From the historic agreement that created the Great Bear Rainforest to B.C.’s Dasiqox Tribal Park to uniquely co-managed forest resources in Labrador, Indigenous-led conservation efforts are transforming the way Canadians understand and practice conservation.

Far from the colonial idea of preserving natural landscapes from human incursion, Indigenous land use plans put sustainable human-nature relationships that seek to revitalize traditional cultural practices at the centre.

It’s a vision of conservation and land use planning that can help Canada deliver on its promise of reconciliation and a renewed nation to nation relationship, according to Valérie Courtois, director of Indigenous Leadership Initiative.

In the recent federal budget, the Trudeau government committed $1.3 billion towards the creation of protected areas in Canada and some of those dollars are specially earmarked to support Indigenous participation.

We asked Courtois to speak with DeSmog Canada about Indigenous-led conservation, why it’s important and how it could transform Canada from the ground up.

This interview has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.

In the federal government’s most recent budget there was a big emphasis on support for Indigenous participation in conservation. Does this represent a changing tide when it comes to the way we view the creation of protected areas in Canada?

Yes.

Certainly the courts have been pretty clear on these things and — to government’s credit — it feels like they’re not just doing the bare minimum of what the courts have asked them to do in this reconciliation process.

This is really about resetting and renewing the relationship between crown governments and Indigenous peoples.

At the same time as that’s happening there’s also a real nationhood movement within Indigenous peoples — we have a population that is more educated, getting more sophisticated in terms of its political strategies and voices and certainly has never had more capacity to manage lands within a modern land management context.

I’m not dismissing exciting governance systems of lands that were there for thousands of years, but this movement towards nationhood and the seriousness of being nations is happening at this same time as this recognition is happening.

We not only have the ability to fill that space but be very creative and provide leaders in that space because of this movement that’s happening in our communities too.

The Lutsel K’e First Nations and Crown governments are co-creating the proposed Thaidene Nene National Park Reserve along the eastern shores of Great Slave Lake. Photo: Pat Kane

Do you see conservation as pathway to nationhood and community revitalization?

For me it’s hard to talk about Indigenous nations outside the context of my own but when we think about nationhood it’s all about who you are where you are — who you are within the land that is your home.

And conservation is one of the tools that allows us to fulfill a responsibility to our land within the reality of it being the central core of who we are as nations.

Much of our nationhood over time has been undermined because of the impacts on that relationship, whether that’s residential schools that took us away from the land or crazy development projects.

So, for example, if you’re a member of West Moberly First Nation in northeastern B.C., it’s very tough to be who you are on that landscape, especially if you consider the community’s historic relationship with caribou.

You can now count the remaining number of caribou there on two hands.

That free-for-all mentality of ‘the land is open,’ has really had a huge impact on the cultural survival on our nations.

So any tool that allows us to protect that land we need to be who we are and to be a part of decision-making on scale, pace and scope of development — especially if that develop is done to our benefit — then that will create some good scenarios.

I’m Innu. We’re caribou people. Our whole lifestyle revolves around following migratory and woodland caribou herds, which means we need a lot of space to be who are as a people.

When we talk about protecting lands in the east we’re not just talking about the forest, we’re talking about huge caribou landscapes.

Our elders say all the time: for us as Innu, if the caribou disappear we won’t be Innu anymore.

It’s a fundamental thing and the caribou situation right across this country is very worrisome.

Most non-indigenous Canadians don’t have a meaningful relationship with caribou. And yet caribou are so significant for conservation in Canada. Someone recently said to me if we lose the caribou we lose all the protections that have come in the fight for their survival. Do you see caribou as a sort of conservation gateway?

Absolutely.

Also a gateway in terms of getting people to see beyond the evident value that touches them.

So, for example, I used to do this all the time, when I would host meetings in the community. When I’d tell people it’s about the forest management plan, we’d get two people.

If we said it was about caribou, the whole community was there. They’re the same issue — it’s all about habitat management and the amount of forest that is available.

But that species and that relationship compels people more and that’s something we use to improve our community based processes as well.

Right now if you’re in central Manitoba and your First Nations I can guarantee you’re worried about moose.

There’s a decline generally with moose there and you’ve got a declining forest industry.

