Half a billion dollars. That’s how much it could cost to pay out more than 1,600 mineral tenure claims that the outgoing provincial government approved within declared and proposed Indigenous protected areas across B.C. And it’s unclear who would be on the hook for those payments. 

In July 2026, the Lower Similkameen Indian Band issued a press release drawing attention to the issue. It found 37,498 hectares of mineral claims the province approved inside the boundaries of the the nʔaysnúlaʔxʷ Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) since 2022, when the nation had declared its intention to protect it. The claims cover nearly a quarter of the proposed 150,000-hectare protected area, which would encompass most of the Ashnola River watershed near Keremeos, B.C.

Lower Similkameen Indian Band Chief Keith Crow said in the press release the tenure approvals amount to “a mockery of British Columbia’s constitutional duties,” adding it’s a violation of the province’s “obligation to interpret laws in a manner consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” 

But it’s not just the Ashnola where mineral claims have been approved inside of proposed protected areas. The Narwhal reviewed publicly available records of provincial mineral tenure approvals since the province passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) in 2019. We overlaid that data with a map of all of the proposed and in-progress IPCAs in the province. Viewed together, the data shows that, over the past seven years, B.C. has approved 1,618 mineral tenures covering 594,987 hectares inside proposed Indigenous protected areas. 

Among these are dozens of tenures in two other protected areas that the Lower Similkameen has proposed inside its traditional territory. In the Ollalla Highlands area near the town of Hedley, B.C., the province approved 38 mineral tenures covering nearly 13 per cent of the area. In the Tulameen River watershed, west of Princeton, they approved 359 mineral tenures which cover 30 per cent of a proposed protected area. Nearly two-thirds of these tenures have been filed since 2025. 

Across the rest of the province, mineral tenures have been approved inside the proposed Stein Nahatlach protected area in Nlaka’pamux territory, Dene K’éh Kusān in Kaska territory and inside a number of proposed protected areas in St’át’imc territory. A large number were also approved inside the boundaries of T’akú Tlatsini, a protected area first envisioned by the Taku River Tlingit Nation in 2009 and declared in 2023. 

Mineral claims within protected areas make things complicated. A provision in B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act requires claim holders to be compensated if the province renders their claims unusable by, for example, establishing a park or protected area. In 2022, this provision led the province to pay Imperial Metals $24 million to give up mineral claims the company said contained gold, silver and copper inside an area between E.C. Manning and Skagit River provincial parks.

According to an affidavit submitted to the B.C. Supreme Court in 2023, the “cost for compensating a mineral claim holder ranges from $250 per hectare to $850.” Applying that number to the 594,987 hectares of mineral claims the province has approved inside proposed Indigenous protected areas could put the high-end of the price tag for buying them all out at more than $500 million. 

B.C.’s recent election resulted in a change in government, leaving questions about the future of provincial support for Indigenous-led conservation efforts.

What’s Lorne Doerksen’s plan for Indigenous protected areas? 

During the election, Harlan Schilling, Chief of the Liard First Nation, one of the four member nations of the Kaska, raised concerns about how a change in government could impact a proposed three-million-hectare protected area called Dene K’éh Kusān.

After the votes were counted, those concerns persisted. And while Schilling congratulated premier-designate Lorne Doerksen, he also encouraged the BC Conservative leader not to let progress on the protected area backslide. 

“Dene K’éh Kusān was close to the finish line when the election was called,” he explained in a statement that was emailed to The Narwhal. “The groundwork is done and the public is behind it. We hope the new government will see the value of that work and help us complete it.”

But during the campaign, Doerksen promised to repeal DRIPA and open up lands to mineral exploration. The Conservative platform pledged to “make B.C. the fastest place in North America to permit a mine.” Doerksen didn’t detail a clear plan for conservation and new protected areas, but in 2024 his predecessor, John Rustad, said that if his party formed a government, it would “absolutely axe” the government’s plan to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030. 

Together, DRIPA and the 30-by-30 pledge have underpinned the province’s past support for Indigenous-led conservation. According to Torrance Coste, associate director of the Wilderness Committee, that combination is why the previous government considered IPCAs “critical” to both reconciliation and conservation.

“The water, lands and resource stewardship ministry, since that ministry has existed, has said [Indigenous conservation] is how we’re doing it,” he explained. But now, he’s not sure what Doerksen’s commitment to “supercharge the economy” through mining, forestry and other extractive industries, along with his promise to repeal DRIPA, will mean. 

Doerksen’s office did not reply to requests to comment on this story. But on Oct. 25, the morning after his party swept to a decisive majority election win, he renewed his promise to repeal DRIPA, describing it as one of his government’s top priorities. 

“We’re committed to doing it as soon as we can,” Doerksen said.

He also reiterated his pledge to support mineral exploration and mining as key engines of the provincial economy. Todd Stone, president and chief executive officer of the province’s Association for Mineral Exploration, said B.C. has “elected a government that has made mining a priority.”

Interim protections over in-progress Indigenous protected areas are set to expire 

While more than half a million hectares worth of mineral tenures inside of proposed IPCAs is a lot, there could have been even more had the province not closed regions to staking when it entered land use negotiations with First Nations like Taku Tlingit and Kaska. 

In June 2025, the province enacted two Environmental Land Use Act Orders and three No Registration Reserves covering large swaths of the northern part of the province as it started working towards establishing IPCAs in the area. Different legislation enables these two land use designations, but their effects are similar: they make it impossible to stake new mineral claims in certain regions.

But Lower Similkameen hasn’t been so lucky. According to the nation, they applied for a No Registration Reserve in the Ashnola in September 2024 but were unsuccessful. Since then, the nation has tracked dozens of new claims registered in the region. A whopping 88, covering more than 4,000 hectares, were issued on a single day: July 16, 2026. Lauren Terbasket, the nation’s lead negotiator for parks and protected areas, described it as “a gold rush” in an interview with the CBC.

In late September, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs passed a resolution supporting Lower Similkameen during their annual general meeting. It calls on the province to “immediately establish, in accordance with the direction of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band, meaningful interim legal protection for the Ashnola that prevents registration of new mineral titles and mining activities within the nʔaysnúlaʔxʷ (Ashnola) watershed while long-term protection arrangements are advanced.” 

But with the new government expressing vocal support for mining across the province, getting interim protections for the Ashnola could be a challenge, so could keeping protections in areas like Dene K’éh Kusān, where Kaska hoped that the negotiations over the protected area would be finished by the end of this year. The election delayed that process, and now they’re not sure what a change in government might mean, especially since the restrictions over new mineral claims in the region are set to expire in January 2027. 

“Time matters,” Chief Schilling said. “We’re asking the new government to extend [the restrictions] while we finish the plan together. An extension keeps everyone’s options open and respects the years of work that the Kaska, the province and British Columbians have put into this plan.”

Legitimate claims or a ‘cash grab’? 

While the laws governing mining and conservation in the province may be in flux, the desire for minerals is not. According to the British Columbia Mineral and Coal Exploration Survey, spending on mineral and coal exploration in the province hit a record-high $751 million in 2025. That’s more than double the $327 million spent in 2019, when B.C. passed DRIPA, and more than the $643 million that industry spent in 2023.In Lower Similkameen territory, some of this spending has been focused on operations looking for copper, gold and platinum. Some of the largest claims are held by Adamera Minerals Corporation and a numbered company, 1000334153 Ontario Inc., which Vancouver-based mining company Auric Resources acquired in September 2025. Both companies are pursuing mining projects in the region, but neither responded to The Narwhal’s request for comment. 

The remaining claims in Lower Similkameen’s proposed protected areas are from a mix of corporations and individuals. Some of these, the nation worries, aren’t even honest attempts at mineral extraction, but attempts to profit if the province recognizes an Indigenous protected area in the Ashnola, which would likely require buying out claims. 

“It is hard not to see this as a cash grab by mining companies ahead of a formal Crown conservation designation in the area,” Janet Terbasket, an elected councillor with Lower Similkameen, said.

Staking claims without plans to actually develop them — for example, to hold the land in hopes of a payout when a protected area is created — is called nuisance staking. B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act doesn’t explicitly mention the practice, although it does have a provision against staking mineral claims inside established provincial parks and protected areas. Instead, the Chief Gold Commissioner, the provincial office responsible for overseeing mineral claims, has the power to extinguish nuisance claims. But since proving nuisance staking requires understanding the intent of a claim, successful cases proving it are rare.

“There’s one of two possibilities,” Jessica Clogg, executive director and senior counsel at West Coast Environmental Law said. “One, the miner simply doesn’t believe that the Crown will ever take effective action to protect the Indigenous protected area. The other possibility is that even if it’s not mining for compensation, there’s at least the sense that there’s no harm in doing it because they’ll be compensated on the back end. There’s no risk.” 

But the province, which would have to compensate claim holders, faces considerable financial risk. So do First Nations who are leading conservation efforts in their territories. 

In 2023, the B.C. government announced a $300-million fund to support Indigenous-led conservation. 

According to the BC Parks Foundation, who administers the fund, $1.1 million was granted to the Lower Similkameen to pursue protections in the Ashnola. But, as Andy Day, the foundation’s chief executive officer, explained in a statement to The Narwhal, “the B.C. Conservation Fund cannot be used for a provincial obligation regarding compensation.” 

“Its primary purpose is to fund sustainable, reliable, long-term stewardship of priority biodiverse areas in B.C.,” Day said. 

But even if that money were available to buy out mineral claims in the Ashnola, $1.1 million wouldn’t go that far. If the historic range of compensation costs are applied, buying out the 37,498 hectares of tenures that have been approved inside the region could cost somewhere between $9.3 and $31 million.

It’s not clear who would be expected to foot that bill if the province recognizes the Indigenous protected area. In 2024, for example, when the province recognized an Indigenous protected area in Clayoquot Sound, the non-profit Nature United had to raise $40 million for the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht Nations to compensate the forestry-tenure holder, Mamook Natural Resources, for the loss of that tenure. That wasn’t provincial funding, but private and philanthropic money. And, as Coste explained, that’s money that wasn’t “available for nations to hire guardians to manage those protected areas, or to do restoration work or to build tourism infrastructure.”  

Of course, buying out claims depends on the province continuing to pursue IPCAs. And while mining and mineral exploration advocates have expressed concerns that these protected areas create delays and uncertainty for the sector, Chief Schilling thinks that Indigenous protected areas like Dene K’éh Kusān actually help provide clarity for industry. 

“The Kaska recognize how important resource development is to our communities and to the northern economy,” he said. “The [Dene K’éh Kusān] plan sets out clearly where the land is protected and where responsible development can go ahead, with the Kaska as partners.”  

Not only that, he explained, the process so far has been “built through give and take, with input from industry.” The Kaska have “worked with the province and with claim holders to address their interests.”In June 2026, those negotiations led Kaska to agree to a nearly 20 percent reduction in the size of Dene K’éh Kusān, with the new boundaries excluding a number of mineral claims that had previously been approved inside the original IPCA boundaries.

“That clarity is good for investment, good for northern jobs and good for the land,” Schilling added. 

Lower Similkameen and Taku Tlingit have made similar statements. They’re not opposed to mining outright; they just want to have a say in the process. The question now is what kind of say the new provincial government plans to give them, and what that means for mining, conservation and First Nations. 

Advocates point to long standing issues with British Columbia mining law 

Among the questions the new government will have to answer about Indigenous Rights, mineral tenures and conservation, is what it plans to do about the province’s Mineral Tenure Act. Passed in 1988, the act can trace its roots back to the province’s 1859 Gold Fields Act, a piece of colonial legislation that, at the height of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, introduced a “free entry” mining system, allowing open claim staking on what the province considers Crown land.According to Nikki Skuce, director of the Northern Confluence Initiative, the province “committed to repeal and replace the Mineral Tenure Act in co-operation with Indigenous Peoples,” after passing DRIPA in 2019. That promise was formalized in 2022 in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act Action Plan, which included modernizing the Mineral Tenure Act as one of the listed priorities. 

But while that work was supposed to move forward through something called the Mineral Tenure Act Modernization Office, the website for that office hasn’t been updated since 2024. It’s not clear why the process hasn’t moved forward, but Skuce thinks it could be related to a court case brought by the Gitxaała Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation in 2023 that challenged the province’s mineral staking regime.The case argued that B.C.’s “free entry” mining system, which since 2005 has allowed prospectors to trade a literal stake in the ground for an online system where they could buy claims for $1.75 per hectare, violated both DRIPA and Section 35 of the Canadian constitution. 

The court ruled that the mineral tenure process, which approved claims filed online without consulting First Nations “created adverse impacts on the petitioners’ Aboriginal Rights” and called for changes to the system. 

The province responded by implementing the Mineral Claims Consultation Framework in 2025, requiring registered claims to go through a consultation process with local First Nations. According to a pamphlet circulated to First Nations about the policy, nations would be “invited to share any concerns about how registering the claim may impact their Rights and Title, including those related to culture, spirituality, environment and economy.” 

But according to the Lower Similkameen, the consultations on the approved claims in the Ashnola were cursory, at best.

“Following a tight 30-day response period, the mining ministry made the decision to approve the mineral claim registrations without even speaking to Lower Similkameen Indian Band leadership,” the First Nation’s press release said.Mineral exploration advocates have also been critical of the process. In a report published in early 2026, the Association for Mineral Exploration argued that consultations had created “serious new challenges and roadblocks for explorers.” 

The report decried “long, unpredictable timelines, reduced confidentiality and unclear processes [that] all make it harder for explorers to plan projects and raise money” before calling for “immediate intervention … to improve performance and ensure a sustainable claim staking system for British Columbia.” 

And the association might get its wish, because while the previous government created the consultation framework in 2025, it also launched an appeal of the Gitxaała court ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada the following year.  

“Instead of following through on its commitment, [the province] is appealing that decision,” Skuce explained.

