The spirit of Last spring, the Haida launched a Supreme Court case claiming title to the Queen Charlotte Islands. Then something interesting happened: the local loggers took their side. Chris Tenove and Brooke McDonald report on an emerging partnership that has the potential to reshape aboriginal politics in and beyond. photographs by brooke mcdonald ast june, a gathering was held at the aboriginals and the bureaucrats who work with them. Not so deceptively named Small Hall, a community building in the run-up to the referendum. On the airwaves and in lec- in the tiny coastal village of Skidegate. The island deli- ture halls, aboriginal people, along with politicians and aver- cacy of herring roe and sea kelp, or k’aaw, was set age British Columbians, were given a chance to say what it is out along with hundreds of pounds of Chinook they really wanted. salmon,L as at a traditional Haida potlatch. By early afternoon One word was being repeated over and over again by First the cedar hall was loud with drumbeats and chatter as more Nations leaders: reconciliation. The word has a specific legal than 300 guests arrived. meaning; the landmark 1997 Supreme Court of Canada deci- Potlatches and communal barbecues are not rare on the sion, Delgamuukw, told the B.C. government and aboriginal Queen Charlotte Islands, but this congregation was unique, groups that they had to negotiate to “reconcile” Crown title and crafted as a message. Half of the attendees were Haida, and aboriginal title over land. But more often, people were re- and the other half were local loggers, many of them employees ferring to something bigger than law and politics, to the heal- of the American multinational Weyerhaeuser. The loggers had ing of old wounds, to repentance and forgiveness. For both shut down the on-island logging industry for the day, their definitions, native leaders had a consistent message: this refer- trucks and equipment left idle in the forest. endum isn’t going to help. Dale Lore, a local logger, helped organize the event as a When it came time to cast their vote, nearly two-thirds of pageant of support for the Haida’s legal battle for title over eligible voters boycotted the process or stayed away out of in- Haida Gwaii. If it’s successful, the Haida would gain a large difference and confusion. Thousands spoiled their ballots or measure of control over the land and coastal waters, including mailed them to aboriginal groups for mass burnings. Still, the control of resources. For years, the logging industry had vast majority of returned ballots were in favour of the eight fought the attempts of Haida and environmentalists to limit principles, which are now legally binding. Whether they will the harvest of the islands’ forests. This group of loggers had reshape negotiations is debatable, however, since the princi- broken rank; they believe that they would be better off with ples either echo those of the previous government or over- the Haida in charge of the islands, and not the provincial gov- reach provincial jurisdiction. In a cbc interview, Norman ernment or big logging. Ruff, a political commentator from the University of Victo- Lore claims that companies like Weyerhaeuser aren’t inter- ria, dismissed the whole referendum as “sound and fury, sig- ested in sustaining the forests or the local community. “They nifying nothing.” use us up, spit us out, and go to the next place without a The political theatre that swept the province didn’t alter the thought,” he says, and as far as he can tell, they do so with the growing partnership on the Queen Charlotte Islands. And blessing of the B.C. government. there is the distinct possibility that the Haida’s legal battle for the islands could more significantly affect the treaty-making while this partnership was germinating up process—and the lives of aboriginals in B.C.—than Gordon north, aboriginals in the rest of the province felt as if their fellow Campbell’s referendum. What’s more, the new partnerships British Columbians were turning against them. The Liberal on Haida Gwaii, symbolized by that afternoon gathering in government under Gordon Campbell had just launched a Skidegate’s Small Hall, might provide a real-life example of provincial referendum to determine the direction that negotia- what reconciliation between Canada’s aboriginals and non- tions with First Nations would take. Treaty negotiations are a aboriginals actually looks like. big deal in B.C., where their outcome could rewrite the political and economic landscape of the province. Unlike the rest of the archipelago of haida gwaii, “islands of the Canada, almost none of the B.C. First Nations have treaty agree- people,” is nestled under the Alaskan panhandle and separated ments to define their land, their powers of governance, or their from the British Columbian mainland by treacherous waters access to resources. A new framework for negotiations was insti- and high winds. The first recorded contact with European ex- tuted in 1992, but has so far failed to produce a single agree- plorers was in 1774. In 1787 Captain George Dixon came to the ment. The stalled treaty process hangs on the horizon like a islands to trade sea otter furs, and renamed them after his thundercloud, with business leaders glancing nervously about boat, the hms Queen Charlotte. and native bands wondering when, and how much, rain will fall. Even today the place feels remote, and wild. Tall, gnarled The referendum asked British Columbians to vote on eight and wind-sculpted trees line the coasts. Rough-edged black principles to guide negotiations, from broad statements like rock tumbles in ridges through the stormy surf. Eagles aren’t “Parks and protected areas should be maintained for the use resigned to treetops, but brazenly perch on beaches and and benefit of all British Columbians,” to the more con- promontories, their shrieks of indignation and ownership tentious “Aboriginal self-government should have the charac- splitting the air. teristics of local government, with powers delegated from Evolution can experiment more freely on islands. In a Canada and British Columbia.” Polling guru Angus Reid