Indigenous First Nation Peoples and the Management of Cultural Heritage in British Columbia

In British Columbia, Canada, indigenous First Nations are engaged in a process of negotiating and specifying the meaning of treaties originally signed with the then fledgling nation of Canada over a century ago. The process of modernizing these treaties and giving First Nations equal voice in policy and resource management decisions necessitates reaching agreements that will not only provide for a mechanism in provincial and crown policies, but that also establishes aboriginal title to traditional lands and resources. Hopefully, the ultimate result will be an entirely new relationship between First Nations and Canada, whereby indigenous First Nation peoples will be recognized as self-governing entities within the political structure of British Columbia and Canada.

Map of Hulquminum First Nations

One area where many First Nations have taken a proactive stance in employing the past to pave the way for the future is through cultural resource management agendas. For example, the six Hul’qumi’num Salish Nations of the southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island of coastal British Columbia have begun to work with British Columbia in the management of their cultural and archaeological history. The territory of the Hul’qumi’num peoples remains in some respects remote, but much of their traditional lands are located in the midst of the most heavily developing areas of British Columbia – Vancouver, Victoria, and the Nanaimo metro regions. Unfortunately, this means that the record of the past that they can employ to establish precontact land-use patterns is being increasingly lost – often rapidly and in large chunks – to development, logging, recreation, and natural coastal erosion.

Collaboration in such a situation is the only way to properly proceed. By sharing management responsibility not only can a solid inventory of the heritage resources within an area be developed, but First Nation indigenous knowledge and history can also be included. An avenue for partially building this inventory has been provided by the Department of Indian Affairs – the Federal Department set up by treaty in the late nineteenth century to manage First Nation lives – which made available funds for First Nations to undertake projects that build the institutional “capacity” for self-government. Utilizing this opportunity, the Lyackson First Nation (one of six Hul’qumi’num Tribes), along with Coast Research, an anthropological research consulting firm, formulated a proposal to acquire Capacity Initiative funding to complete an archaeological survey of Valdes Island – the core area of Lyackson traditional territory.

A sizable grant was obtained, sufficient to complete the survey and obtain radiocarbon dates to establish a basic chronology of occupation and resource use. A similarly funded and organized capacity initiative was also launched in 2003 with Coast Research partnering with the Penelakut Tribe. Prior to this collaborative management process little to no pre-existing or systematic archaeological or cultural resource information existed concerning Lyackson and Penelakut heritage sites and land use in the precontact past.

The ultimate goal of all this collaborative work has been to create a more First Nations-driven management model at the political and pragmatic levels. Such a model considers the broadest suite of significant sites and heritage resources, including sites highly significant to indigenous First Nation peoples (such as sacred sites), but that may not contain actual heritage objects. Models based on indigenous intellectual property and knowledge go beyond the predictive models currently used by industry and Government in the context of development planning, which tend to reflect the “objectified” view of prior land use.

By bringing in indigenous First Nation people’s intellectual property and knowledge, management models can become more dynamic then standard cause and effect models that are grounded in objectified knowledge. These models are beginning to be developed as indigenous peoples around the world are starting to be included in management and policy decisions. Although the development of these models and inclusion of indigenous people’s voices has increased, there is still a ways to go before we reach a level that is appropriate for the 21^st century.