The new provincial government is likely to continue with that appeal, and, according to the Association for Mineral Exploration, be a friendlier ear for industry. What that all means for the convergence of First Nations rights, mining and conservation remains to be seen. But with 1,618 mineral tenures already approved within IPCAs and the new government promising more land access to mineral exploration companies, it won’t be simple to resolve.

Updated Friday, Nov. 13 at 6:31 p.m. PCT: This story has been updated to add the date that mineral tenure and proposed Indigenous protected area data was sourced from public databases. Maps denoting the mineral claims in Kaska territory are being updated to reflect changes in Dene K’éh Kusān boundaries made in June 2026.

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As smoke rises from the fire at the centre of a Haíɫzaqv Big House raised two decades ago on a beach crowded with cedar, the song begins. 

The dancers emerge and circle the floor, their feet tracing stories in the sand. Drummers seated at the log drum hold the beat and their voices carry the song. Around the room, from among all the people here to witness the ceremony, women stand. Swaying like kelp in tidal currents, their movements and hand gestures mirror those of the dancers, protecting them.

Leading this ceremony, dancing life into the walls and the world around, are children. This is Kvai, a place where Haíɫzaqv kids come to connect with song and story, language and ceremony. Received by the lands and waters, this is their lineage, their inheritance.

Standing next to the log drum, leaning on the talking stick, Thomas Dixon extends a welcome. 

“The name of this Big House is λáλix̌sístala,” he says. “λáλix̌sístala in our language translates to ‘complete the circle’ — and the circle we’re referring to is the circle of knowledge, because of the amount of knowledge that gets passed on here, from generation to generation.”

Like many of his peers, Dixon came here as a youth and learned from the land and from the stories. Now, as a cultural leader, he’s passing on the teachings he received, completing the circle.

“These songs and dances are very sacred,” he says, asking guests not to share photos or videos on social media. “When we were given permission to teach these songs and dances, we promised the Chiefs and Elders we wouldn’t put it out publicly like that.” 

He pauses. In the space between his words, the snapping of the fire. 

“W̓álas ǧiáxsix̌a,” he says, sitting down at the log. The drumming begins.

In 2008, Opaskwayak Cree scholar Shawn Wilson said: “When listeners know where the storyteller is coming from and how the story fits into the storyteller’s life, it makes the absorption of the knowledge that much easier.” 

These are not my stories — but I am part of it because I was there. ​’Cúagilákv Jess Housty invited me, extending the welcome to my seven-year-old daughter. I was invited to witness, given permission to share a story of this place and what it means to many Haíɫzaqv. This place also holds deep meaning for Wuìk̓inux̌v people and the watershed is an area of shared importance. Gently warned about past harms done by well-meaning journalists, I am walking lightly, honouring the trust.

I listen to my recordings while I write: the sound of the waves, ravens squawking, an eagle chittering. A light wind.

Inside, a couple of teenagers add logs to the flames, sending a burst of sparks through the hole in the roof. Outside, a grizzly bear walks the beach with her cubs under sheets of rain while salmon jump from the bay, their silver backs glistening against a grey ocean.

Dixon stands, again holding the talking stick, and speaks in Haíɫzaqvḷa: “Yáu sásṃ, sas húmíɫṇƛa?”

As one, the kids respond with an affirming ‘mm-hmm.’ 

“I want to explain what I just asked the kids,” he says. “I asked the kids: ‘Sas húmíɫṇƛa?’ — ‘Did you hear me?’ [Are you listening?] I asked them that because I want to make sure that they’re listening before we tell the story. At every practice, after every dance, I would ask them that before I tell them the story. I would tell the story behind each dance so the stories get told over and over and over again and hopefully it gets embedded in their heads.”

“This was an old teaching we got from Thistalalh Ed Martin, when he was our camp Elder out here,” he continues. “When I was a camper, that’s what he used to say to us. So when I say, ‘Sas húmíɫṇƛa?’ you guys can say ‘mm-hmm,’ to make sure you are all paying attention.”

The sounds of the rain and the fire are one and the song begins again.

Haíɫzaqv have always been here, caring for w̓áxv:w̓uísax̌v. W̓áxv:w̓uísax̌v is the land, ocean, submerged land, surface water, groundwater, subsurface and air space as defined by the boundaries of the five tribes which make up the Haíɫzaqv Nation: Ẁúyalitx̌v, ’Qvúqvay̓áitx̌v, W̓u̓íƛ̓itx̌v, Y̓ísdáitx̌v and X̌íx̌ís. On colonial maps, Haíɫzaqv w̓áxv:w̓uísax̌v is on B.C.’s central coast. 

As affirmed by the nation’s constitution, ratified in 2025, the “relationship of the Haíɫzaqv people to the w̓áxv:w̓uí sax̌v is ancient, sacred and complex,” and the nation’s “ancient rights, inherent jurisdiction and responsibility for the w̓áxv:w̓uí sax̌v, which have never been surrendered, flow from our relationship to it.”

The sun rises every morning, even when it can’t be seen in all the clouds. The moon completes its cycles, waning and waxing, inexorably tugging our bodies and the waters we come from. The seasons shift like slow stretching tides, bringing herring and salmon and berries.

These are the places where the stories are from, the stories that get told over and over and over again. Story, song, ceremony, place: same thing, different forms. Sas húmíɫṇƛa?

Ten years after λáλix̌sístala was raised, a tugboat called the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground near the village of Q’vúqvai in Gale Passage. Eight hours later, it sank, spilling more than 100,000 litres of diesel and other pollutants into Haíɫzaqv waters. 

Everything is connected, of course, and all the threads matter — but this is not a story about the legacy of pollution and trauma, of diesel spills and shipping lanes. This is a story of knowledge, ceremony and the future of stewardship. This is a story about λáλix̌sístala.

Kvai, sometimes spelled Koeye, is pronounced kway. 

Depending on the boat and weather, it takes around an hour-and-a-half to two hours to get here from Wágḷísḷa (Bella Bella, B.C.) 

On the way down, you might see whales — humpbacks or orcas, probably — and in the summer you’ll likely see fishing boats, a smattering of pleasure craft of various types and sizes, maybe a coast guard vessel and perhaps a BC Ferries vessel on its regular run between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert.

When you get here, you’ll see a flash of white sand against the dark green of the coastal rainforest. λáλix̌sístala will greet you as you enter the bay. Atop a bluff, you’ll see the lodge and other buildings, tucked into the trees. It’s welcoming, protective.

Before all this, the Kvai watershed was home to several Haíɫzaqv villages and fishing sites. For thousands of years, this place was a vital part of culture, ceremony, harvesting and stewardship. Then came the colonizers.

In 1884, the federal government amended the Indian Act to prohibit Potlatches: “Every Indian or other person who engages in or assists in celebrating the Indian festival known as the ‘Potlatch’ or in the Indian dance ‘tamananawas’ is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be liable to imprisonment,” the amendment stated.

Gilbert M. Sproat, a Scottish-born businessman and government agent at the time, described the Potlatch ceremony to then-prime minister John A. MacDonald as “the parent of numerous vices which eat out the heart of the [native] people.” 

Israel Wood Powell, the provincial government’s first superintendent of Indian Affairs, went further, advocating for the federal government to “adopt every practicable means to put a stop to the custom.” Powell went on to champion and oversee the residential “school” system in B.C., forcibly removing Indigenous children from their homes, cultures and languages. (Powell’s name continues to be used in geographic place names, including the community of Powell River. Tla’amin Nation leadership has been petitioning to have the name changed for several years.)

MacDonald agreed with Sproat and Powell and their contemporaries.

“The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects … as speedily as they are fit to change,” he said in 1887.

In the years that followed, widespread persecution of any expression of Indigeneity or ceremony was severe, sanctioned and often enforced by government agents, including the newly formed federal police force that is now the RCMP. Around this time, with the nation’s communities already devastated by the spread of smallpox, including attempts to exterminate entire communities with disease-ridden blankets, the only remaining Haíɫzaqv λiác̓ilacx̌i (Big House) was destroyed, likely by missionaries.

More than a century would pass before the next was built.

λáλix̌sístala was the first, raised on the beach at Kvai in 2006. Next came Gvakva’aus Haíɫzaqv, the larger λiác̓ilacx̌i raised in Wágḷísḷa in 2019. Last year, Haíɫzaqv ratified its new constitution and celebrated with a Potlatch in that space.

The importance of the Potlatch cannot be overstated. In Potlatch, songs and dances breathe life into the world. Within them are stories that span generations, past, present and future, and speak of place, lineage, spirit and so much more. These stories, as they are shared in all their shapes and forms, preserve the circle of knowledge.

In Indigenous Storywork, Sto:lo scholar Q’um Q’um Xiiem Jo-ann Archibald said that “storytellers not only learned stories from master storytellers but also by being connected to land” and explained how “stories can become a teacher, and … we can live life through stories.” She also said the oral tradition challenges the listener to “make meaning and gain understanding from the storyteller/teacher’s words and stories, which is an empowering process.”

Remember: “The stories get told over and over and over again and hopefully it gets embedded in their heads.”

In coming together, at places like Kvai, or in the Big House in Wágḷísḷa, or anywhere else where knowledge is passed on through story, time takes on a new shape, layers and threads where there is no beginning and no end, just a continuous unfolding. As Haida and Tlingit artist Robert Davidson said in Potlatch as Pedagogy, we are “all connected to the past by a thin thread. And when we come together as a group, then these threads form quite a thick rope.” 

In Haíɫzaqvḷa: m̓ṇukvs w̓úwax̌di; one mind, one heart.

The river feels eternal, its banks renewed time and time and time again. The beach is washed by the tides and the rain. The old spruce tree absorbs a cloud of swallows; their symphony of chirps dying abruptly, swallowed by the endless riffling river. Sas húmíɫṇƛa? (Are you listening?) 

From ‘Cúagilákv’s newest collection of poems:

After ceremony, and after all the guests have been gifted the salmon and seaweed the kids harvested and processed, most community members head back to Bella Bella on a handful of boats and the kids move their things into λáλix̌sístala to sleep. For some, it’s their final night here before returning home. Others will be back next week, and maybe again the week after that. 

Singing and drumming and practicing dances, cooking hot dogs on the fire, the big kids guide the little ones and there’s a comfortable, controlled chaos to it all. A few of the boys swim in the ocean, laughing and splashing as the rain continues falling and the sun slowly dips down to the western horizon behind the clouds.

Before λáλix̌sístala and before all the infrastructure that exists today, kids camped on the beach in a handful of tents from Canadian Tire. ​’Cúagilákv was once one of those kids, and today they’re a camp leader.

“I had some moments this summer around the celebration where I would be talking to campers about what my experience was like as a camper in the first years of camp, when it was tents on the beach and on feast day we literally used to rake a flat spot on the beach to light a fire and dance around the fire, and they were just like, ‘What dark times are you from?’ ” 

​’Cúagilákv laughs, their eyes twinkling.

During the more recent chapters of colonization, the site where the current lodge, cabins, garden and other infrastructure sits was once logged and later sold to settlers who built a sport fishing lodge there. Haíɫzaqv leaders stood firm in upholding their sovereign rights and established the youth science and culture camp, first on the beach and later buying back the land in 2001. 

Those original buildings were burned in an arson fire in 2011. With the insurance money, the organization bought a sawmill, rebuilding everything from the ground up. Working with timbers harvested on the land, milled by Haíɫzaqv workers, they created a beautiful new lodge and cabins.

“It’s really cool that kids who attend camp today don’t ever remember not having a Big House down there,” ​’Cúagilákv says. “They don’t remember a time when there wasn’t a lodge providing safety and support and hosting their families. They don’t remember a time when there weren’t comfortable cabins to sleep in. They just totally take for granted that that’s always been there and it will always be there — and I love it.”

Central to all this safety and support is Qqs. 

Qqs (pronounced kucks) is the non-profit organization that oversees programs including the youth science and culture camps at Kvai, as well as a variety of programming in Haíɫzaqv communities in support of health, culture, food security and more. ​’Cúagilákv is the executive director, a position they took on after their dad, Larry Jorgensen, stepped back from his leadership role. Qqs means ‘eyes’ in Haíɫzaqvḷa.

Keeping the camp running isn’t always easy, nor is it cheap. Transport alone is a huge expense: running boats back and forth accounts for about a third of the entire annual budget. For eight weeks every summer, Kvai is home to kids, youth and staff, with groups of anywhere from 15 to 30 people rotating in and out weekly. Some kids come for multiple weeks, others just for one. A lot of the staff are youth themselves, former campers who are stepping into leadership roles or getting experience and earning a wage in their first jobs, cooking and cleaning or otherwise supporting the programs. At the end of each week is feast day, when the kids are responsible for leading the ceremonies in front of community members who come down for the day.

“Programs like this are beautiful, but the reality of running them in a remote location is that certain aspects are astronomically more expensive and complicated,” ​’Cúagilákv says. 

Yet, somehow, for the past 28 years, Haíɫzaqv youth have gathered here every summer to learn from the land. When I ask some of the staff how long they’ve been coming out to Kvai, most say their connections thread through their whole lives. It’s as if they’ve always been here. 

Allie, a staff member, puts it simply: “Since I was a baby. I grew up out here.”

“I think back to that really early wisdom that guided the creation of Qqs and it was this idea that people protect what they love,” ​’Cúagilákv says. “So you want to teach them to love themselves, so they’re protecting themselves. You want to teach them to love each other and their community, so there’s a strong, cohesive community mind. You want to teach them to love the land and the waters so that they are standing up as stewards. And you want to teach them to love language and culture, so they are stewarding that as well.” 

“I mean, it’s stupidly simple, but I really believe it is the most important thing we do.”

Both ‘Cúagilákv and their brother Dúqva̓ísḷa William Housty now have their own kids among the campers. Faye, William’s wife, is one of the camp leaders, and his teenager is also on staff. Across the fire one night, Faye tells me their youngest, George, listened to the songs while in the womb. William is there singing and drumming with the kids in the Big House on feast day. 

“I think one of the really beautiful things about having done this work for as long as we have, is that we can see what Kvai kids do when they grow up,” ​’Cúagilákv says. “Stewardship is a really obvious one.” 

