her ancestors. It’s one emotional moment of many that were shared during the celebration, as others reflected on the marine and wildlife already making appearances in the marsh.

Dikes were built to create flat land for agriculture in the area since the late 1800s. Restoring the marsh’s connection to the river has immense ecological benefits and cultural benefits for local First Nations.

“Conservation organizations in previous decades had a different approach to conservation land management that I think sometimes excluded other organizations and nations,” Ducks Unlimited senior restoration biologist, Eric Balke, said.

“I think we are learning new and better ways of moving forward, more collaborative ways, and this project is a great example of that.”

Balke has been involved with restoring Xwíʔləm̓nəc since brainstorming and planning days, eventually passing the reins to his colleague Alison Martin.

“What excites me about this project is it’s all about restoring relationships,” he said. “You’re restoring the relationship between the river and these wetlands that were formerly alienated by dikes. You’re restoring the relationship between Xwíʔləm̓nəc and juvenile salmon that previously were prevented from accessing the site … it’s also restoring the relationship between Katzie and their kin.”

Wetland restoration benefits salmon

In the Pacific Northwest, both people and the ecosystem know how important salmon is. Xwíʔləm̓nəc is connected to Canada’s largest salmon-bearing watershed, the Fraser River. 

According to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, “floodplains provide critical, food-rich habitat for juvenile salmon. These low-lying areas adjacent to stream channels allow young salmon to grow healthy and strong before their journey to the ocean.”

But dikes disrupt the river’s connection to the marsh, blocking valuable nutrients and harming the salmon and other species.

“Wetlands, such as tidal marshes, help to collect sediment that build up the marsh platform, helping to protect our communities from flooding,” Balke said.

“This land that settlers found is super valuable for farming and agriculture, it was valuable because of the sediment that was delivered, because of the nutrients that were delivered by the river,” he said.

“When we construct dikes we disconnect the river from its floodplain. The river can no longer deliver those critical ingredients.”

A huge benefit of restoring tidal marshes is that they are one of the most effective ways of capturing and storing carbon, contaminants and pollutants that flow downstream. 

Further, Xwíʔləm̓nəc is home to wapoto and tule, two traditional plants for Katzie First Nation that have been impacted from dikes. Restoring the wetland is giving members of the nation hope that these plants can be harvested for food and mat-making once again.

The marsh is also home to sandhill cranes, whose local population has hovered around 30 to 35 birds for decades, Myles Lamont told the Narwhal. He was brought into the project by Katzie as a sandhill crane consultant.

“The remaining birds seem to nest in golf courses and some very small regional parks … Unfortunately they’ve been getting struck by golf balls. Quite commonly over the last 10 to 15 years, I’ve had to rescue a few birds that have had broken legs or injuries as a result of golf ball strikes, particularly in Richmond,” Lamont said. 

He is hopeful that restoring Xwíʔləm̓nəc to a wetland will bring in enough water to create a nesting habitat for the birds, drawing them away from golf courses. As folks went around the sharing circle, Lamont spotted one overhead, calling out, “Crane!” 

“It’s really cool being a part of it. Just knowing that we’re making a difference, I’m making a difference,” Adams said.“The salmon habitat has a place to go throughout the winter and so do the sandhill cranes and birds. It’s a good feeling … I feel accomplished.”

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Summary

• British Columbia is home to the country’s longest-standing Indigenous Guardian program, the Haida Gwaii Watchmen, founded in 1982, and the province leads leads the way for national investment.
• Indigenous Guardian programs support conservation targets, create jobs in rural areas and have a high return on investment. 
• While programs across the country are seeing budgets slashed, Indigenous Guardians received an unexpected $230M investment by the federal government in March — but questions remain.

Ida Peter knew she had to apply to protect mule deer populations in Tsal’alh traditional territory, located in B.C.’s central Interior, when B.C. first announced $8.9 million for Indigenous Guardians programs in 2023. 

“We have a really big concern about [them] in our territory because traditionally we’re known as the deer people,” Peter said. 

“I would say in the last 50 years the population of deer has declined drastically. Where we used to see hundreds of deer, now we’re lucky to see in those same areas maybe 10 or 20,” she said.