To me that would be a great opportunity to think about, ‘okay shouldn’t we take this opportunity to think about other values forest has to save the moose and perhaps eventually create a context for a more sustainable forestry industry?’

Indigenous Guardians from Lutsel K’e will help manage the proposed Thaidene Nene National Park Reserve, monitoring water quality, wildlife and cultural sites. Photo: Pat Kane

What kinds of conversations are happening in Indigenous conservation circles about the non-Indigenous community and non-Indigenous conservation efforts?

There’s always this effort of finding ways of a parallel recognition of Indigenous science and western science in what we do.

When we were leading the Innu Nation our Elders said, it’s important to know Innu science but your job is to use the best information you have to make decisions — no matter where that comes from.

We hear that more and more with from communities who are looking at science not so much as a barrier anymore but as a body of knowledge in itself that is separate than their own but to be acknowledged and to be valued.

In terms of  the conservation community generally, it has been and can be another form of colonialism, another way for other people to put a value on your land that isn’t your own.

There is a risk for conservation organizations if they push things based on their own values.

A field medic at the standing rock protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Photo: Avery White | Oceti Sakowin Camp via Flickr

And that’s why a lot of conservation organizations have had trouble in the past working with First Nations. You see this in the media every once in a while — this idea of conservation being a new colonial frontier.

But there are ways to avoid that and ways for First Nations to make sure they choose the right partners. Some are developing partnership protocols which state what they look for in partners, state what they are looking for in organizations that want to work on their land and what the processes should be.

When those protocols exist relationships tend to be much more fulsome.

There’s a risk in that but there are things organizations can do to create the right space.

The thing I worry about with conservation organizations is this idea that Indigenous people cannot be a means to the conservation organizations’ ends. So if they’re looking at this budget and saying ‘we need to protect areas by 17 per cent’ and they look at a map and say it needs to be areas A, B, and C, then they’re going to say we need to talk to First Nations Area A.

That’s a problem. That is not the right place to start a relationship.

The relationship needs to start with the goal of having Indigenous leadership and nations make decision on their lands. That needs to be the end goal itself as opposed to a means to an end.

On that note there’s an interesting difference in worldviews when it comes to land use planning. From a white, Western perspective we have this idea of creating protected areas that are so-called pristine preservations. What I’ve heard from some Indigenous communities is they want to live on the land, they want their hands in the ground, they want to hunt the animals that live there and gather medicines. They see themselves as part of that landscape. Can you talk about how an emphasis on Indigenous-led conservation is maybe inviting white communities to re-envision what conservation means?

I can’t think of one landscape in Canada that hasn’t been affected in some way by humans.

It’s a false premise to think that landscapes are at their best without us.

It’s not the natural state in much of North America. And we’ve seen that whether it’s the use of fire to create berry areas or to manage large wildlife species.

When I was working on the forestry plan out here in the east and talking with the elders about fires, I was looking on a map where the fires were and elders were saying, ‘yeah, I lit that because I wanted a berry area 10 years later.”

This idea of absence is totally artificial. We’ve been living with that balance or with that relationship as humans in nature for 10,000 plus years — in some places on the coast 13,000 plus years.

Obviously that’s a sustainable model!

To me, this deep ecology where people have to be separate from nature is completely artificial.

If I could use an expression from Trudeau: ‘that’s so 1970.’ We’re so far beyond that.

The other thing is that ecosystems, they’re not just for nature, they’re for us, they are our habitat. As Indigenous peoples we are a part of that biodiversity.

Article 8(j) on the Convention on Biological Diversity actually says that: Indigenous peoples are part of biodiversity of nature.

It’s false to think you can separate those things. Conservation and any management of land is the way we’re going to preserve cultures and have them flourish and really achieve their aspiration as a society.

We have that responsibility as a nation, we’ve affected over 50 different cultures through colonialism. It’s the right thing to do —to encourage that link.

Na-Cho Nyak Dun elder Walter Peters leads the fire ceremony during the Protect the Peel victory celebration at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, February 2nd, 2018. Photo: Matt Jacques

When it comes to Indigenous rights in Canada, do you see conservation as a way of Indigenous peoples asserting those rights?

Yes, for sure.