William was one of the earliest camp leaders and is now director of the nation’s stewardship department, which manages policy and planning in support of ecosystem health, jurisdiction and protection of Haíɫzaqv lands, waters and resources. Gíƛa Elroy White was similarly an early leader out at Kvai and is now the department’s in-house archaeologist.

“Many of the Guardian Watchmen and people who work at all levels in that office were Kvai campers or Kvai staff at one point over the years,” ​’Cúagilákv says. “By no means would we ever take all the credit for that — they are extraordinary in their own right and we’re really lucky that we got to support them for portions of that formative time in their lives.”

For Louisa Housty-Jones, Kvai not only shaped her — it saved her life.

“I was the victim of domestic violence,” she tells me. When she was around nineteen, drinking heavily and spiraling from the trauma of an abusive relationship, Larry took her down to Kvai and left her there, alone. “Larry had this vision of helping our young people in their healing journeys through the land, guiding them to finding their identity.”

At first, she was angry with him. Slowly, yielding to the lands and waters, her anger subsided. This was before λáλix̌sístala and the current trail which links the lodge to the beach. Somewhere near where the Big House now stands she found a rock to sit at. 

“Every day, rain or shine, I would make it a daily thing to go and sit on that rock,” she says. “I wailed, I cried, I screamed — I did a lot of healing at that rock. And then I would go in the ocean and I did that pretty much every day.”

Among the many roles she now holds, Louisa works with the W̓úm̓aqs du M̓ṇúyaqs, the council of high-ranking Matriarchs and Knowledge Keepers, supporting “their responsibility to pass on knowledge, teachings and wisdom from one generation to the next.”

“We are Haíɫzaqv women. We are as strong as cedar trees,” the M̓ṇúyaqs affirm in the Heiltsuk Women’s Declaration. “We are the mothers who give birth to nations. We are the mothers who bring future generations into being. We are the lifeblood of our people.” 

When she was alone at Kvai, Louisa once heard women singing the Haíɫzaqv songs. And near her rock, she kept hearing a lady crying. It scared her: it was fall, cold, and there was no one else out there. A couple of months later, back in Bella Bella, she told her grandmother the story. 

“She grabbed my hand and she said: ‘That lady crying was you. That was you, your spirit.’ Everything just totally came together. It’s what our Elders talk about. It was the way she explained it to me, that it was a part of me that was leaving, that was fighting not to leave.”

She started taking the canoe out in the bay, to harvest crabs, and up the river. It was there she found the most peace, she says.

“There’s so much healing in our land.”

After the kids leave and staff head back to Wágḷísḷa for the weekend, it’s quiet and the bears come back. The sand is white and golden and the story of their morning walk along the beach is fresh and new, even as it reflects one that has been told here for thousands of years. Little birds dart around the shallow waves that lap at the shore. A few gulls congregate by the kelp and barnacle encrusted rocks. 

The river is tea-coloured, rich with tannins. A flotilla of canoes leans against an old cedar tree. In the deep stillness away from the beach, the land opens to receive you. The light plays on the waters, creeks tumble from the forest. Later, the tide is so high it stretches into the tangle of trees that line the long beaches. In the mornings, the clouds sit so low it’s hard to tell where the fog ends and the ocean begins. 

​’Cúagilákv skims the little boat expertly along the water. In the hum of the engine, the slap of the waves and the cool salt spray, their words are offerings.

In his living room overlooking the bay at Wágḷísḷa, ‘Nusi Ian Reid, a Haíɫzaqv artist and carver, puts a book of oral histories on the table.

Gusgai’in William Beynon, a hereditary chief whose mixed lineage includes Nisga’a, Ts’msyen and the Allied Tribes of Lax Kw’alaams, spent decades listening to and carefully recording oral histories, starting in 1914 and continuing until the 1950s. His great-granddaughter, Samantha Beynon, recently wrote a children’s book about Potlatches based on his work.

These stories, ‘Nusi says, and all the stories we haven’t lost are part of the fabric of everything that matters.

‘Nusi shares old stories about the animals and people and new stories about the times we’re living in. He talks about Pops, Ed Martin, about mosquitoes and grizzlies. He talks about being on the water, being away from community and coming home, carving poles, receiving his chief name. He explains how the songs and dances the kids learn at Kvai are connected to stewardship because they come from specific places and lineage. Those places and lineages belong to the children and the kids belong to the stories. They are held through time, shared on a continuum.

More than a hundred years ago, as the federal government prohibited Potlatches and set about taking up the lands, Haíɫzaqv Chief Bob Anderson spoke of that continuum:

“The government have not bought any land from us so far as we know and we are simply lending this land to the government. We own it all. We will never change our minds in that respect, and after we are dead our children will still hold on to the same ideas.” Anderson’s words, spoken to representatives of the colonial government in 1913, form part of the preamble of Q̓áikasas Ǧvi̓ḷás: The great laws of the Haíɫzaqv. “It does not matter how long the government takes to determine this question, we will remain the same in our ideas about this matter … We consider that the government is stealing that land from us, and we also understand that it is unlawful for the government to take this land.”

A moment stretches and becomes endless, unfurling like a spring fiddlehead. The stories are a presence. Through time, an echo: “… Our children will still hold on to the same ideas.”

And through time, I’m in λáλix̌sístala, listening. Above the crackling of the fire and the murmur of twin babies, ƛ̓istalaɫ Maria Martin’s voice rings out:

“Kvai has become the place where our children, youth and community come for wellness, healing, guidance and, most importantly, learning our Haíɫzaqv culture,” she says. ƛ̓istalaɫ is one of Ed Martin’s daughters. “This Great House has been here for 20 years and that’s what we are here to acknowledge and celebrate today. It strengthens our identity and gives us much hope for our future generations. Our children that have been here are the strongest and the greatest little leaders on the ground. This is exactly what my late dad envisioned. … This place was our dad’s home.”

“I am proud to have watched our children and youth grow confidence, respect and pride,” ƛ̓istalaɫ continues. “They have learned not only our songs, dances and our protocols, but also kindness and what it means to listen and be accountable — and they will become strong leaders for our nation.”

“We continue to find healing here. We remember who we are here.”

The twins are brought onto the floor and danced around the fire in the arms of their relatives.

Sas húmíɫṇƛa?

In reporting this story, Matt Simmons leaned into participatory, community-driven storytelling as part of a decolonized approach to journalism. He wrote about why this is important in a story you can read here. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Generations of Indigenous fire stewards have long advocated for their knowledge to be respected as science, in B.C. and across Canada. And now, a national poll suggests Canadians agree Indigenous-led fire management is critical for the future. 

A new national poll, conducted by Pollara Strategic for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, says Canadians are starting to learn more about what Indigenous fire stewardship means, shifting public opinion in support of it.

According to the data released in September, 49 per cent of Canadians had never heard of Indigenous fire stewardship before, but once it was described, 84 per cent said it is important for Canada.

The poll, which surveyed 2,250 Canadians in August, found that 76 per cent support First Nations cultural burning. For Sheri Lysons, that finding is long overdue. 

“It’s about time,” she told The Narwhal.

Lysons is Secwépemc from the Adams Lake Indian Band, located in B.C.’s Southern Interior, and has decades of experience fighting and stewarding fire. 

Lysons says that non-Indigenous people are changing their minds about practices such as cultural burns, “because they’ve seen the benefits of it.”

Reflecting on B.C. provincial legislation amendments made two years ago to support cultural burning, she says Indigenous firekeepers are doing “the work that needs to be done.”

“There’s so much misinformation out there,” she says. 

Lysons says education about cultural burns helps remove stigma, and with wildfires becoming more rampant, people are becoming more open to different preparedness methods.

As for the 82 per cent of Canadians in support of federal Indigenous fire stewardship funding, Lysons wants to see that number reach 100.

Indigenous firekeepers surprised by the statistics

Fire has been used by Indigenous people for countless generations as an ancestral land management and ceremonial practice. 

But today, a campfire is as close as some Indigenous people get to it, which is by government design. For more than a century, colonial policies disrupted and outlawed the practice of cultural burning, viewing fire as a threat and something to immediately suppress.

For those who come from families who managed to keep the tradition of cultural burns going, many wait year-round for the opportunity to hit the land with their torches.

While it is serious business, burning days are days when families and the community come together and spend time on the land. 

The jokes about which uncle or auntie are going to let the fire get away from them, the stories shared between generations and the smells and crackling sounds of the burn create memories which last a lifetime.

Tiffany Traverse is Secwépemc and has more than a decade of experience working in the fire industry. 

She’s held various positions with the BC Wildfire Service and currently has a board position with the Salish Firekeepers Society, a non-profit organization committed to promoting and revitalizing cultural burns in Interior B.C.

“When I was drilling down into the particulars about that poll, it was really nice to see that people are changing their opinions … on what cultural fire means and how important it is,” she says.  

“I was really pleasantly surprised to see that.”

She says education is key to those statistics, having started her career at a time when Indigenous fire stewardship practices were less supported.

“A percentage of people didn’t know about cultural fire and once they were educated on that, their opinion on it changed,” she says.

“I thought it was really refreshing to see, especially with all of the anti-Indigenous racism that we’ve been seeing.” 

It’s a sentiment shared by Nlaka’pamux firefighter George Campbell, who was also surprised by some of the statistics.

With 25 years of experience in the fire industry, Campbell remembers when Indigenous people had less engagement with the province.

He attributes a shift in British Columbian’s attitudes about Indigenous fire practices back to a 2018 report on the record-breaking floods and fires of the previous year.

“Ever since then, things have kind of shifted to more engagement in terms of cultural and prescribed fire,” he says.

Back in the day, firefighting was a low stress summer job for Campbell. But today, fires are more extreme and aggressive due to global warming. 

“It was identified in the early 2000s that our forest health was declining. We were getting good at suppressing fires and because of that, everything started to become overgrown and disease started to set in,” he says.

“We got away from our cultural and prescribed fire practices, which in my opinion resulted in an unhealthy forest.”

Reflecting on Canadians’ newly identified support for Indigenous fire stewardship practices outlined in the poll, Campbell says “it’s been a long time coming, to be honest.”

Canadians view wildfires as a national issue

Amy Cardinal Christianson is the Indigenous Leadership Initiative’s director of fire stewardship. She grew up in northern Alberta and has Métis ancestry.  

“We’ve had a bunch of severe fire years where there’s been a lot of people impacted. I think when that happens people usually start trying to look for solutions,” she says. 

The same national poll found 93 per cent of respondents identified wildfires as a national concern.

Christianson says wildfire smoke is a large factor in those statistics.

“Other hazards, for example earthquakes and flooding, stay very localized. Fire does not. Even if there’s a fire in one area, smoke can travel hundreds of kilometres away. It impacts a lot of people.”

“We found there’s been many Canadians impacted by smoke in the last five years,” she added. “I do think that’s really been the game changer. No one wants to spend their summers in smoke.” 

The impacts of wildfires fall disproportionately on Indigenous communities; in 2023, still the most severe wildfire season on record in Canada, 42 per cent of all communities evacuated were Indigenous. This past summer, First Nations communities in B.C. and Ontario were ravaged by wildfires.

The Canadian Senate released a report earlier this year titled: Canada on fire: The catastrophic and escalating effects of wildfires on lives and communities. 

It says wildfires are a national crisis, attributing the past three years as record-breaking wildfire seasons. According to the report, millions of Canadians are being exposed to wildfire smoke, for days, weeks and sometimes months at a time. 

“Indigenous communities — who have lived with fire for millennia — remain under-resourced and sidelined,” the report states. Many have endured repeat evacuations, loss of homes and long-term economic losses.”

“Despite their deep expertise in fire stewardship, Indigenous firefighters often encounter barriers to participating fully in wildfire management and urgent response. Strengthening Indigenous-led governance, training, equipment access and long-term funding is imperative,” it adds. 

In the Indigenous Leadership Initiative poll, Christianson was surprised more than twice as many Canadians say they would rather the federal government fund year-round Fire Guardians, compared to spending the same money on water bombers. In 2025, Kainai Nation partnered with Natural Resources Canada to launch the first federally funded Fire Guardians program in the country.

Christianson says Fire Guardian programs are a natural way forward, as they proactively mitigate risks such as built-up fuels and balance the ecological needs of wildfire-prone landscapes. 

Fire Guardian programs employ people in their nations year round to work on fire. Responding to fire, doing cultural burns, fire-smarting the community, emergency management and evacuation planning are some of the responsibilities of Fire Guardians. And after a fire has passed, they work with the land to recover. 

“If you get to the point where an air tanker is the only saviour of your community, you’ve really lost the plot on living in a good relationship with fire,” she says.

Another Indigenous Leadership Initiative study found the return on investment of Indigenous Guardian programs is even greater than previously found, with every dollar spent putting between nine and 12 dollars back into the economy. But Christianson said these programs need government support, not just public support — and not only in the summer, when wildfires are on everyone’s mind.

“As Indigenous people, we’ve always treated fire as a year-round thing. It’s not something you just fight against in the summer,” she says. 

She’s calling for long-term sustainable funding to implement these programs. So far, Kainai’s Fire Guardians program is still the only one of its kind in Canada, and the federal government’s future investments in Guardians programs remains uncertain. 

“It’s fine for the Canadian public to support these things, but what we really need to see is actual action in these areas.”

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Elijah Washington pushes through wet ferns and branches left by logging, crossing the mossy forest floor on Haida Gwaii. He kneels beside a massive western red cedar stump.

The cedar was felled decades ago during the industrial logging boom that cleared swaths of old-growth forest across the archipelago off British Columbia’s north coast, leaving a hollow, decaying stump.

Its top has since been trimmed with a chainsaw to fit a plywood sheet, capped with weather-resistant roofing material and covered with thick green moss collected from the surrounding woods. Near the base, an opening roughly the width of Washington’s safety helmet leads into a sheltered hollow lined with moss.