Mule deer are a significant species of concern in the southern Interior region of the province, which means they are at risk of being endangered because of wildfires, resource extraction and human development.

Peter is an elected councillor in her nation, and manages the culture and heritage department. The Tsal’alh Guardians were born out of Peter’s proposal and are a small but mighty team of three that stewards the territory.

It’s one of more than 240 Indigenous Guardian initiatives implemented across the country with the support of federal funding: an initial investment of $25 million to pilot Indigenous Guardians programs in 2018-2022 was bolstered by an additional $100 million announced in 2021. But with both B.C. and federal guardian funding streams set to expire in 2026, Indigenous Guardians across the country were bracing for major cuts. 

That was, until an announcement on Mar. 31. 

To the surprise of many First Nations, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government committed an additional $230 million into Indigenous Guardian programming, including for the creation of a new Arctic Indigenous Guardians Program. 

Though the announcement was welcomed by Indigenous communities, many are still wondering when those funds will begin flowing — and who will benefit from them.

Funding will be administered over the next five years, Emily Jackson from Environment and Climate Change Canada confirmed in an email to The Narwhal.

“Information on Indigenous priorities, including initiatives, eligibility and timelines, will be shared as it becomes available.”

The Indigenous Guardian movement has deep roots in B.C.

Indigenous Guardians in British Columbia have led the way, implementing the longest-standing program in the country, which has been in operation since 1982: the Haida Gwaii Watchmen, established by volunteers.

Before B.C. or Canada began investing in these programs, Haida people took it upon themselves to steward their homelands. The goal was to preserve Gwaii Haanas village sites, according to the nation’s website. 

“It was very common for looters to come to these sites and take artifacts that were very important to the living culture of the Haida Nation, the work done by these volunteers was incredibly important in preserving the village sites that are now protected,” it reads.

Now the Watchmen are funded by Parks Canada, one of four programs the department is supporting across Canada, with three of those programs based in B.C. The province is also home to the highest number of guardian programs funded last year.  

According to an economic analysis from MakeWay, a national charity that supports conservation, and the Co|Evaluation Lab, a Canadian organization that provides reporting and research support, Indigenous Guardian programs put between $1.43 to $5.37 back into the economy for every dollar invested. 

Another analysis by Social Ventures Australia, which examined a different selection of Indigenous Guardian programs in Canada, had similar findings. For every dollar invested, approximately $2.50 was generated for stakeholders. 

Those returns on investment come from employment outcomes, improved health and wellness, increased tax revenues and benefits to the environment.

For Dallas Smith, president of Nanwakolas Council, the thinking behind the programs has evolved.

“First it was about having eyes, ears and boots on the ground out there. But as we’ve started trying to build a conservation economy in the Great Bear Rainforest, we realized that there were other returns to be made, not only in helping us balance our conservation vision, but also [to] build sustainable economic development visions,” he told The Narwhal.

The council supports six member nations on B.C.’s south coast and Vancouver Island in negotiations with government and industry. 

“Having the guardians in place whether we protect something or develop something has been monumental,” Smith said. 

While the $230-million announcement came as a welcome surprise, with no clear guidelines about where the funding is going, and with B.C.’s funding still set to expire, staff at some programs are concerned.

“Some [guardian programs] have models that have trust funds … where we’re able to back the guardian program up with some foundational funding that we’re able to live off the interest of,” Smith said. 

“For some of the other guardian programs that are in development … I bet there’s definitely some concern out there about where the next set of funding comes from to get through the next season.” 

Meanwhile, the federal government and various provinces, including B.C. and Ontario, passed bills that faced First Nation opposition last year, among them Bills 14 and 15 in B.C., Bill 5 in Ontario and federal Bill C-5, all of which critics have said privilege industry over Indigenous Rights and consultation.

Long-term funding is needed to sustain programs: existing guardians

Indigenous Guardians protect the land and natural resources across Canada, maintaining the ecosystem for everyone, while contributing to local economies, businesses and relationships that allow industry into Indigenous territory. 