I guess the best way for me to answer that question is to speak about an example here in Labrador.

Innus have been in negotiations for a treaty for over 30 years. In that 30 years there’s been one of the world’s largest hydro projects and a second one is in development now.

We’ve seen the world’s largest nickel mine and the expansion of the world’s largest iron facilities. Development has really progressed at quite a pace.

If you’re the Innu Nation and you’re looking at your lands 30 years ago when you started negotiations and looking at them now you have less opportunity as a nation to think about sustainable revenue streams, to think about what you’re going to do on your land base and how you’re going to draw your revenue sources out of your land base.

Those opportunities diminish as things get taken off the land whether that’s trees, minerals or water or whatever.

So conservation in the Innu Nation case as they were negotiating the treaty, they’re said look we’ve got this forestry issue where we can really test out what co-management and our relationship over the long term could look like on these forest resources.

So the Innu Nation and the province signed a unique co-management agreement that doesn’t involve a third party.

Do you see Indigenous land use leadership as a benefit to all Canadians?

This is another interesting thing about Indigenous leadership: it can also help out with non-Indigenous communities.

Here in Goose Bay, when the government first started talking about doing forestry, the community didn’t want anything to do with it. There was a settler group here in town who didn’t trust government at all.

They created a group that was essentially a protest group to the forest process.

When the Innu came on, they cooled their jets. They were like, ‘oh, the Innu Nation cares about the environment. We know because they blocked NATO, blocked Inco, they intervened on these processes that could have been devastating to the environment.’

The fact that we were there brought them enough comfort that they were no longer going to protest the process.

It was fascinating. We could really see it.

I was there for the consultation process and I witnessed that shift from going from ‘we don’t trust anyone in government’ and a very aggressive approach to seeing Innu guys there in their guardian uniforms talking about their values saying ‘we trust this plan.’

Fort McPherson elder, Agnes Neyando, hanging whitefish taken from the Peel River. Agnes and her husband spent their summers living in a wall tent along the river, into their 90s. Photo: Peter Mather

Looking forward, when it comes to Indigenous participation in conservation in Canada, what are you looking forward to? Or even beyond that, what are your hopes for what you’re seeing taking place in Canada right now?

I’m a generally optimistic person, generally hopeful person. I think there’s never been a moment in time like we’re in now for a) the Indigenous empowerment movement to be where it is and b) of our awareness of environmental risk and the importance to conservation.

That’s the key moment in time and it’s important for us who work on these issues to think about that moment in time and advance things as much as possible.

The reconciliation movement in this country will only become truly real when we figure out the land jurisdiction question. When we think about respecting Indigenous peoples on their lands while balancing the reality that we are a federation and the settler population is here.

So what does that look like? What does our shared future look like?

It this that shared future is one where nations are strengthened and jurisdiction is figured out.

When that happens, when Indigenous people have their relationship with land fully restored and cultures are strengthened and that responsibility and sense of stewardship is re-fostered I think we’re going to have the best managed ecosystems in the world, we’re going to be global leaders in that reality.

We’re going to have Indigenous peoples that are coming into who they’re supposed to be, which are strong nations who care for the land.

I feel like it’s essentially the fulfillment of the eighth fire prophecy.

The prophecy tells about how Indigenous people are going to rise up from the ashes of colonialism and this dark period we were in over the last 200 plus years and really rise up to finally become who we are meant to be: these leading land carers that others look to for inspiration and leadership on those issues.

I very much feel like we’re in the moment of that happening.

Valérie Courtois. Supplied

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The Trudeau government committed an unprecedented $1.3 billion in Tuesday’s Budget 2018 to protect land and water in Canada over the next five years. The funds will help Canada meet its target to protect 17 per cent of land and 10 per cent of oceans by 2020 under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

“This is a very good news day for conservation in Canada,” Alison Woodley, national conservation director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), told DeSmog Canada.

In addition to significant financial investments, the budget also outlines a new model for collaborative conservation efforts bringing Indigenous, provincial and territorial governments together.

“For the first time the government is not only investing in federal action but also recognizing the importance of partnerships, recognizing Indigenous, provincial and territorial government’s work to protect land and water,” Woodley said.