“You just want it to be small enough for a mother bear to move in,” Washington, a stewardship technician with the Haida Nation, said. “So it’s got to be just right, just like the Goldilocks, [the entrance] can’t be too big, can’t be too wide.”

The retrofitted stump is one of seven the Council of the Haida Nation had modified this summer to provide winter shelter for the coastal black bear, known in the Haida language as taan. Found nowhere else in the world, this subspecies of black bear is among the largest in North America. 

A bear’s winter den may bring to mind a rocky cave, but coastal black bears in B.C. rely heavily on large old-growth trees and the hollow logs and stumps they leave behind. Decades of logging have removed many of those shelters, however — and the younger trees growing in their place have yet to develop hollows large enough for bears, said Helen Davis, a wildlife biologist working with the Haida Nation to identify and restore bear dens.

Cubs are born weighing about a pound, with their eyes still closed. They need a dry, protected place where their mothers can nurse them through the winter, and they stay there for up to 100 days. “The only place where bears can have babies is in a den,” Davis said. “And so these dens are critical to population sustainability.”

The old trees bears need for shelter are also sought-after by the logging industry. B.C. has expanded protections and temporary logging pauses, but old-growth tree harvesting continues. In August, B.C.’s then-minister of forests Ravi Parmar said stopping it altogether would shut down the sector.

Davis has heard that argument for years. People repeatedly suggested making shelters from melted tires or culverts instead of leaving old-growth trees for bears.

“People would just sort of throw that out somewhat frequently and since nobody seems to want to conserve old growth for them, I was like, ‘Well, fine, then let’s see if we can build them,’ ” Davis said.

Now, the first-of-its-kind program could set a model for bear conservation worldwide. But in providing an alternative to simply protecting old-growth trees, some worry building dens gives an easy excuse for logging to continue without pause.

Lisa White, a councillor with the Old Massett Village Council, said the sight of plywood laid over old-growth stumps was difficult to bear. “I actually cried,” she said. The plywood roofs, she said, showed how deeply the land had been damaged: bears now needed people to help provide their shelter. 

White said Haida people had needed wood long before commercial logging. Thousands used it for homes, canoes, clothing and heat, yet the forests appeared virtually untouched to the first newcomers, she said. People selected individual trees, used them fully and left the surrounding forest standing, so animals could continue living there, including northern goshawks, which are at risk of disappearing from the islands. The Haida also were known to pull entire planks from trees without felling them, leaving the tree standing.

White worries about how well the second-growth forests surrounding the modified dens will hold up through winter. She has seen extensive blowdown in those stands and is concerned about placing shelters among trees vulnerable to the islands’ storms.

“It’s also the forest around them that needs to be strong,” she said.

Building bear dens

Sometimes, loggers discover a bear den only after cutting into it.

Davis, who has been studying coastal black bear dens since the early 1990s, recalled stories from loggers: “They cut into trees and a bear popped out — or worse, they cut into a bear.” 

Those accounts led to a three-year provincial government study with forestry company Canfor to investigate whether black bears needed large trees for dens.

Davis tracked radio-collared bears to roughly 65 dens; her field research confirmed that bears were almost entirely dependent on large, hollow old-growth trees and that second-growth forests left them with virtually no options.

At the time, despite the rate of loss of old-growth forest in the province, the research didn’t set off alarm bells. “I don’t think they thought they’d run out of old growth,” she said.

But building a den meant manually crafting what a living cedar takes centuries to create. As a cedar grows, fungi can slowly rot the wood at its centre, creating a hollow large enough for a bear while the tree remains alive. Forests managed for timber are often logged again before those chambers develop, so the new trees do not replace the dens lost when old-growth trees are cut.

Davis began working with Taan Forest, the Haida-owned forestry company in 2019, teaching staff to identify natural bear dens and convert suitable stumps into new ones. The company was already restoring streamside forests damaged by earlier logging and adding den restoration became a natural extension of that work, Jeff Mosher, its chief forester, said.

“Protecting bears is a priority, even if it means a lower dividend,” Mosher said. 

Taan Forest has since created six dens across the Mamin River, Survey Creek and Ghost Creek watersheds on Graham Island, in northern Haida Gwaii, Mosher said.

Mosher said bears usually took about a year to start using the shelters, though they checked out one new den almost immediately. Signs of use at other modified stumps encouraged Taan to build more. Bears used one of the dens through the winter and spring of 2023 and have returned annually since.

Those results also encouraged the nation to expand the effort, Washington said. His crew spent the summer searching previously logged forests for stumps with a hollow large enough for a bear and an entrance leading inside. Davis helped the council secure funding from the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation and spent a week in July teaching the crew to scout stumps, assess their suitability and turn them into dens using chainsaws, plywood and moss.

The crew is also trying to make the new shelters smell familiar. When the Haida crew comes across a bear that has died, they respectfully collect some of its hair to place in some of the modified dens, a trick Davis has tested elsewhere in the field with encouraging results.

By the end of October, the team plans to complete three more dens, bringing the total to 10 modified sites across Haida Gwaii ready for winter monitoring. The exact locations of the sites are being withheld to prevent exposing denning bears to hunters. 

Haida members remain concerned about black bears killed for their gallbladders, which contain bile sought for use in some traditional Asian medicines. B.C. bans possession of bear gallbladders or bile and prohibits their trade.

Washington said that while the nation’s presence on the land has helped protect bears from such hunting, the killings still occur. Haida members have reported seeing bears left dead on the side of the road with the paws cut off and gallbladder removed. 

What a stump cannot replace

Tracing his hand over a living western red cedar in a different part of the forest, Washington points to the distinct tool marks left by a traditional adze. Sometime in the early 1900s, he estimates, Haida ancestors cut into the tree to see if it could be used for a house pole. Finding rot at the core, they left it standing. Bears later widened the opening with their teeth and claws, turning the hollow into a natural den, its floor already lined with soft cedar bedding and green branches still growing above.

This den sits high in the tree, which is among the safest places for a female bear to raise cubs, Washington said. But his crew cannot recreate one at that height.

The modified dens also provide only temporary shelter. “They’re dead stumps and so they’re rotting and they won’t be there forever,” Davis said.

But shelter is only part of what a bear needs. Noel Bellis, an Old Massett member of the Haida Nation and a carver, grew up in a logging family and later worked in cedar forests. After visiting modified dens and attending workshops, he believes bears would move in but questions whether they would find enough food nearby. When bears come out in spring, they feed on green vegetation, including horsetail, fireweed shoots, salmonberry shoots and grasses.

But in the second-growth forests he has visited, deer have eaten much of the low-growing vegetation, leaving little for bears to forage. “It’s a moss lawn between trees,” he said.

Nearby salmon streams provide a seasonal source of food, but Bellis worries about what bears will find once those runs end each year. He wants den-building accompanied by efforts to restore food plants, using cages to protect young growth from deer until it grows beyond their reach.

“It will cost money, but that’s what the costs of clear-cutting are going to be,” he said.

Davis agrees bears need both shelter and feeding areas within their home ranges, where they generally remain to den. “They don’t just pick up and march off to some far-flung patch of remaining old growth and all den there together,” Davis said. 

Taan Forest is opening gaps in the canopy to encourage shrubs to grow, with at least two modified dens in or beside those restoration areas, Davis added. 

‘They’re our kin’

When Barney Edgars worked along Haida Gwaii’s creeks as a fisheries guardian, his crew carried air horns and flares but rarely needed them. The Elders who raised him had taught him to respect bears and speak to them when their paths crossed: “You go your way, I’ll go my way.”

“We were taught that everything we grew up with had a spirit,” said Edgars, a Haida Elder.

He recalled an older woman fishing for sockeye salmon when a bear and its cub approached her net. She threw the bear a fish and told it to leave the net alone. It never returned, he said.

Earlier generations ate bears and used the whole animal. His grandmother asked him to hunt one for her, though he never did. Travellers also followed bear trails through northern Haida Gwaii, finding routes between waterways on the journey from Massett toward Naden Harbour.

Neither Edgars nor his grandparents had heard of a bear attack on the islands, he said. But he worries that losing forests and feeding grounds will push bears into communities to rummage through garbage, increasing the possibility of conflict. 

Fears about conflict with bears are new to the Haida. “They used to sleep under the trees and there was never any fear of that. … I never learned any fear from my grandfather about bears,” White said.

Washington said Haida people want to know whether bears are healthy, have enough food and have places to live. Monitoring the new dens will help answer part of that question.

Cameras facing the den entrances will record activity year-round while their crew stay away from roughly October to April to avoid disturbing bears. After winter, the crew will review the footage to see which shelters bears explored and which they used as dens.

Hair naturally caught at den entrances can be tested for DNA to help show whether the same bears return year after year or others move in.

Even if bears take to the shelters, the crew does not plan to turn every suitable stump into a den. Once one is finished, workers move to another area, leaving space between shelters to limit competition for food and places to raise cubs.

“We don’t want to create a whole community out here,” he said. “We want to have like one bear that’s safe enough to come out here.”

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Iconic. Sexy. Yellow. Just a few words used to describe the Canadian-made water bomber, built specifically for fighting fires. This legendary aircraft, which was invented in Canada and transformed the way wildfires are attacked around the world, has been used since the 1960s. But while wildfires have increased in intensity and frequency, the country hasn’t added any new water bombers in over a decade. 

For months, Calgary-based aerospace company De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited has been pushing for a national fleet of 50 new planes, lobbying the federal government and urging Canadians to write to their members of Parliament. The newest model has a wingspan wider than six cars from hood to trunk. In 12 seconds, it can scoop up more than 6,000 litres of water, then fly over a wildfire and open its belly to release a waterfall from the sky. The company says it is the best firefighting tool in the world.

“Forest fires won’t wait,” reads a full-page newspaper ad bordered with flames. “It’s time for a national water bomber fleet.”

“We don’t have enough aircraft for the fires of today. We certainly don’t have enough aircraft for the fires of tomorrow,” Neil Sweeney, De Havilland’s vice president of corporate affairs, told The Narwhal. With increasing drought and extreme weather, Sweeney said, “it’s time to invest today for the problems of tomorrow.”

De Havilland’s lobbying efforts may have paid off. Leaked documents obtained by American journalism organization Politico suggest Canada has a new deal with the European Investment Bank to jointly purchase 50 water bombers. The announcement is expected this week at the European Union-Canada summit in Montreal.  

So far, there are no details and plenty of unanswered questions of how this joint fleet could work; both continents have experienced simultaneous, record-setting wildfire seasons. And as wildfire response is provincial, not federal, it’s unclear who would take ownership of such a fleet. A national fleet is a multibillion-dollar project: if Canada were to purchase 50, it could be in the range of $3 billion to $4 billion. The newest model is still in production and it will be years before any new planes take flight. 

The Narwhal talked to aviation and wildfire experts, read through Senate hearing transcripts, studies and media releases to try and understand if a national fleet could be part of the solution to Canada’s growing wildfires. 

Many experts we spoke with hedged the idea with concerns or questions about how many planes Canada really needs, their effectiveness, wait times and costs. Some said dollars should be better spent on a variety of aircraft or, better yet, wildfire prevention.

Stretched for wildfire resources 

There were 23 days in the 2026 wildfire season when fires were so significant that firefighters and equipment in every jurisdiction across Canada were maxed out. International help had to be requested.

When possible, wildfire resources are shared across jurisdictions in Canada. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, a not-for-profit corporation owned and operated by federal, provincial and territorial wildland fire management agencies, acts as a resource broker. It coordinates sharing everything from hoses to personnel to aircrafts. As fossil fuel emissions drive climate change, Canada’s wildfire seasons are becoming longer and more severe. Water bombers can be a powerful tool to make fires more manageable and help crews on the ground. 

Across Canada right now, there are about 50 water bombers owned by some provinces or private contractors. These planes were first manufactured in the 1960s by Canadair and then Bombardier. Over the years there have been some modifications and upgrades until orders slowed and production stopped in 2015. The average age of the current fleet is around 32 to 35 years.

“That was sufficient, you know, until the world started to catch on fire,” John Gradek, a lecturer at McGill University in aviation and supply chain management, told The Narwhal. He has worked in aviation for more than 30 years. Designed from scratch to be an amphibious, firefighting water bomber, Gradek said this built-in-Canada plane has a place in global aviation history.

Now, De Havilland is restarting production with a newer model. When The Narwhal spoke to Sweeney, he said they can currently build about 10 water bombers a year. There are several orders already queued up. The first 22 planes will go to Europe. Manitoba will be the first Canadian province to obtain a new water bomber, which is expected to be ready by 2031. He estimated the wait time for a plane ordered now as six to seven years. 

“Obviously, that’s a long time to wait for an aircraft,” Sweeney said. “We’ve never produced [this aircraft] before. We’re bringing a supply chain back into production. We’re making small but important changes to the aircraft. So there’s a lot of engineering that goes into all of that.”

The federal government spends about $1 billion a year on wildfire suppression and response, according to Natural Resources Canada. Sweeney couldn’t confirm the cost of a new plane but news releases from European and Canadian orders put the price tag from $60 to $80 million.

Water bombers not the ‘silver bullet’ to Canada’s wildfires 

Whether or not 50 is the number of water bombers Canada will need for the wildfires of the future is a question experts couldn’t answer, telling The Narwhal more information was required. Namely, a better understanding of a national wildfire strategy and if there would be investments in other supports like a mix of aircraft, more crews or training.  

The federal government didn’t give any details on who would manage the fleet or where the planes would be stationed. There are several federal agencies, like Public Safety Canada and Natural Resources Canada, which support provinces and territories to manage wildfires and emergencies. But wildfire management is ultimately the responsibility of each province or territory. While the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre acts as a clearing house for resources, the country doesn’t have an integrated, national plan on how to best deploy a fleet of 50 planes, Gradek said.

“I don’t know if 50 is the right number. It may be too little. It may be too much,” Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, told The Narwhal. “It’s part of the toolbox, absolutely. But to me, it’s not the most frequently used tool or the most important tool.” Flannigan is also the B.C. Innovation Research Chair in predictive services, emergency management and fire science. For Flannigan, firefighters and helicopters are more crucial as is a national wildfire strategy.