“The people of this territory would like to see the environment better protected for future generations, so that in generations to come, they’re able to go out and harvest berries and get the meat and fish they need,” Peter said. 

In her nation, interest in becoming a guardian is growing, with renewed funding needed to continue the program. 

“Long-term funding makes it all happen. It takes away the anxiety of chasing grant after grant. … Being able to secure long term stable funding gives you the ability to plan around it and invest in it,” Smith said. 

Funding gaps, even temporary ones, could undermine the investment and benefits in guardian programs.

And while loss of employment is a huge harm, disruptions in Indigenous Guardian funding can have deadly consequences for the environment.

For example, programs like the Wuikinuxv Guardian Watchmen monitor coastal waters for spills, mitigating risk from industry and acting as a first responder for the environment. 

“Too many people want First Nations to either protect everything or develop everything, they don’t understand the balance we’re trying to reach. The guardians are a living example of creating balance,” Smith said.

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Summary

• Indigenous women in B.C. are leading projects and organizations committed to mitigating wildfire risk and restoring traditional practices. 
• Cultural burns are making a comeback in the province, thanks to years of advocacy from Indigenous firekeepers.
• First Nations women in the province’s Interior are decolonizing fire management through their work.

In 2017 Jaci Gilbert was 12 years old when she was evacuated from Tsq’escen’ First Nation because of a wildfire. Four years later, more wildfires impacted her community, located in B.C.’s central interior, prompting some Elders to be evacuated to the Lower Mainland.

Gilbert, who is Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in, volunteered both at the emergency operations centre during the partial evacuation in 2021, and as a fire camp logistics assistant near 100 Mile House during those fires.

“After being involved in the emergency operations centre I caught the bug of wanting to do emergency and wildfire management,” Gilbert told The Narwhal.

Gilbert works for First Nations Emergency Services Society as a cultural and prescribed fire specialist. She is part of a cohort of First Nations women in B.C. who are leading the way in wildfire management in their communities — demonstrating leadership and stewardship as blazes continue each year.

Being a young person, and a woman, Gilbert struggled to get into the field of emergency management, but reaching out to organizations and women in the field is a good place to start, she said.

“Youth have been managing emergencies in their personal lives for a long time, especially Indigenous youth, so using these skills I developed on reserve I’m able to handle [emergencies] well, whereas with a typical office or customer service job I don’t handle [those] very well,” Gilbert said.

“We’re seeing a shift in dynamics. I’m noticing a lot more Indigenous women in fire research and in the fire community.”

Indigenous firefighters bring cultural knowledge to their work

Sheresa Brown, a Nlaka’pamux woman from Lytton First Nation, has been involved with fire since firefighting in high school. Brown works as a field technician and archaeological monitor with Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, specializing in protecting cultural heritage values.

After her hometown Lytton, B.C., was devastated by fire in 2021, Brown evacuated to Merritt and was looking for a job when she called her former boss from the BC Wildfire Service. 

Back on the frontlines, Brown noticed a crew member cut down a culturally modified tree in Vernon, commonly referred to as a CMT, to clear a pathway for a hose. 

“[First Nations] make that [symbol on the tree] so they can come back to harvest the sap, they can use it to make different types of medicines. And it was a very utilized tree that just got cut down,” Brown told The Narwhal.

She recommended scanning for culturally modified trees before clearing to her crew lead, who received it well. A year later Brown was deployed on another fire near Lytton, teaching BC Wildfire Service crews about the land’s cultural values.

She said she’s willing to take people on the land if they are willing to learn and be respectful, noting that sometimes people do not know they are in a culturally significant area, especially when firefighters are deployed from another province or country. 

“I know if a man can do it, I can do it too, and probably even better,” Brown said, reflecting on her experience being a First Nations woman in the fire industry.

Bringing back cultural burns

Brown and Gilbert are carrying the torch lit by trailblazers in the field like Leona Antoine, who has 30 years of experience. Antoine is a Nlaka’pamux woman who is no stranger to cultural burning or firefighting. 

She practices traditional burning, is a registered forest technologist, a Type 1 (or first-response) firefighter with the BC Wildfire Service, and is a board director and chair of the Salish Fire Keepers Society. 