Over the next five years the federal government will invest $500 million in conservation partnerships and $800 million to support the creation of new protected areas, increased park management, protection of species at risk and to establish a coordinated network of conservation areas with other governmental partners.

“I think the great thing about this is we’re not starting from scratch,” Woodley said. “There are places across this country where Indigenous and other government have proposals underway to protect large landscapes.”

Protecting the celebrated Peel Watershed in the Yukon would be an easy win when it comes to protecting undisturbed wilderness, Woodley said.

Proposals for the South Okanagan Similkameen national park to protect rare and diminishing desert in British Columbia, plans to protect undeveloped land in the Rockies and the Indigenous-led Thaidene Nene conservation project in the traditional territory of the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation could also represent big conservation wins, she added.

“This is a very good news day for conservation in Canada.” https://t.co/8KMcf1cyeb

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 28, 2018

Indigenous-led conservation a priority

“We are particularly pleased to see the budget acknowledge the leadership of Indigenous peoples in protecting Canada’s land and waters,” Éric Hébert-Daly, CPAWS national executive director said in a statement.

“This funding will support Indigenous governments in their conservation efforts, which will make an important contribution to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.”

Indigenous-led conservation efforts have resulted in some of Canada’s most iconic land use agreements, including the creation of the Great Bear Rainforest and the Gwaii Haanas national park.

And the creation of tribal parks in unceded First Nations traditional territory in British Columbia — like the Dasiquox Tribal Park — has helped redefinine conservation strategies to more thoughtfully prioritize indigenous land use and cultural practices.

Steve Ganey, director of the land and ocean program for the Pew Charitable Trusts, applauded the federal government for its renewed commitment to conservation but said more can and should be done to emphasize reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in all land protection efforts.

“National and provincial governments should work to support new forms of Indigenous-led conservation in their efforts to meet the biological diversity targets,” Ganey wrote in a response to Budget 2018. “This is particularly important in northern Canada, where most of the country’s intact natural areas — and many of its Indigenous communities — are located.”

Ganey added Canada should consider creating protected Indigenous lands that are managed under a self-governance structure that highlights traditional knowledge — similar to Australia.

“This is the best and perhaps only way to rapidly expand conservation efforts while honouring Indigenous rights.”

Woodley said many of Canada’s Indigenous communities are already leading the way when it comes to protecting their lands and cultural practices.

“Indigenous-led conservation initiatives can be a great tool to advance reconciliation,” she said.

Continued investment needed to protect at-risk species

Conservation efforts are key to recovering Canada’s species at risk, such as caribou and orca that have suffered critical habitat loss and degradation over the last several decades.

“The number one reason that species across Canada and globally are in danger is because they’re losing habitat,” Woodley said.

“Protected areas are a key tool, whether on land or in the ocean, for addressing species at risk.”

Canada has been harshly criticized for failing to adequately protect its endangered species, especially through the creation of strict no-go zones that would protect critical habitat from industrial development and human activity.

Aerin Jacob, conservation scientist with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), said today’s investment in protected areas signals a change in tide.

“This type of vision shows the government is serious about protecting nature on the scale it needs to thrive,” Jacob said.

“Now the hard work lies ahead since we need different conservation approaches in different parts of Canada. This includes carefully planning where the new protected areas should be, based on intact wilderness, connectivity, species at risk and more.”

Woodley said conservation creates cascading positive effects where protected areas benefit wildlife, nature-based tourism and allow people to enjoy the lifestyles that come with landscapes that aren’t industrialized.

“This funding can deliver a whole suite of benefits to Canadians from nature conservation, economic, social and health perspectives.”

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In the heart of one of the continent’s biggest fracking booms stands a place the people of the Doig River First Nation have revered for generations.

Elders remember visiting this ancient spruce forest in northeastern B.C. as children on horseback. There they’d hunt moose, grieve their loved ones, heal their spirits.

So as oil and gas wells began to crop up all over their traditional territory, the elders of Doig River decided to do something to protect their most sacred place.

In 2011, they declared a tribal park called K’ih tsaa?dze, which means “old spruce” in the Dane-za, or Beaver, language.