While water bombers are a tool, “they’re not always the most appropriate tool, depending on the landscape or the fire,” Alexandria Jones, a communications and engagement advisor with the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, said. They are most effective when they don’t have to travel far from a large body of water to a fire. In swampy or mountainous terrains, water bombers have a more challenging time filling up. In those scenarios, Jones said it’s better to rely on smaller aircraft or helicopter bucketing. 

Water bombers do not extinguish flames, experts said many times over; firefighters do. Aircraft are used to make intense fires more manageable, buy time for crews to get established or help them put the fire out. Water bombers are “really not the silver bullet to the national fire situation that we’re seeing year after year,” Jones said.

Ahead of this year’s wildfire season, the federal government invested $316.7 million over the next five years to increase Canada’s aerial wildfire firefighting capacity. Water bombers were considered, but because there is a shortage and significant wait, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which received the funds, decided to hire a mix of other aircraft.  

Sweeney acknowledged there should be investment into a variety of firefighting aircraft but sees the water bomber as the “backbone of most fleets.”

Fundamental questions unanswered, experts say

De Havilland has been actively lobbying the federal government to “buy Canadian” and is pursuing several projects. Sweeney told The Narwhal that if the government did agree to buy 50 planes, they “could be in Canada by 2029” as the company would set up a second production line and employ Canadian workers. 

Representatives for De Havilland have been busy this year meeting with several departments, including Innovation, Science and Economic Development, National Defence, Global Affairs, Public Services and Procurement and the Prime Minister’s Office, according to data summarized by the Investigative Journalism Foundation. About three-quarters of De Havilland’s government contracts since 2009 were awarded without a bidding process.

The Narwhal reached out to several federal departments to ask how aerial firefighting procurement decisions are made, what research is considered and if water bombers are being considered. Our interview request was declined. An emailed statement from the office of Eleanor Olszewski, minister of emergency management and community resilience, said emergency management is a shared responsibility between several levels of governments, and pointed to recent public engagement on natural disasters and funding for aerial suppression that went to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.  

“The federal government continues to strengthen our national emergency preparedness and response capacity, including through significant investments in wildfire response and resilience in recent years. For example, Budget 2025 included funding to lease firefighting aircraft to create new federal surge capacity.”

But several experts told The Narwhal that investments should be preceded by more clarity on Canada’s wildfire strategy, including where the fleet would be stationed and which agency would manage it. What’s more, Gradek said, there’s still questions around how many planes Canada really needs, and whether water bombers are the most effective tool for the money. 

“Those are the fundamental questions that we have to ask ourselves before we start throwing hundreds of millions and billions of dollars into a firefighting fleet aircraft,” Gradek said.

‘The decisions we make today are really, really crucial’

Preparing for, responding to and recovering from worsening wildfires is mostly the responsibility of provinces and territories. To coordinate efforts more, the 2026 Senate report, Canada on fire, called on the Canadian government to create a national “office for wildfires and emergency response” and fund “a national fleet of modern firefighting aircraft.” Exactly how that would work is still unclear.  

Olszewski’s office told The Narwhal in an email there could be the creation of a “federal emergency management agency,” based on input they heard from a national engagement on natural disasters. 

Robert Gray was among the dozens of witnesses who shared expertise at the Senate hearings. A wildland fire ecologist, he believes water bombers perform an important role in fire suppression, and “we could probably use more,” but if we choose to spend billions on them, “it damn well better work.” 

The water bomber question gets at a core tension to Canada’s wildfire strategy. “Do we double down on suppression or do we shift to trying to get ahead of the problem?” Gray asked. He sees a political culture willing to spend on visible solutions, like water bombers, versus mitigation and prevention efforts.  

Studies show that mitigation and prevention efforts have high cost-benefit ratios. Clearing underbrush and prescribed burns, strategies that Indigenous communities have been using for centuries, have an estimated return of almost $4 to every $1 spent. In one study, restoration of fire-prone forests returned $7 for every $1 spent. Some nature-based solutions have an estimated return of $100 for every $1 spent. 

“Those water bombers are really like the sexy part of firefighting, the prevention and mitigation aspect is less so, but equally, if not more important,” Jones said. 

A year ago this month, Gradek spoke at the Senate hearings telling the committee the country could probably use 100 water bombers. 

“What was the science behind that? Nothing,” Gradek told The Narwhal. 

He’s since reflected on that answer and has stepped back, saying we need more research and clarity around what the country really needs and how these planes would be used most effectively.  

A number helps us write a cheque but it doesn’t solve the wildfire problem, he said. 

“The decisions we make today are really, really crucial,” Gray said. “If we spend $4 billion on air tankers, will we see a return on investment? We’re at a tipping point where we’re going to have to make a significant decision either way.”

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Last summer, Lauren Wright was planting lentils in a field outside of Saskatoon. The air was thick with wildfire smoke and, as temperatures climbed, a co-worker was hit with a sudden asthma attack. 

Rushing to the truck for an inhaler, Wright remembers fighting blurred vision, their head pounding from the smoke exposure. The episode is etched in Wright’s memory — not for the sudden moment of panic, but as a lasting reminder that summer life on the Prairies had morphed into something both unfamiliar and dangerous. 

Both of Wright’s parents were raised in northern Saskatchewan, their father on a farm and their mother in a small town. While Wright was the first in the family to grow up in the city, they spent much of their childhood canoeing, fishing and working the family farm during harvest.

A multi-year drought dropped water levels on the river where they used to fish and canoe. Some summers, extreme heat would make it nearly impossible to play sports or go on camping trips. Drought sunk crop yields. Then the wildfires came, and with them, forests burned and smoke filled the air. 

“I really started to understand, you know, what was going on in my city, my country and how climate change was very much a current reality rather than a distant future problem,” Wright said. 

“It’s really a culmination in the change of my way of life, the way of life that my family has lived for so many generations.”

The 22-year-old is among 15 young Canadians whose experiences with heat waves, floods and wildfires form the backbone of a legal case that has wended its way through federal court since 2019. After a series of appeals and amended pleadings, the landmark constitutional challenge — known as La Rose vs. His Majesty the King — will finally be heard at a federal courthouse in Vancouver starting Oct. 26.

Over a four-week trial, lawyers and multiple experts are expected to submit evidence that the federal government’s Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act — which legally binds Canada to absorb as much carbon pollution as it emits by 2050 — is not ambitious enough, and so violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

The court challenge claims the government’s plan to curb emissions is not in line with the best available science. As a result, the plaintiffs claim it fails to safeguard the life, liberty and security of Canadians, a direct breach of Section 7 of the Charter.

Plaintiffs hope a win would take the politics out of climate policy

Canada’s climate is already warming nearly twice as fast as the global average. Canada could see 5 C of warming by the end of the century if governments around the world do not pursue emissions reduction with more effort than laid out in current climate policies, warned federal scientists in September.

The claim warns of a continued rise in heat-related illnesses, life-threatening diseases, allergies, asthma, exposure to dangerous pollutants and death. As permafrost melts, shorelines destabilize and rivers run dry, ecosystems will suffer, leading to severe consequences — both for spending on public infrastructure and the livelihoods of Indigenous communities who rely on fishing and hunting, according to the claim.

Children are already at higher risk from heat and smoke, and the court challenge emphasizes they will disproportionately suffer in a world where climate-driven disasters become more common and more extreme. 

The plaintiffs, who hail from nearly every corner of Canada, have already seen the destructive power of water and fire tear into the places they call home.

At 21, Haana Edenshaw of the Haida Nation Tsitts Gitanee clan has witnessed sea-level rise damage her family home on Haida Gwaii. 

In 2018, wildfire destroyed Montay Jesse Beaubien-Day’s home in Telegraph Creek, B.C. Today, climate change has limited his Wet’suwet’en and Tahltan families from harvesting wild food like salmon, moose and berries. Multiple studies have shown those food sources have also been impacted by everything from fishing and logging to the exploration and extraction of gas. 

Further north, Kira Young and her family were among 20,000 people evacuated from Yellowknife when fire threatened the territorial capital in 2023. Court documents describe ash falling from an orange sky and fires burning alongside the highway as they fled. 

Abandoning home is a familiar feeling for Sadie Vipond, who in 2013 was evacuated to higher ground when the Bow River flooded her neighbourhood in Calgary.

“I was only seven years old at the time. I had to be woken up by my grandmother and told we had to evacuate,” she told The Narwhal. “I was really scared for my home and family.” 

The plaintiffs’ individual experiences will inform a multi-pronged argument, one that claims Canada’s Net-Zero Act “sets targets and requires development of plans” but fails to require any reduction in carbon pollution.

Canada produces a fraction of total global emissions but has one of the highest per-capita emissions profiles in the world. It is also the world’s fourth largest producer of oil and gas. 

The scale of carbon pollution coming from Canada could grow even more in the coming years as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government seeks to fast-track several new fossil fuel export projects. That includes a clutch of major liquefied natural gas terminals, as well as the Pacific Link oil pipeline meant to boost bitumen shipments from Alberta’s oilsands to B.C.’s West Coast. 

If the court sides with the plaintiffs, the federal government would need to re-write their net-zero policies to be in line with the Charter. The decision would not force the federal government to pursue a specific climate policy, but it would almost certainly challenge the notion that confronting climate change is a purely political question that can be bumped down Ottawa’s list of priorities, David Wu, one of the lead lawyers in the case, said.

“If there is a shift in the politics of the day, the government can’t just wave away its climate change commitments,” Wu told The Narwhal.

“It raises these broad constitutional questions about whether governments have an obligation to protect their citizens.” 

Feds argue Canada has ‘little or no control’ over climate change 

Federal lawyers pushed back against claims Canada has failed to fulfill its international climate obligations under the 2015 Paris Agreement, whether through its Net-Zero Act or in collaboration with provinces. 

In court documents, Ottawa contends the 15 young people have failed to establish a causal link between federal legislation and their alleged harms from climate change. Submissions from government lawyers state Canada’s plan to lower emissions is consistent with its international commitments, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. 

Canada’s actions at the federal level have “little or no control over the ultimate impacts of globally-fuelled climate change,” the government claims.

Ottawa also argues the court lacks the “institutional competence” to evaluate the scientific, economic and political complexities of global climate change policy. It also ignores the separation of political and legal powers within Canada’s democratic system by attempting to have the courts weigh in on a government decision.

“It’s an argument we’re expecting,” Wu said. “We’re not asking the court to dictate climate policy.” 

“What we’re asking the court to find [is] that Canada has infringed our clients’ rights, and they, the government, need to do better to ensure that those rights are protected.”

Both sides’ arguments have yet to be tested before a judge.

Vancouver trial to test international climate law

The La Rose trial is the latest in a wave of climate litigation supported by the non-profit Our Children’s Trust. Of the nearly 100 rights-based climate change cases currently being brought worldwide, about half are backed by the U.S.-based group, Kelly Matheson, the group’s deputy director of global strategy, said.

The organization has seen some success. One court challenge it supported in Hawaii led to a settlement which pushed the state to aggressively decarbonize its public transportation sector. And in 2024, the Montana Supreme Court sided with 16 young people who had sued the state for violating their right to a “clean and healthful environment” guaranteed under Montana’s Constitution. 

What sets the Canadian case apart is that it is among the first in the world to make it to trial following a handful of major international rulings. Chief among those is a 2025 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice that found states have a general duty under international and human rights law to protect the world’s climate system for present and future generations. 

Canada’s legal system is not bound by the international court’s ruling. But it can be used to inform judges’ interpretation of constitutional rights. One federal judge has already cited the case in ongoing litigation involving two Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs who challenged Ottawa over the full balance of carbon pollution produced by its policies. 

“It’s so rare for these cases to go to trial,” Matheson said of the La Rose case. “It will have persuasive weight all over the world — in part because Canada is a big emitter.” 

Elsewhere in Canada, seven young people led by Sudbury teenager Sophia Mathur sued the Ontario government in 2019 after the province clawed back its own climate targets.

And in June, Mathur joined two other young people to launch a parallel legal challenge against the federal government’s Net-Zero Act. That case, which has yet to go to trial, claims Ottawa abandoned or weakened its interim emission reductions plan, thereby failing to adhere to the 2050 plan.

The La Rose case makes a much broader claim, arguing the Net-Zero Act is weak enough on its own to be unconstitutional, said Andrew Gage, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law.

Whatever the outcome, many of the young plaintiffs will finally have their chance to tell their stories. When the case was first filed seven years ago, Wright was still in high school and struggled with the thought that they had the responsibility to represent the experiences of an entire generation. In the years since, Wright said they have found ways to be grounded in their own stories.

“I’m a good snapshot of life here in the Prairies,” the 22-year-old said. “I really have grown to see it as a privilege of being able to show people what is happening in the place that I love so much. And to tell them why it matters.”

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For the first time in nearly a century, B.C. has a Conservative government.

Lorne Doerkson’s BC Conservatives won a majority government, defeating David Eby’s incumbent NDP. It’s a stunning win for the Conservatives after a chaotic couple of months, culminating in Eby’s decision to call a snap election almost two years ahead of schedule. 

Doerkson, a low-profile MLA first elected in Cariboo—Chilcotin in 2020, became the party’s interim leader one day before the snap election was called. 

On the campaign trail, Doerkson presented himself as a mild-mannered former rodeo rider and grandfather, promising to bolster B.C.’s economy while cutting taxes, reducing regulations and courting investment. The Conservative campaign platform mentions climate just once, stating “climate decisions” should be based on three principles: protecting people from extreme weather, reducing emissions in B.C. and beyond and delivering measurable results. 

In the end, a majority of voters threw their support behind the Conservatives, handing the former opposition party the reins of the province for the next four years.

“Together, we seized this opportunity, you guys, and together we voted for a better British Columbia,” Doerkson told an electric crowd in Vancouver. During his victory speech he promised to “supercharge” the province and “cut red tape like it’s never been cut before.” 