When Antoine’s firefighting journey with the BC Wildfire Service began in the early 2000s, she was one of few women on a 20-person unit crew. 

“Because there were no women on the crews before, they didn’t know how to have a woman around,” Antoine told The Narwhal.  

“It took probably about a month for the crew to get used to women being on the crew. You know, putting all the women’s posters and magazines away,” she said. 

Although men on the crew were initially uncomfortable around women, and had to be taught boundaries, “I broke those barriers,” she said. 

Another barrier at the time was getting the province and general public to see the value of cultural burning. B.C. was the first province in Canada to ban the practice in 1874.

After a year of devastating fire in 2017, and following the release of a report Addressing the New Normal: 21st Century Disaster Management in British Columbia in 2018, cultural burns started being taken more seriously by the province, with official amendments to the Wildfire Act in B.C. to support the practice taking effect in 2024.

This is work that the Salish Fire Keepers Society has been advocating for since its inception in 2016. The non-profit is made up of Interior Salish nations who experience some of Canada’s hottest wildfires, and promotes the restoration of cultural burning practices.

Gilbert contributed to a cultural burning guide, Workbook to Create a Cultural Burn Pathway, made in partnership with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative. 

“As I’ve become more involved with emergency and wildfire management, cultural burning comes up a lot, especially as an Indigenous person that’s interested in Indigenous solutions to modern problems,” she said. 

First Nations Emergency Services Society is an emergency management non-profit organization in B.C. “We were initially created as a result of a lot of Indigenous deaths related to structural fires,” Gilbert said during her presentation at the Salish Fire Keepers Society gathering in Kamloops on Mar. 17. 

The workbook guides readers through different considerations when planning a cultural burn, and was created through a series of community interviews by Amy Cardinal Christianson and Natasha Caverley.

“My role in [its] creation has been trying to make sure that it’s accessible for First Nations. I’m not much on the technical side, I’m … looking at the art and how that can help tell the story for people without strong English backgrounds,” she said.

During the March 2026 gathering, Antoine and the rest of the society’s board gifted each guest speaker with sweetgrass and sage, two traditional medicines among many First Nation cultures across Canada. 

There were many women in attendance, underscoring how things are beginning to shift.

This is an initiative she championed. “We are taught by our Elders when you ask for information or stories, you validate their teachings and what … they have taught. You honour them with medicine,” she said.

Prioritizing traditional protocols, ceremony, and medicine at this year’s fire gathering is an example of how Antoine brings balance to the fire space.

Not only has she broken down barriers for women to come after her, she also creates opportunities for those in the fire industry to connect, heal, and share knowledge – work that can be forgotten for those in the heat of fire. 

Antoine said “we’re in fire dependent ecosystems, the land needs fire.”

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This story is part of Generating Futures, a series from The Narwhal exploring clean energy sovereignty among B.C. First Nations.

Summary

• Directional gatherings hosted by Indigenous Clean Energy strengthen relationships for Indigenous energy leaders across Canada.
• Indigenous communities are central to Canada’s energy transition, and renewable projects on reserves and traditional territories quadrupled between 2009 and 2020.
• Five gatherings hosted across Canada brought approximately 200 people together in different regions.

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When most people think of an energy conference in Canada, they probably imagine people dressed in suits, seated in rows of chairs under fluorescent lighting, looking at a PowerPoint presentation. 

Well, not this gathering. 

Indigenous Clean Energy’s directional gatherings are a special place in the energy industry. They prioritize wellness, time on the land with local Indigenous Elders and connecting with one another outside of panels or breakout sessions.

“For me it’s super important to make sure that we bring [wellness] forward, and make it normal for people when they are attending gatherings,” organizer Danika Crow told The Narwhal.

“With wellness you gotta make sure people are healthy, right? To focus on and build clean energy projects, [wellness] is one of our goals out of these gatherings,” she said.

Crow, who is from Big Grassy River First Nation in northwestern Ontario, is the wellness and gatherings manager for Indigenous Clean Energy, a non-profit organization that delivers capacity-building programs for Indigenous people and communities across Canada who are looking to develop energy projects.