Located about 40 kilometres northeast of Fort St. John, the 90,000-hectare tract of land crosses the B.C.-Alberta border and contains old-growth spruce forest and wetlands, crucial habitat for caribou and grizzly bear. “It’s the last place we have for our people,” former chief Norman Davis told me one morning last summer in the Doig River community centre (in December, the community elected a new chief, who is also supportive of the tribal park.)

Tea and coffee were brewing as elders sat around chatting and watching TV. The CBC was reporting on the Petronas LNG debate in the B.C. legislature — the impacts of which will be felt directly here in natural gas-rich northeastern B.C.

Doig River First Nation, home to 300 people, just so happens to sit atop the Montney Shale, which contains reserves of 449 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and more than one million barrels of oil.

As a result, the nation has 8,500 oil and gas wells in its backyard on the B.C. side of the border alone. Many of those wells use hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” which involves sending a high-pressure combination of water and chemicals underground to break apart the rock and release the oil or gas.

It’s a foreign process to people who were born on this land — people like band councillor Gerry Attachie who remembers seeing surveyors marking out the border between B.C. and Alberta in K’ih tsaa?dze.

“We’ve been there forever, even before they made the Alberta-B.C. border,” he told me. “We use it for healing. Spiritual healing. We get healed out there and we pray.”

The Doig River Medical Centre is adjacent to the community centre, where community members gather for tea and coffee and for meetings.

‘Before the White People Destroyed Our Land’

I piled into a truck with three elders — brothers Tommy and Billy Attachie and Sam Acko — and headed out to see K’ih tsaa?dze with my own two eyes.

Sam drove while I asked questions about the elders’ memories on this land. Often the men broke into conversation in their mother tongue, Beaver.

Tommy, sporting an “old guys rule” hat, is 73. Billy, 75, needed crutches. He remembers his first visit to K’ih tsaa?dze at seven years old.

“I was riding behind my grandma on her saddle horse,” he said. “It was a day-long trip on a horse. We’d take a dog team in the winter. We would make a trip of it and camp at various places along the way. That was before the white people destroyed our land with roads and well sites.”

Fireweed blooms along the road leading to K’ih tsaa?dze Tribal Park. A gas plant is located no more than 100 metres away.

We bumped down a gravel road lined with willows and spruce. Industry signs marking oil and gas access roads flew by on the side of the road.

As we arrived at the first K’ih tsaa?dze sign, a gas plant hummed in the background no more than 100 metres away.

By the time we passed an oil pumpjack, Tommy and Billy had been lulled to sleep.

A sign for K’ih tsaa?dze Tribal Park on the B.C. side of the border states that the land is used to hunt, trap, camp and share cultural teachings.

‘It’s Like Your Spirit is Renewed’

Sam and I continued talking as he drove.

“After you leave K’ih tsaa?dze it’s like your spirit is renewed,” Sam said.

He told me about continuing to use the land as a bush school and reminisced about using K’ih tsaa?dze as a hunting camp in the early ’70s and drying moose there.

“Telling these stories always makes me hungry,” he said with a laugh.

Sam Acko remembers using K’ih tsaa?dze as a hunting camp in the early ’70s. He says: “After you leave K’ih tsaa?dze it’s like your spirit is renewed.”

Thankfully, we had a picnic packed and soon arrived to an old-growth grove of spruce trees that has miraculously withstood multiple forest fires.

“There is something that we don’t know that protects this area,” Sam said.

With the smell of sap thick in the air we sat down on wooden benches for lunch. The mosquitoes were so fierce they bit right through my jeans.

Sam talked about tuberculosis and smallpox wiping out his relatives. “We didn’t have a word for cancer then,” he lamented.

This old-growth spruce forest has never been burned by a forest fire, according to elders who say it seems to be protected by a special force.

Protecting a Sacred Place

This is the place the people of Doig River come when they’ve lost someone in their community — for its peace and quiet.

However, keeping this place quiet has proven to be quite a challenge.

In 2013, the Province of Alberta wrote to Doig River First Nation, ordering them to remove their signs for the tribal park on the Alberta side of the border. When they didn’t do so, the government removed the signs themselves.

The letter from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development stated: “K’ih tsaa?dze Tribal Park does not meet the criteria for the establishment of a conservation area in Alberta.”