Despite choosing to call an election while the Conservatives were in chaos, the BC NDP will now form the official opposition. Eby held on to his Vancouver—Point Grey seat but in his concession speech offered his resignation as party leader. 

The BC Greens maintained their seat count with party leader Emily Lowan winning the Saanich North and the Islands riding where she was seeking a seat in the legislature. Incumbent Green MLA Jeremy Valeriote was re-elected in West Vancouver—Sea to Sky.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the promises Doerkson and the Conservatives made on the campaign trail.

The end of DRIPA and a new approach to Indigenous Rights

One of Doerkson’s first public statements after becoming interim leader of the BC Conservatives was to declare his intention to repeal B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

The pledge, which is a top priority for the Conservatives, appears in the party’s platform under a section titled “protect private property rights” — despite the fact that the act doesn’t deal with private property.

During the campaign, Doerkson was vague about what his government’s next steps would be after repealing the act. Ditching the law will not eliminate the B.C. government’s consultation obligations with First Nations or eliminate friction related to Indigenous Rights and Aboriginal Title. Even in a post-DRIPA province, the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations can be hashed out in the courts, as they have been for decades.

“Simply just repealing it isn’t going to do anyone any service,” Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council, told The Narwhal in an interview during the early days of the election campaign.

The Conservative platform promised to pass a law requiring information about Aboriginal Title claims and ongoing negotiations to be made public. The proposed law would also publicize information about legal actions and agreements related to First Nations Rights and Title.

The party’s platform also promises to “restore equal access to Crown land and provincial parks,” a pledge that appears to target annual temporary closures of Pipi7íyekw/Joffre Lakes Park, which restrict visits to members of Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua First Nations, whose unceded territories encompass the park. These reconnection periods have been taking place since 2023 and are intended to allow the nations to conduct traditional harvesting, as well as ceremonial and cultural practices.

Under a BC Conservative government, reconciliation with First Nations will focus on “practical co-operation, clear and fair treaty agreements and economic opportunities,” the platform says. It emphasizes opportunities for First Nations to benefit from projects through revenue sharing and ownership opportunities.

LNG, fracking and fossil fuels

The Conservatives have promised to make B.C. an “energy superpower” by doubling liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by 2032 and tripling it by 2035. With LNG Canada the only LNG export facility currently operating in B.C., the province is already on track to more than triple the province’s LNG production by 2035 with five additional LNG projects currently in development.

On the campaign trail, Doerkson lamented the number of LNG projects proposed under the BC Liberal government of the 2000s and 2010s and said his party is keen to see if any can be revived.

The Conservative energy platform also pledges to get rid of B.C.’s industrial carbon tax and replace it with new rules that it says would ensure B.C.’s gas exports are competitive with the United States and Qatar.

A BC Conservative government would take a new approach to tallying B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that runs counter to the 2016 Paris Agreement. The Conservative platform proposes taking credit for “emissions avoided through cleaner B.C. exports,” using the example of exported gas replacing coal. 

Doerkson has also promised to use deregulation as a tool to spur economic development, partly by bringing back a ministry dedicated to getting rid of rules, processes and laws it deems burdensome or unnecessary. For every new regulation a Conservative government makes, it would axe two existing regulations, according to Doerkson.

Energy, electrification and renewables

Beyond boosting natural gas and LNG production, the BC Conservatives are promising to boost B.C.’s energy self-sufficiency, a commitment that would mean building a considerable amount of additional energy generation capacity. The province currently balances its energy needs through a mix of energy imported from other jurisdictions (mostly Alberta and western U.S. states) and locally generated power.The strategy, basically, is to use local sources when they are cheap and convenient and buy imported power — such as solar-generated power from California — when it is plentiful and cheap. To date, the strategy has worked out well, though recent drought conditions have put a squeeze on those margins.

The Conservatives are committed to boosting B.C.’s energy production “from every available source,” according to its platform.

Boosting biomass production is a key part of the Conservatives’ energy pitch. The party is proposing to increase the use of logging and mill waste to make renewable fuels. On renewables, the Conservatives support wind, solar and small-scale hydro power “where economics and reliability make sense,” as well as geothermal projects where a business case can be made — i.e. with little investment from the provincial government.

Notably, the 2026 B.C. Conservative platform did not mention nuclear power, an energy source the party touted as part of the solution to B.C.’s energy crunch during the 2024 election.

Beyond increasing exports, a Conservative government would consider opening the door to more natural gas power production in B.C. by making it eligible for BC Hydro’s call for energy project proposals. 

The Conservatives are also promising to “restore choice in energy for home heating and cooking” — a commitment to attacking restrictions and bans on natural gas use implemented by local governments — and overhaul B.C.’s Energy Step Code, which sets energy efficiency standards for new buildings.

Logging and old-growth forest conservation

On the campaign trail, the BC Conservatives promised to do many of the same things the NDP government did to bolster the province’s floundering forestry industry — secure support from the federal government to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber, boost policies aimed at getting more woodfibre to mills and provide cash for mills to upgrade their operations.The Conservatives’ forestry platform promised to make more trees available for harvest — but does not address how the party would ensure companies actually harvest the maximum amount allowed, something that has not happened in years due largely to the dwindling availability of economically viable trees to log. The Conservatives are also promising to focus on streamlining permitting, reduce costs for forestry companies and support value-added manufacturing.

Conservative forestry policies would double government revenue from stumpage fees by 2028-29, according to the campaign platform. The 2026 provincial budget did not include a specific revenue estimate for stumpage but estimated total forestry-related revenues will increase 3.3 per cent per year through 2029.

The BC Conservative platform claims conservation is a conservative value but doesn’t offer many specific conservation-focused commitments. The party pledges to increase enforcement in parks and wilderness areas with more conservation officers in the field, and to establish sustainable fish and wildlife population objectives.

The platform promises a science-based approach to wildlife management with input from hunters, anglers and First Nations. It also repeats a 2024 campaign commitment to develop a made-in-B.C. species-at-risk law. The Conservative platform doesn’t mention B.C.’s existing commitment to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030, known as 30-by-30. In May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad told The Narwhal he would abandon the goal.

 What now?

When the B.C. legislature began its summer break at the end of May, the BC NDP held 47 seats, the BC Conservatives held 39, and the BC Greens held two. There were five independent MLAs, all of them formerly members of the BC Conservative caucus.

The BC Conservatives had just elected a new leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a former Conservative Party of Canada MP and cabinet minister. Findlay won the leadership race to replace John Rustad, who resigned as the party’s leader in December 2025 after weeks of caucus infighting. Findlay’s victory was narrow; she won 51 per cent of party members’ votes, barely beating out second-place finisher Caroline Elliott. Elliott is set to head to the legislature after winning the West Vancouver—Capilano riding for the BC Conservatives.

The BC Conservatives had a spectacularly chaotic summer. Findlay’s leadership lasted just 113 days, ending in her resignation on Sept. 20. Before she stepped down, 13 MLAs had left or been removed from the BC Conservative caucus and one more — Abbotsford—Mission MLA Reann Gasper — stepped down to allow Findlay to secure a set in a by-election.

Doerkson was appointed the party’s interim leader the day after Findlay stepped down.

After Eby’s snap election call, the by-election was cancelled, Findlay exited the party and 10 of the 13 MLAs who had left the caucus signed up to run again. 

“I think David Eby is going to regret this,” Doerkson said at a Vancouver press conference following the snap election call. “Because this election actually offers an opportunity for hope and for real change.”

He was right. The Conservatives won a historic victory, though Doerkson’s future as premier is uncertain. His party’s constitution bars interim leaders from running to become a permanent leader, though the constitution can be changed. Tweaking the rules to allow Doerkson to remain premier will require the support of two-thirds of party members at an annual general or special general meeting. The Conservative Party’s board of directors committed to “pursue the appropriate means” to keep Doerkson as party leader in the event of an election win.

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After starting the day with a prayer and a safety demonstration, a group of volunteers gears up in water-resistant clothing and lifejackets, ready to hit the water.

The crew is preparing to scour a stretch of the Fraser and Thompson rivers, removing any fishing gear or waste left behind. Fishing nets left underneath the water are commonly known as ghost nets, which trap and kill fish. 

As the saying goes on a volunteer call out poster, “ghost nets create ghost fish.”

TLKemchEEN (Lytton First Nation) has led the river clean-up program in the area for the past 20 years, all in an effort to preserve salmon populations and aquatic life following harvest season.

Over two days in September, a group of 40 volunteers spent a total of 20 combined hours on the water.

From Lillooet to Lytton during the first day, and from Lytton to Yale during the second day, volunteers passed through white-water rapids and rugged terrain such as the famously turbulent passage of Hell’s Gate.

When the raft leader yells “hold on,” that’s exactly what participants do, reaching down for a rope attached to the raft, laughing and hollering, ripping through the Fraser Canyon rapids. 

The cold river water splashes everyone — waking up the crew as countless bald and golden eagles watch from above.

“I didn’t realize how impactful everything is along the shores. I guess I didn’t realize that some leave their garbage and nets out there,” volunteer Rebecca Riley, who is from the Stʼatʼimc Nation, said.

“Once I saw that with my own eyes, I wanted to jump in and be a part of it.”

It’s a sentiment shared by many volunteers on the boat, who eagerly approach the shoreline when a ghost net comes into sight. 

Whether the net will take one person to remove, or up to five to pull out of the water, is unknown until people get their hands wet. 

During the non-rapid portion of the cleanup, countless stories were told, Indigenous people exchanged words in their languages to compare similarities and differences and folks even had hot chocolate along the shore, courtesy of Kumsheen Rafting, which was contracted to support the program this year. 

During the first year of the program, 126 ghost nets were collected.

“This year we picked up six nets and some garbage, some years prior we’ve picked up zero. We have to remind our fishermen not to be lazy and take their gear home,” Kevin Duncan told the Narwhal.

Duncan is an elected councillor for TLKemchEEN in B.C.’s Southern Interior, part of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council. He has been involved with the program since its inception. He attended both cleanup days this year with his son Aaron.

For TLKemchEEN, stewarding their waters as they always have is crucial — especially as salmon numbers decline. Life along the Fraser and Thompson rivers is deeply connected to salmon. And TLKemchEEn is home to where the two rivers meet, in the country’s largest salmon-bearing watershed.

“For future generations, sometime down the road, I’m afraid all they’re going to be looking at is pictures of salmon in a book,” said Duncan. 

The nets recovered by the program are given to those in need, including single mothers, low-income families and Elders from the nation. 

“As a Nlaka’pamux or Stʼatʼimc member … that fishery is a communal right, it’s not an individual right. It’s looked after by your nation,” Duncan said.

“Most times, you just get to see portions of the river from the highway, but once you’re down on the water, floating for eight hours from Lillooet to Lytton, it gives you a better perspective on where people fish.” 

Removing fishing gear from the cold and fast-moving river can be dangerous, which is why Duncan starts each day of the program with a yémit, or prayer in Nlaka’pamxcín. 

“Salmon are the lifeblood of our people, and when these fish pass through coastal communities, they pray for them in the lower Fraser. We’re doing the same thing as they pass through our territories in the mid Fraser. … These fish hear that prayer.”

Nations collaborate to steward salmon

Volunteer Riley is Lillooet Tribal Council’s fisheries manager. She has participated in the river cleanup program three times, beginning in 2018 when she saw an advertisement in the newspaper. 

Although she’s been on the Fraser and Thompson rivers many times throughout her fisheries career, she said that the ghost net removal program was “eye opening,” regarding the number of fishers out on the water.

She said that Lillooet Tribal Council is happy to help as the neighbouring nation to Nlaka’pamux territory, given the large area to cover and the shared value of protecting salmon.

“When we’re having the long days and we’re getting splashed and it’s cold, if we save a salmon or two that are still alive and let them free, or we clear out a net so we know that other animals can’t go in, it’s very gratifying and humbling,” she said. 

“At the end of the day, when you’re riding the bus home and you’re cold and hungry, you know in the back of your mind it was so worth it.”

While the focus of the program is cleaning up the river, volunteers take the opportunity to support other initiatives while on the water, such as mapping traditional fishing sites to prove occupancy. 

According to Conservation Biology, “Proof of occupancy is the foundational legal and moral requirement needed to establish Aboriginal Title, regain territorial sovereignty and protect ancestral lands from unauthorized exploitation.”

Lillooet Tribal Council’s extreme heat resiliency planner, Lyza Adolph, did a lot of heavy lifting over the two days removing ghost nets, but also had a mission of her own. 

A member of the Stʼatʼimc Nation, this was her first time participating in the ghost net removal program.

“It was very cold, but with the group that we had, it was very enjoyable and uplifting,” she said.

With a focus on planning for extreme heat in her position at the tribal council, Adolph monitored fishing sites during the program to see if there were any shade trees nearby, scoping out areas to potentially plant some. 

“The program tied in with my traditional shade tree planting. I know more about the upper river, but from Lillooet to Lytton and beyond, I didn’t know too much about it. It was definitely nice to see the various fish camps and see if there were shade trees,” she told The Narwhal.

Shade trees are beneficial for both humans and aquatic life.

As spawning salmon break down, their nutrients feed the trees. In turn, trees offer shade to cool the water, which is critical for survival on a warming planet, and tree roots and branches give salmonids space to hide from predators while also preventing erosion.

In the Fraser Canyon, which includes the communities of Yale, Lytton and Lillooet, fishing sites can be hard to access. Adolph’s shade tree monitoring data, collected by boat, will be used in future tree planting projects. 

“I would definitely do it again,” Adolph said. “Although it was very cold, it was very refreshing and rewarding by the end of the day.”

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With the provincial election just days away, promises from B.C.’s main political parties are piling up. Voters have been offered tax breaks, tax increases, price caps and new health-care resources. But none of the main parties vying for votes has had much to say about the environment or climate change. It took more than two weeks for the BC NDP and BC Greens to release their climate platforms. The BC Conservative Party put out its full platform — with the party’s first explicit mentions of climate change — on Oct. 18, two days after advance voting began and just six days before the final vote.