“Past cohorts wanted more connection to the land, and more culture, so I think that’s what we brought them with the directional gatherings. Taking the whole day to … build connections with each other on the land, and to learn about the different territories we’re on and their culture,” Crow said.

Indigenous Clean Energy has hosted gatherings in five directions: Iqaluit, representing the north, Fredericton, representing the east, Manitoulin Island, Ont., representing the south, Nanaimo, B.C., representing the west, and Whitecap Dakota First Nation in Saskatchewan representing central Canada.

The gatherings reflect the growing visibility of Indigenous people in Canada’s energy transition. More than 90 per cent of privately owned clean energy projects in B.C., known as independent power producer projects, have Indigenous participation, either through full ownership, as equity partners or through royalty agreements.

And B.C. is not alone.

On its website, the federal government says “renewable energy projects on traditional Indigenous territory or reserve lands increased steadily since the 1970s, and more than quadrupled from 2009 to 2020.” 

Indigenous values a core part of directional gatherings, programming

At the Nanaimo gathering in late February, the days began with a smudging ceremony, a common practice for First Nations people, where traditional medicines are burned to create smoke that cleanses the energy of anything it touches. 

Crow says when Indigenous Clean Energy began looking for venues to host directional gatherings, it focused on Indigenous-owned spaces to ensure smudging could be part of programming, as many businesses do not permit smoke inside of their buildings.

Another unique cultural consideration was spending the entire first day of the gathering on the land with local Elder Dave Bodaly.

Bodaly, a member of Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, took participants to old village sites while sharing teachings about the land, traditional medicines and local animals.

“For our participants from the West Coast, [we wanted to] remind them of all the tools they have in their own region,” Crow said, noting that spending time on the land and in community can offer something not found in books. 

That sentiment holds true for Dakota Marsden, a participant at the Nanaimo directional gathering who has attended numerous Indigenous Clean Energy events in the past.

“I saw this program with Indigenous Clean Energy and I didn’t have any idea what to expect. It was called Generation Power. … I was part of the first cohort and started learning about what clean energy could be,” Marsden told The Narwhal. The Generation Power program employs Indigenous youth from across Canada in the energy sector, lasting from three to nine months, and paired with mentors in the field. 

She says what keeps her coming back to these events are the networking opportunities and the heavy emphasis on mentorship. Marsden travels to gatherings with her son Hawk, who turns two years old this month. 

“I find that Indigenous organizations are more open to little ones coming, right? I did start taking Hawk quite young into these spaces: he was two months old.”

“In the beginning I didn’t see any other babies, it was just Hawk. … At this gathering I saw a lot more babies and children. It was very nice to see that they’re being included in these gatherings and capacity-building programs,” she said. 

Participants find community at directional gatherings

Five years after the initial launch of the Generation Power program, Marsden still attends events all over the country with Indigenous Clean Energy, strengthening relationships and creating new ones. At the Nanaimo gathering, her only criticism was that she wanted more dedicated time to hear about everyone’s energy projects.

Marsden is employed as the lands manager in her nation, Pinaymootang First Nation in Manitoba, so she is used to energy projects coming across her desk. 

So far, her nation has installed level three electric-vehicle chargers — the fastest available — and solar panels at the local conference centre. The nation has also submitted a proposal to Manitoba Hydro to answer a call for 600 megawatts of wind-generated power. 

Marsden was initially not sure about clean energy, but the guidance and mentorship provided through Indigenous Clean Energy programming has been crucial in her journey.

She is one example of many who return to and find community at these events, as confirmed by the organization’s director of energy and climate Freddie Campbell, who is Michif from Ktunaxa Kinbasket territory in B.C., with her Métis family name coming from Lac La Biche, Alta. 

“We wanted to offer another opportunity to gather and really open that space for folks to have these conversations about what people are experiencing in their regions in terms of energy needs, gaps and future dreams,” Campbell told The Narwhal, emphasizing the importance of land-based programming. 

“It can be easy to get caught up or distracted in the colonial system that we are existing in, so I think that taking that time on the land really allows us to get back to that space of connection, to come together and dream about systems that are our own,” she said. 

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