Alberta Request to Remove KTP Sign

That was under the previous Progressive Conservative government. Since the NDP took power, discussions have begun about the tribal park, says Jane Calvert, land and resource manager for Doig River First Nation.

The nation is also in ongoing negotiations with the B.C. government about protection mechanisms. This isn’t the first time the B.C. government has been brought to the table to discuss an indigenous conserved area.

Take Duu Guusd Tribal Park, established by the Council of the Haida Nation in 1981. Although not initially seen as a formal park, the area was eventually recognized by the provincial government as a heritage site and conservancy.

Meares Island Tribal Park, meantime, was declared by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation in 1984, but has never been given any provincial or federal recognition. Despite that, an injunction to stop logging on that island has stood for 30 years.

In 2014, the Tsilhqot’in Nation declared Dasiqox Tribal Park as a way to proactively assert itself on its territory. (Read DeSmog Canada’s feature on Dasiqox: ‘It’s  No Longer About Saying No’: How First Nations Are Taking Charge With Tribal Parks).

K’ih tsaa?dze is unique in that it’s on treaty territory.

“Some tenure sales have been reverted back to the crown, which is tremendously good news,” Calvert said.

The Legal Standing of Tribal Parks

Jack Woodward, aboriginal law expert and lawyer in the landmark Tsilhqot’in title case, told DeSmog Canada that declaring a tribal park is a way of putting government and industry on notice that this is the minimum territory required to continue exercising aboriginal or treaty rights — rights that are ultimately constitutionally protected.

“So you might want to call a tribal park a constitutional park, because it’s a park that can not be violated under our current constitution,” Woodward said.

“The word ‘park’ means two quite different things,” Woodward continued. “In the regular federal and provincial sense, it means something about locking it up and keeping human beings out, whereas in a tribal park it means something closer to a sustainable ongoing use.”

In the case of a treaty right to hunt moose, for instance, those moose need a relatively intact place to live.

“Really what this comes down to is protection of habitat,” Woodward said. “You declare a tribal park and what you’re saying is: ‘Cross this line and we’re going to get an injunction to stop you from doing the industrial activity anyway.’ ”

The Doig River First Nation’s ability to hunt moose has been severely impacted.

“We’ve done some recent research on moose and what we found is that in the lifetime of our elders, the community harvest for moose has been reduced by 75 per cent,” Calvert said. “It’s not because they don’t like moose or they want to go to the grocery store. It’s because moose is disappearing from the landscape, just like caribou.”

The High Cost of Fighting Industry

Since declaring the park, industry has mostly stopped submitting development applications, Calvert said.

That in and of itself is a victory.

Dealing with one seismic application, for instance, can cost the nation between $40,000 and $60,000.

However, the alternative isn’t cheap either. Doig River First Nation has had to fund all of the scientific work, including water and soil contaminant samples and an ecosystem-based management plan, for the tribal park.

“It’s been costly, but so is trying to fend off applications for oil and gas work,” Calvert said. “It’s more cost effective to do it proactively.”

Since the declaration in 2011, there has been no new development in K’ih tsaa?dze on the B.C. side of the border, although existing development was allowed to run its course.

“They know we are really serious about protecting this area,” Calvert said.

The declaration is an indicator of a resurgence of First Nations power, said Faisal Moola, director general for David Suzuki Foundation, which has provided research support for the park.

“This will become very iconic in B.C. as First Nations begin to move from opposition to large-scale industrial development or trophy hunting to articulating an ambition of how the land can be used differently under their own governance,” Moola said.

“This is really about First Nations re-asserting their governance over the land.”

Recently, Calvert attended a gathering in Tofino of indigenous leaders from around the world involved in creating indigenous conserved areas.

“I had this sense that I was part of something very, very important — that we’re making history,” she said. “Sometimes you’re living in the moment and you don’t realize how important it is until years later. We’ll be looking back on this thinking we were part of a very important movement.”

This is part 2 of a series. Read part 1 on Dasiqox Tribal Park.

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.

As the crow flies, the territory of the Tsilhqot’in Nation lies just 300 kilometres north of Vancouver — but, cut off by the coastal mountains, it feels like a world away.