After nearly a decade in government, the BC NDP isn’t offering much in the way of new climate-focused policies in this election. The party’s climate platform, released on Oct. 10, includes a pledge to cap the amount of power available for AI and data centres, a policy already enacted into law last year. If re-elected, Leader David Eby is promising to hold data centres in B.C. to high standards for water efficiency and require them to report their water use publicly.

The BC Conservative platform mentions climate just once, stating “climate decisions” should be based on three principles: protecting people from extreme weather, reducing emissions in B.C. and beyond and delivering measurable results. “The need to develop our natural resources must always be weighed against the need to conserve our bounty through responsible resource management,” the platform states.

Unsurprisingly, the BC Green campaign platform promises to put climate policy at the centre of the provincial agenda by making climate targets central to “major policies, infrastructure investments and industrial decisions.” In addition to a dedicated climate platform, many of the party’s campaign promises include climate-conscious components. The Greens’ economic platform focuses on ways to build “a prosperous, resilient, low-carbon economy” and the party’s housing platform includes a commitment to reduce emissions related to buildings by focusing on lower-carbon designs and materials, as well as conserving existing housing stock.

With all three party platforms published, The Narwhal dug in to see where the parties stand on key issues — and what they’re promising to get rid of.

What B.C. election platforms say about LNG, fracking and fossil fuels

Both the NDP and the Conservatives are committing to expanding the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in B.C. Producing natural gas usually involves hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that shoots high-pressure water mixed with chemicals underground to fracture the rocks and release the gas. Making LNG requires running massive compressors 24-7 to cool gas into a liquid. It’s an energy-intensive process that — so far in B.C. — is largely powered by burning natural gas.

The Conservatives have promised to make B.C. an “energy superpower” by doubling LNG production by 2032 and tripling it by 2035. When that policy dropped, the NDP was quick to point out the five LNG projects in development are already on track to more than triple the province’s LNG production by 2035.

The Conservative energy platform also pledges to get rid of B.C.’s industrial carbon tax and replace it with new rules that it says would ensure B.C.’s gas exports are competitive with the United States and Qatar. 

A BC Conservative government would take a new approach to tallying B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that runs counter to the 2016 Paris Agreement. The Conservative platform proposes taking credit for “emissions avoided through cleaner B.C. exports,” using the example of exported gas replacing coal. 

If his party forms government, Leader Lorne Doerkson has also promised to use deregulation as a tool to spur economic development, partly by bringing back a ministry dedicated to getting rid of rules, processes and laws it deems burdensome or unnecessary. For every new regulation a Conservative government makes, it would axe two existing regulations, according to Doerkson.

The NDP is promising to use some oil and gas royalty revenue — $50 million to start — to promote climate action and create jobs. The “Clean Futures Fund,” as the NDP platform dubs this promise, might sound familiar, possibly because some of the revenue raised by B.C.’s consumer carbon tax was once dedicated to similar spending priorities.

Speaking of oil and gas revenues, Eby refused to confirm whether his government is still committed to its original plan to collect 50 per cent of profits reaped by gas companies in B.C. The new gas royalty system is scheduled to take effect in 2027.

“We’re going to hold on to high royalty rates,” Eby said in response to a question from The Narwhal about whether he remains committed to the 50 per cent target announced by the B.C. government in 2022.“We’re going to demand as much as possible and we’re also going to build the economy.”

The BC Greens’ platform promises a 50-50 profit split under the new gas royalty framework. The Green climate platform notes B.C. is expecting to collect about $1.1 billion in gas royalties in the 2027-28 fiscal year. Bumping the province’s share of that royalty revenue up to 50 per cent would yield over $4 billion, according to the Greens.

The Greens have also pledged to end further fossil fuel development in B.C., banning new fracking operations, LNG facilities or expansions and pipelines, and axing provincial subsidies, favourable tax policies and public financing for fossil fuel production.

Leader Emily Lowan was the only provincial party leader to criticize LNG Canada’s decision to proceed with Phase 2 of its Kitimat LNG facility. The final investment decision to proceed with the expansion — which has been fully permitted since 2018 — was announced on Sept. 28 and celebrated by both Eby and Doerkson.

Neither party leader mentioned the integrity issue with the existing LNG Canada facility’s flare stack which resulted in Kitimat community members being subjected to excessive noise, black smoke, a towering flame — at times reaching the height of New York’s Statue of Liberty or London’s Big Ben — for months.The consortium of companies behind LNG Canada wants the facility’s permit changed to accommodate higher emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24-7 until the stack can be redesigned in 2028.

B.C. election platforms on Indigenous Rights and DRIPA

One of Doerkson’s first public statements after becoming interim leader of the BC Conservatives was to declare his desire to repeal B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

The pledge, which is a top priority for the Conservatives, appears in the party’s platform under a section titled “protect private property rights” — despite the fact that DRIPA doesn’t deal with private property.

A Conservative government would pass a law requiring information about Aboriginal Title claims and ongoing negotiations to be made public. The proposed law would also publicize information about legal actions and agreements related to First Nations Rights and Title.

The party’s platform also promises to “restore equal access to Crown land and provincial parks,” a pledge that appears to target annual temporary closures of Pipi7íyekw/Joffre Lakes Park that restrict visits to members of Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua First Nations, whose unceded territories encompass the park. These reconnection periods have been taking place since 2023 and are intended to allow the Nations to conduct traditional harvesting, as well as ceremonial and cultural practices.

Under a BC Conservative government, reconciliation with First Nations would focus on “practical cooperation, clear and fair treaty agreements and economic opportunities,” per the platform. It emphasizes opportunities for First Nations to benefit from projects via revenue sharing and ownership opportunities.

The BC NDP platform doesn’t mention DRIPA but Eby confirmed near the beginning of the election campaign that he would stick to his plan to amend the law to block further court challenges.“We do have to respond to that court decision, it’s not up for debate,” he said on Sept. 25. “We’ve been working with First Nations over the summer to see if we can find a path forward that we all agree on.”

The Greens are promising to leave DRIPA as is and to work with First Nations to develop a process aimed at resolving disputes proactively as a way to avoid court cases — something some NDP MLAs have often stated the law was intended to do.The Greens are the only party with a dedicated Indigenous Rights section in their platform.

Protecting lands and waters in B.C.

An NDP government would stick with its commitment to protect 30 per cent of B.C.’s lands by 2030, a promise the party has been working on since 2022. 

In the party’s 2026 campaign platform, the 30-by-30 goal is linked to the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor, a federal initiative announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney in November 2025 and referred to the Major Projects Office as a potential national interest project. According to the NDP, the corridor will “add protections to an area equivalent to 12,000 Stanley Parks, while enabling responsible natural resource development.”

The NDP is also promising to continue funding the Watershed Security Fund at $30 million per year. The fund was created in 2023 with a $100-million commitment from the province making this another stay-the-course pledge from the party.

The BC Conservative platform claims conservation is a conservative value but doesn’t offer many specific conservation-focused commitments. The party pledges to increase enforcement in parks and wilderness areas with more conservation officers in the field, and to establish sustainable fish and wildlife population objectives.The platform promises a science-based approach to wildlife management with input from hunters, anglers and First Nations. It also repeats a 2024 campaign commitment to develop a made-in-B.C. species-at-risk law. The Conservative platform doesn’t mention B.C.’s existing 30-by-30 commitment. In May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad told The Narwhal he would abandon the goal.

The Greens would make 30-by-30 a minimum goal. The party also promises to boost funding by BC Parks and recreation sites across B.C. to $114 million, a 50 per cent increase.

In its tourism strategy, the Green Party platform promises to put environmental impacts front and centre when considering development opportunities for new and existing tourism destinations.

The platform has a section dedicated to water management and protection, including a commitment to implement a proactive, long-term approach to protecting water security and ensuring industrial users pay a fair share for the water they use.

None of the party platforms mention the future of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), which have been a key tool for advancing conservation efforts in B.C. and Canada. In northern B.C., members of the Kaska Nation say the snap election has slowed efforts to finalize protection of Dene Kʼéh Kusān, a proposed Indigenous-protected area that would cover one of the province’s largest intact wilderness areas.

B.C. election platforms on logging, old-growth forest protections

B.C.’s forestry industry has struggled for years with multiple mill closures and hundreds of jobs lost since the 2024 election. At the same time, the province’s forests have been impacted by wildfires and drought.

On the campaign trail, Eby pointed to the support his government secured from Ottawa to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber and efforts to get more woodfibre to mills. The NDP platform promises to continue to support the forest industry by providing more cash for mills to upgrade their operations, spending $120 million to protect jobs at mills that are at risk of closing and focus on making sure mills get the fibre needed to keep operating.

The party’s promises to protect B.C.’s forests are less robust.

A re-elected NDP government would dedicate $50 million to permanently protect some of B.C.’s “most irreplaceable and rarest” old-growth forests. The party’s platform makes no mention of the 2020 old-growth strategic review, despite a 2024 campaign commitment to fulfill all of its recommendations.

The BC Conservatives are promising to do many of the same things the NDP has done but better, bigger and faster. The party’s forestry platform promises to make more trees available for harvest — but does not address how the party would ensure companies actually harvest the maximum amount allowed, something that has not happened in years due to largely to the dwindling availability of economically viable trees to log. The Conservatives are also promising to focus on streamlining permitting, reduce costs for forestry companies and support value-added manufacturing.

The platform projects Conservative forestry policies would double government revenue from stumpage fees by 2028-29. The 2026 provincial budget did not include a specific revenue estimate for stumpage but estimated total forestry-related revenues will increase 3.3 per cent per year through 2029.

A Conservative government would “encourage Indigenous participation in the forestry industry by investing in skills training” and dedicate a portion of federal funding for targeting the forest industry to First Nations.

The party is also promising to “resolve” the issue of old-growth deferrals by “protecting original old growth” and making the rest eligible for logging. The platform does not define original old growth but does say that B.C.’s “most endangered and rarest ecosystems” would also be protected.

The Green platform proposes shifting B.C. forestry from a fibre-supply model to one that prioritizes ecosystem health, wildfire resilience, cultural values and healthy communities. A Green government would permanently protect old-growth forests and large second-growth forests from logging, fully implement the old growth review’s recommendations and provide conservation financing to help First Nations replace forestry revenues in favour of protecting forests.

The Greens are also promising to ban the use of glyphosate and other chemical herbicides as part of forest management practices — a pledge the NDP and Conservatives both made in 2024.

Energy, electrification and renewables

Beyond boosting natural gas and LNG production, the BC Conservatives are promising to boost B.C.’s energy self-sufficiency, a commitment that would mean building a considerable amount of additional energy generation capacity. The province currently balances its energy needs through a mix of energy imported from other jurisdictions (mostly Alberta and western U.S. states) and locally generated power.The strategy, basically, is to use local sources when they are cheap and convenient and buy imported power — such as solar-generated power from California — when it is plentiful and cheap. To date, the strategy has worked out well, though recent drought conditions have put a squeeze on those margins. 

The Conservatives are committed to boosting B.C.’s energy production “from every available source,” according to its platform.

Boosting biomass production is a key part of the Conservatives’ energy pitch. The party is proposing to increase the use of logging and mill waste to make renewable fuels. On renewables, the Conservatives support wind, solar and small-scale hydro power “where economics and reliability make sense,” as well as geothermal projects where a business case can be made — i.e. with little investment from the provincial government.

Notably, the 2026 B.C. Conservative platform doesn’t mention nuclear power, a source the party touted as part of the solution to B.C.’s energy crunch during the 2024 election.Beyond increasing exports, a Conservative government would also consider opening the door to more natural gas power production in B.C. by making them eligible for BC Hydro’s call for energy project proposals. 

The Conservatives are also promising to “restore choice in energy for home heating and cooking” — a commitment to attacking restrictions and bans on natural gas use implemented by local governments — and overhaul B.C.’s Energy Step Code, which sets energy efficiency standards for new buildings.

While the NDP government hasn’t exactly shied away from natural gas as a power source, the party’s platform touts efforts to ensure nearly all of B.C.’s electricity is generated from renewable and low-emission sources.

An NDP government would continue funding for heat pump rebates to the tune of $50 million per year and dedicate $16 million to building out the province’s electric vehicle charging network. 

The Green platform promises to one-up the NDP on most of its existing energy promises. This includes heat pumps, insulation and energy-efficiency upgrades, restoring BC Hydro’s abandoned net-metering system for residential solar power and allowing plug-in balcony solar in B.C.The Green energy platform also emphasizes community-owned energy projects, an area where B.C. currently lags behind several provinces.

A Green government would ban oil and gas hookups for new homes and residential buildings and set a goal of using electricity to supply at least 35 per cent of B.C.’s total energy needs by 2035. Currently, about 20 per cent of all the power used in B.C. comes from electricity, according to the Canada Energy Regulator, while 34 per cent comes from petroleum products and 31 per cent is natural gas.The final voting day in the B.C. election is Oct. 24.

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In Kaska territory, summer turns toward fall earlier than in much of British Columbia. Pressed up against the Yukon border, where the Alaska Highway cuts across the landscape, it’s a place where leaves start changing colour in August, and by September, snow already dusts the mountaintops. Seasonal change has always held meaning for Kaska, and this year autumn was supposed to mark something new: the final few steps in their effort to protect a massive swath of their territory, called Dene Kʼéh Kusān. 

But when BC NDP Leader David Eby called a snap election in late September, Kaska Nation leaders say it stalled that process. Now, they’re worried the election could derail, or at least slow, the entire multi-year planning process for the roughly three-million-hectare protected area. 

“We’re disappointed an election call has once again interrupted our discussions with the government as we had hoped to achieve a protection designation within the last political mandate,” Liard First Nation Chief Harlan Schilling said in an emailed statement.

Liard First Nation is one of four nations that make up the broader Kaska Nation, whose traditional territory stretches across northern British Columbia and southern Yukon. Two decades ago, the nation created the non-profit Dena Kayeh Institute to protect its language, culture and lands. In June 2019, the institute announced plans to create a massive Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area to protect one of the province’s largest intact wilderness areas. It is called Dene Kʼéh Kusān, which, translated from the Kaska language, means “always be there.”  

“Dene K’éh Kusān is a vision that includes all British Columbians. It will protect some of Canada’s most important wildlife habitat and create world-class opportunities for hunters, anglers, naturalists and backcountry recreationalists,” Schilling said.

In June 2024, the British Columbia government signed an agreement with the Kaska nations to undertake land-use planning in its territories. In the coming years, the ministry explained, the government, the nation and other stakeholders would sit down for a comprehensive land-use planning process that would formalize provincial protections for Dene Kʼéh Kusān. That process stalled a few months later when the province went to the polls in October 2024, but picked up again after the election. On July 2, 2026, the province issued a press release announcing public consultations on the new protected area. 

“This work shows what’s possible when we all come together to protect the places that matter most,” Tamara Davidson, then-minister of environment and parks, said at the time. 

That process was supposed to conclude this fall, with Schilling expecting to finalize protections for the area before the end of the year. Now, the election has stalled the process. He’s worried about the lasting impact the delay could have, especially since a temporary ban on mineral staking inside the area is set to expire in January.“The current pause on mineral staking in Dene K’éh Kusān is set to expire just three months after the election,” he said. 

Neither NDP nor Conservatives have pledged support for IPCAs during election

Since the election was called, polling shows the BC Conservatives with a narrow but consistent lead over the BC NDP. Projections from 338Canada point to a likely change in government, with the Conservatives currently expected to win the most seats. 

Tim Burkhart, director of landscape protection at the conservation group Yellowstone to Yukon, said in an emailed statement the next government will have “a generational opportunity” to protect the unique wilderness area, but added time is running out, given the scheduled expiry of the mineral tenure pause. “The window to act is closing,” he said. 

“The years of planning, broad stakeholder endorsement and public engagement are done, and there is consensus to secure this wild legacy forever,” Burkhart, whose group supports the Kaska project, said. 

“We want to ensure all parties know protecting this unique wilderness is important for British Columbians and Canadians,” Schilling said.

No major party directly addresses Dene Kʼéh Kusān in its platform, but the BC NDP has reaffirmed a commitment to meet the pledge to protect 30 per cent of B.C. lands and waters by 2030, known as 30-by-30, and “work with First Nations on this goal.” As of December 2025, 15.9 per cent of the province was protected areas, according to the federal government. Since Dene Kʼéh Kusān covers around four per cent of the province, it would go a long way toward closing the gap.

The BC Conservatives have made no specific promises or platform announcements on conservation in this election. They have promised to repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which the previous government cited as part of the reason it entered land use planning with Kaska. And in May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad described the 30-by-30 conservation goal as “nonsense” and pledged to scrap it if he formed government. 

The Narwhal reached out to the BC Conservative and BC NDP candidates running in the riding of Bulkley-Stikine, where most of Dene Kʼéh Kusān would sit, but neither responded. The BC Green Party is not running a candidate in the riding. 

For now, Schilling and others working on protecting the region will have to wait until the votes are counted on Oct. 24 to figure out the path forward.“We’re hopeful the next government will see the importance of this initiative and bring it to completion,” Schilling said.

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Jessica Hutchinson, executive director of conservation group Redd Fish Restoration Society, remembers the long, restless night in December 2025 listening to the thrum of a rainstorm in Tofino, B.C. Lying in her bed, she hoped the culmination of years of planning, weeks of construction and eye-watering helicopter bills would hold. 

As Hutchinson lay awake, rain poured down from the steep hillsides surrounding Tranquil Creek like it normally did, sending a surge of water into the river below. But now the deluge had an obstruction: a tangled mass of around 50 trees, tufted like a giant bird’s nest and lodged into the riverbed, causing the flow to ricochet and swoop under and above. Pools and eddies had begun to form below the wooden mass of the river’s new intruder, also known as an engineered logjam, reflecting a years-long effort that is relatively uncommon in B.C.

Engineered logjams are large-scale interventions for places with large-scale problems. In Tranquil’s case, the watershed needed life support.

Redd Fish watershed restoration director Tom Balfour describes the approach as “open-heart surgery.” 

“You don’t do this to rivers that need a little help,” he says. “You do it when things are really desperate.”

Logged extensively between the 1960s and the 1990s, the valley soon became a funnel for sediment flowing down from the steep hills. The river weaving through it had become a highway of fast-moving water, and sand and gravel, threatening to bury or drag salmon eggs out to sea. By 2017, Chinook were on the verge of local extinction, while chum, coho and steelhead were in severe decline.

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, whose territory encompasses Hiłsyaqƛis (the Nuu-chuh-nulth name for Tranquil Creek), identified the region as an urgent priority, and Redd Fish subsequently launched their multi-year quest to figure out how to help it heal.

“Tranquil’s got a special place in my heart,” Tatt Charlie, lead guardian for Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, says. Tla-o-qui-aht guardians are working with Redd Fish to restore the watershed. “It’s one of those amazing ecosystems where we could get almost all of our salmon spawning in that again and rejuvenate it for our people.”

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation worked in partnership with Redd Fish to develop a long-term plan for Tranquil. It required learning about what went wrong, and then gradually bringing the missing pieces back. It wasn’t cheap or easy, but ten years into their journey, Hutchinson says it’s been worth it.

Tranquil Creek’s trajectory

“The dock is very slippery,” calls out Frank Witter as he steers the silver skiff up to the small wooden landing just outside the mouth of the Tranquil Creek inlet. Witter, Charlie and fellow Tla-o-qui-aht guardian Nathaniel Currie get ready to disembark.

The dock is remnant infrastructure from the watershed’s heavy logging days. So is the dusty sorting yard to our left, replete with metal loading skids angling into the ocean, as if the valley’s forests were still full of big trees to take away.

Hutchinson has come back from working on the riverbed to meet us, and we pile into one of Redd Fish’s company trucks. From the window, other signs of change soon follow: we pass a pile of pipes and metal planks near a recently decommissioned forest service road.

Witter, Redd Fish’s project manager, stops the truck as we reach a high point on the road, and we climb out to take a look. From here, the watershed’s history opens like a storybook. 

What appear to be white, fuzzy scars carved into the mountainside are actually landslides, Hutchinson tells me. These are the places where disturbance-loving alder trees have lodged themselves onto the scree slopes, their foliage still bare from the winter. 

After they lost the big conifer trees whose roots were anchors, the fine-grained sediment, gravel and jagged rocks that comprise the region’s hillsides started to fall. Logging roads made things worse, cutting holes in the hillside like a dispenser below a gumball machine. When Clayoquot Sound’s famous rainstorms bear down on the valley, they tend to pull the already-loose sand and rocks down with them. 

The valley bottom, too, had lost its defences. Once fortified by big, steadying trees like cedars and spruce, the flat-lying ground is now peppered with daintily rooted species like alder. Over time, the river got wider and flatter.

For salmon, this layered onslaught of sediment spells trouble. 

All five species of North American Pacific salmon have historically spawned in the Tranquil watershed, and for salmon, spawning is a miraculous event. It requires adult salmon to survive in the open ocean, replete with fishing nets, predators and pathogens, sometimes for up to around decade. If the salmon is fortunate enough to reach its elder years, it tracks the earth’s magnetic field and then draws on its keen sense of smell to return, sometimes over thousands of kilometres, to the same stream channel where it was born.

Under the right conditions, the salmon digs a nest beneath the gravel just deep enough for its eggs to stay covered during the river’s most turbulent months. If things go wrong, baby salmon can asphyxiate beneath a buildup of sand, or if the water moves too fast, they get washed out to sea. 

It wasn’t always like this, Charlie says, as he gestures to the mouth of the estuary below us. It was once the bustling village of Hiłsyaqƛis, one of many village sites in the territory, where members of the Tla-o-qui-aht came to fish and camp each year.

Back then, surrounded by an intact forest, the now-rushing Tranquil Creek consisted of meandering paths of water braiding together. For millennia, the Tla-o-qui-aht people helped keep it that way, using various techniques to keep the populations in balance: cultivating strong-rooted crabapple trees that helped mitigate erosion in the estuary, for example, and building rock weirs to count and manage how much salmon swam up to spawn.

“You would allow the strongest of the river to go up, enough fish to make sure every square inch of gravel is spawned,” Saya Masso, Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation’s natural resources manager, says. Once enough salmon had travelled up the river to support the forest and its animals, Masso says the community would then begin their own harvest. 

That stewardship was suppressed as Canada dispossessed the nation of its territory. 

Over a century later, the Tla-o-qui-aht partnered with Redd Fish to conduct a years-long investigation to determine the damage caused in the interim, piecing together Tranquil’s history of disturbance through historic photos and terrain assessments. Their research determined logging strongly contributed to the watershed’s downhill slide. They also discovered that the watershed was unlikely to heal on its own in time for salmon to benefit.

“It’s not on a healing trajectory,” Hutchinson says. “It’s actually unravelling and becoming worse through the years.”

Witter’s team worked to stabilize the landslides, creating terraces and staking willow trees, known for their hearty roots, to prevent further movement. Throughout the lower watershed, Redd Fish planted 120,000 trees and restored 100 hectares of young, replanted forests by thinning out trees to create light to help big ones grow. 

They also turned their attention to the river. 

“Rivers take annual presence to become productive,” Masso says. “Our plan is to get to a system of abundance.”

How logjams help salmon

Western science was slow to realize that wood and salmon need each other. 

Since at least the last Ice Age, salmon’s decomposing bodies have fed and plumped the big trees of the Pacific Northwest. Those trees, in turn, feed the river, depositing big logs that create the smorgasbord of habitat types and pools salmon require to survive. Logs and logjams act like sorting hats for gravel, distributing patches of coarse and fine gravel that suit different species’ needs.

“It quickly became apparent to me in studying the rivers of this region that wood was as important as sediment and water,” geomorphologist David Montgomery says. He was one of the early contributors to a growing scientific recognition of the relationship between wood and salmon in the 1990s. 

By then, much of the damage to these ancient Pacific rivers was done. Logging companies had clear-cut many watersheds, as they did in the Tranquil. Some fish biologists even encouraged wood removal from streams and rivers, thinking it would help fish travel upstream.

This antipathy to river debris had deep roots. Large-scale “log drives” in the late 1800s and early 1900s culled wood from the vast rivers, including in the Cowichan Valley, where people used explosives to clear off wood and other impediments. 

In B.C. and throughout the Pacific Northwest, government-funded restoration crews gradually began bringing wood back in the 1990s. Early interventions were often targeted to smaller streams where a single log or two could make a meaningful impact. But big rivers like Tranquil Creek’s mainstem require something sturdier.

A short walk downriver, one of Redd Fish’s many engineered logjams comes into view, knotted and gnarled with trees piled atop one another, holding firm like a fortress as water passes dutifully around its edges.

“Frank, have you seen it?” Hutchinson says, getting Witter’s attention. River debris is accumulating in the logjam, a natural addition to the engineered effort. “That’s not even us, that’s just wood piled up.”

This is the promise of a well-built logjam: it takes up a life of its own, collecting wood the river throws at it. Ideally, it becomes self-sustaining, forming forested islands in the river that contribute their own source of wood.

To match the ferocity of the Tranquil’s rainy season flows, Redd Fish had to craft logjams with around 50 trees piled atop and between each other, lasagna-style, staked in place with tall logs piled deep into the riverbed. 

“It basically is trying to mimic what an old growth tree would do if it rolled into the river with its giant root plate,” Hutchinson says. 

“It would maintain the force of the river.”

These human-made jams are not cheap, requiring heavy equipment to temporarily isolate a spot along the riverbed with pumps and sandbags, and helicopters to haul wood and logs up to 15 metres tall. They also require teams of engineers working closely with traditional knowledge holders, geomorphologists and other scientists to ensure the investment and design will hold up.

“It’s a team effort,” Montgomery says.

“All those gears have to sing. But when they do, I’ve seen really good results.”

‘They’ve done all their homework’

A shock of cold hits my legs as I venture forward into Tranquil Creek, in a channel that’s surprisingly deep and aquamarine blue. 

Last year’s work is already visible, marked by the first crop of young willow trees clawing their roots into the gravel, one of many impediments Redd Fish and Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park Guardians have installed to slow the water down. 

Redd Fish staff are here, hammering the new generation of stakes into the dry riverbed. For a moment, conversation lulls, and there’s just the sound of running water and syncopated tapping, then the conversation starts up again.

So far the outcomes of their efforts appear hopeful, though Hutchinson avoids drawing early conclusions. On snorkel surveys through the river, one of the organization’s efforts to monitor the completed work, Redd Fish has found salmon taking refuge in the pools created by the logjams, including during heat waves. In the last two years, those pools have gotten deeper.

Though costly and time-consuming, Redd Fish’s monitoring efforts and years spent studying the watershed are critical, Jason Hwang says.

“It’s an excellent example of a project in the current day that is doing all the right things,” Hwang, who is the chief program officer and vice president of salmon at the Pacific Salmon Foundation, says. “They’ve done all their homework.”

But the Tranquil faces pressures old and new.

Climate change is heating Tranquil’s waters, and fish farms nearby pose additional risks for the Tranquil river’s returns, potentially spreading pathogens that can infect migrating wild salmon as they move past. At the same time, restoration efforts across the province face constant funding challenges as government priorities shift. 

This February, the mining company Imperial Metals received a permit to conduct extensive exploration work in the Tranquil watershed’s headwaters, in hopes of eventually opening a gold mine there. The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation and representatives from the broader Tofino business community have voiced their opposition to the mine.

Many of Tranquil’s challenges remain, but for now, Hutchinson is glad to watch the river evolve on its own terms now that it’s had some help. She hopes it might be a model for what’s to come. 

“We haven’t restored a single entire watershed, top to bottom,” she says. 

“I was always hoping that Tranquil would be that watershed.”

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