By car it takes about nine hours to arrive in the heart of the territory from the Lower Mainland, including an hour or two down a dirt road. If you’re one of the lucky few to arrive here, you’ll be standing on the territory of the only First Nation in Canada to win legal title to its land.

On June 26, 2014, the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s 25-year court battle came to an end when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled the nation holds title to approximately 1,900 square kilometres of its traditional territory.

Just months after that historic win, the Tsilhqot’in National Government pushed forward with another statement of its sovereignty — this time the declaration of the Dasiqox Tribal Park, located just outside of the nation’s title lands, but within the area the Supreme Court ruled the Tsilhqot’in have constitutionally protected rights to hunt, fish and trap.

Dasiqox encapsulates an area of about 3,000 square kilometres, including Fish Lake (Teztan Biny), the site of the bitterly contested Prosperity Mine proposals by Taseko Mines Ltd. It includes key grizzly bear habitat and connects surrounding parks to one another to provide corridors for wildlife.

In July, members of the community gathered there — in the precise area that would have been an open-pit mine if Taseko had its way — to celebrate the creation of Dasiqox.

A campfire was burning in the middle of the gathering as I arrived from a harrowing 40-minute drive up a steep gravel track with forest on one side and a sheer cliff on the other.

Chief Roger William of the Xeni Gwet’in was speaking to the crowd, gathered around in a circle.

“We are making history,” William said as I stepped out of my Jeep.

Chief Roger William of the Xeni Gwet’in has spent his entire adult life fighting for the Tsilhqot’in title win in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Nearby, children chased each other in a game of tag. A group of girls sat huddled together, braiding one another’s hair.

“We lived off this land, lived with this land and never destroyed it,” he said.

What Is a Tribal Park?

In that one sentence, William summed up the essential difference between a federal or provincial park and a tribal park.

According to Jack Woodward, a lawyer who quite literally wrote the book on aboriginal law, “the purpose of a regular federal or provincial park is preservation, protection, conservation — which are admirable, laudable objectives that are a little bit 19th century.”

“The purpose of a tribal park, by contrast, is sustainability of the ecosystems necessary to support the aboriginal or treaty rights.”

Woodward fought the Tsilhqot’in title case for a quarter century from inception to victory. He also obtained the historic injunction against logging on Meares Island in March 1985.

When we met in a downtown Victoria taco joint, he adlibbed a chart detailing the differences between tribal parks and other parks between bites of burrito.

When provincial and federal governments create parks they’re generally coming from the perspective that “somehow human beings are alien to the landscape and that human beings shouldn’t be making a living from that land,” Woodward explained.

“A tribal park recognizes the fact that you can still live on the land, and make a living from the land, and actually hunt and fish and trap and harvest those resources and it’s still there for the next generation.”

DASIQOX TRIBAL PARK from The Wilderness Committee on Vimeo.

More than that, part of the goal of tribal parks is cultural revitalization. At the Dasiqox gathering, young and old came together to make rafts, build a fish trap, erect a cabin and sing traditional songs. Eco-tourism is part of the long-term version for the park.

“We’re celebrating the fact we’ve been successful in keeping this place from becoming an open-pit mine,” said Chief Russell Myers Ross of the Yunesit’in, one of the six nations that comprise the Tsilhqot’in Nation.

“A tribal park is something that you can create with almost a blank slate in some ways,” Myers Ross, the lead organizer in the creation of the park, said. “So it’s no longer about saying no to any projects.”

“And we’re not just reacting to provincial or federal government or legislation or actions done onto us. We’re trying to position ourselves to take a proactive lead in how it’s designed and organized.”

He added: “Since the major forces of colonization, we’ve never been in that position.”

Chief Russell Myers Ross strips wood for a cabin at the Dasiqox Tribal Park celebration in July 2015.

The History of Tribal Parks in B.C.

When the Dasiqox Tribal Park was declared on Oct. 4, 2014, it was following in the footsteps of several tribal parks before it. Some have since been formally designated by the provincial or federal governments, while others haven’t.

Take Duu Guusd Tribal Park, established by the Council of the Haida Nation in 1981. Although not initially seen as a formal park, the area was eventually recognized by the provincial government as a heritage site and conservancy.

Meares Island Tribal Park, meantime, was declared by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation in 1984, but has never been given any provincial or federal recognition. Despite that, an injunction to stop logging on that island has stood for 30 years.

“When the Tla-o-qui-aht case started, our lawyers were young,” William told the crowd.

Eli Enns, a Nuu-chah-nulth political scientist in attendance, recalls the fight to save Meares Island.

“At the time, the words ‘tribal park’ meant nothing more than ‘not a tree farm licence,’ ” he told me. “It behooves us to define our land.”

‘It’s Like a Game of Choose Your Own Adventure’

The wind picks up and blows the campfire’s ashes around as the chiefs drum and sing a Tsilhqot’in war song.

After the chiefs speak, the gathering turns into an open-mic exercise with elders and horse trainers chiming in, while a couple of young women heckle “Chief Roger” for talking too much.

A group of riders spent nine days on horseback to get here from Yunesit’in.

“Even getting lost was beautiful,” one of the riders tells the crowd.

David Williams, president of the Friends of the Nemaiah Valley — a group that supports the Tsilhqot’in Nation in strengthening its culture — was sitting on the edge of the circle.

“Right now, the meaning of tribal park is anyone’s guess,” Williams said. “It’s like a game of choose your own adventure.”

He’s right. Every tribal park is unique. And none have been tested in the courts — yet.

“We’re not certain if tribal parks are recognized by courts,” Woodward told me. “They might be. There hasn’t been a court case. That’s the big one that’s yet to come.”

First Nations ‘Holding Breath’ 

But the Tsilhqot’in aren’t waiting. On the back of the title decision, Chief William’s spirits are buoyed.

“Now there’s hope,” he said. “It’s a game-changer.”

Jonakki Bhattacharyya, an ethnoecologist who has worked with the Tsilhqot’in Nation for ten years, said the title decision has a lot of First Nations looking at how to best protect their territories.

“The Tsilhqot’in decision raised a big question mark in a lot of nations’ minds … it gave a lot of nations momentum,” she said. “There’s a collective holding of breath while everyone looks around and watches what happens.”

However, the term “tribal park” itself generates some distrust, Bhattacharyya explained.

“For over a century, ‘park’ meant being moved off the land and not being allowed to hunt, not being allowed to fish,” she said.

Further to that, Chief William, like many other Tsilhqot’in people, learned English as a second language when he was sent to residential school at six years old.

He prefers to refer to Dasiquox Tribal Park as “Nexwagwez?an,” which translates to “it is there for us.”

Language aside, the key is that First Nations call the shots when it comes to managing the land.

“I didn’t want to be tied down to begging the government for anything,” said Chief Myers Ross, who has a master’s degree in indigenous governance from the University of Victoria. “The tribal park, the basis of it comes from indigenous leadership, wanting to exercise the laws that have already existed here.”

Amarc Resources Defies Tsilhqot’in, Drills in Park

However, challenges have already arisen in enforcing a park that hasn’t been recognized by the provincial government. In September, Amarc Resources started drilling in Dasiqox against the wishes of the Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in governments.

Woodward said declaring a tribal park is a way of putting government and industry on notice that this is the minimum territory required to continue exercising aboriginal or treaty rights — rights that are ultimately constitutionally protected.

“So you might want to call a tribal park a constitutional park, because it’s a park that can not be violated under our current constitution,” Woodward said.

Last summer, Williams Lake Mayor Walt Cobb spoke out in opposition to the park, saying it’s unclear what effect it will have on jobs and resources in the region.

Meanwhile, in October the province signed a letter of intent with the Tsilhqot’in Nation to advance reconciliation — essentially a commitment to further negotiation on everything from title and lands to economic development and social issues.

“A lot of that stuff won’t be fixed overnight,” Myers Ross said. “I feel like our best solutions will be created among ourselves. By July we hope to have an implementation plan, so we know what areas we want to focus on for our own land-use planning.”

For Myers Ross, it’s about far more than setting aside a piece of land.

“We want to make sure that it’s not just a traditional park. For us, we feel like we live with our environment and we’re part of it. Everyone who is part of our culture ends up becoming a part of the land.”

Next in this series: Doig River’s Last Stand Amidst Fracking Boom

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