de- unique ecosystem, isolated from the teeming hordes of the scribed the referendum as “one of the most amateurish, one- mainland, species that don’t exist anywhere else can evolve and sided attempts to gauge the public will that I have seen in my professional career.” To the credit of Gordon Campbell’s government, the refer- Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw is the elected president endum got people talking. Despite the profound impact that of the Haida Nation. “Basically we’re on the very western edge treaties could have on all British Columbians—from payouts of colonialism in Canada,” he says. “We were the last ones colonized in the billions of dollars to changes in the management of and so that whole effort is only about 100 years old here compared large swathes of the province—debate is mostly limited to to the East Coast, where it’s about 500 years old.” 30 THIS january/february2003 thrive. An exceptionally large number of endemic species are lands. Instead, the B.C. government had gone ahead and found on the islands, like the Kermode bear or the tiny saw- granted Weyerhaeuser a license to log 1.2 million cubic metres whet owl. You also get biological aberrations, like the famous of timber a year. The B.C. Court of Appeals listened to the giant golden spruce. Three hundred years old and more than Haida argument, and found in their favour. 50 metres tall, its existence defied science. Its yellow needles “The Crown had gone on as if there is no such thing as should have been intolerant to sunlight, the very thing it re- aboriginal title,”says Guujaaw. “We proved they can’t do that.” quired to live and grow. There wasn’t another tree like it in the On the back of this victory, the Haida launched their case world before it met its untimely end—struck down one night for legal title over the islands in March 2002. Perhaps no B.C. in 1997 by a misguided environmental extremist. First Nation has as strong a claim as the Haida. Not only is The Haida culture itself—with its ornate totem poles and there proof of thousands of years of residence on the islands, rich oral literature—evolved over thousands of years on the is- there are no competing claims by other aboriginal groups. “We lands. It nearly became extinct at the end of the 19th century could be the first ones holding aboriginal title,” says Guujaaw, when settlers brought the smallpox virus. The epidemic cut although he admits the case will likely spend years before the the local population from around 9,000 down to 588 by 1911. courts. Even so, he believes that their victory in the first legal The Haida now number about 2,000, roughly one-third of skirmish is significant. “The legal precedent we’ve contributed the island’s inhabitants. to, in shaping aboriginal law, will affect everyone else,”he says. “Basically we’re on the very western edge of colonialism in It might also affect corporate boardrooms. The B.C. Court Canada,” says Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, the elected presi- of Appeals stated that the B.C. government and Weyerhaeuser dent of the Haida Nation. “We were the last ones colonized had a fiduciary duty toward the First Nations—and that the and so that whole effort is only about 100 years old here com- company had a duty to consult the Haida, even before their pared to the East Coast, where it’s about 500 years old. Our aboriginal title is established. Although the court recom- people still live off the land to a major degree. Whether they’re mended no specific penalties, it did rule that Weyerhaeuser’s schoolteachers or policemen or whatever, they still go to the actions henceforth could affect compensation if and when the land for food and still fix it up in the smokehouse, put up logs Haida establish title to the islands. for the winter. That’s still going on.” Weyerhaeuser appealed, but on August 19, the court con- Guujaaw has become the very public face of the Haida. He firmed its earlier ruling. That day, a sense of triumph swirled knows that the legal and political fight for control of Haida around the head office of the First Nations Summit in North Gwaii is also a battle of public relations. For his magazine por- Vancouver. trait, the setting he chooses is a lonely stretch of beach, where “You better believe it’s significant,” said Edward John, an silver driftwood has collected under wind-gnarled conifers. executive member of the Summit and Grand Chief of the He puts on a headdress of cedar bark and sea otter fur, then Tl’azt’en Nation. “Industry—and not just the forest industry, takes out his drum and sings while photographs are taken. The but mining, fishing, any resource-based industry—now has scene is both compelling and polished. this hard legal reality to face. When they assume license from Guujaaw’s public pronouncements are equally well crafted, the Crown…that license is now imbued with the fact that abo- and laced with an undercurrent of militancy. “The politics that riginal title is a legal reality.” we have implemented over the years is our ability to bugger “So it means to everybody who has a license out there,” he them up. We can stop them, we can slow them down, we can said, gesturing through a window at the forests and mountains scare away investors…Our people have a reputation for north of Vancouver, “they better take a second hard look at putting up the fight, and kind of enjoy it even,”he says, laugh- what they’re doing. They should be sitting down with govern- ing. Then he adds, almost as an after-thought, “But it makes ment and encouraging government to sit down with us and life a lot easier if you can co-operate.” find a way to reconcile these two solitudes of legal interest.” Guujaaw and the Haida have already racked up some wins, Needless to say, Weyerhaeuser is unhappy to be caught in with well-publicized stand-offs to stop logging in certain ar- the legal wrangling. Despite the fact that their license from the eas, and with the creation of Gwaii Haanas, a 1,500-square- province requires them to cut 1.2 million cubic feet of timber a kilometre site under joint administration of the year on Haida Gwaii, they agreed to reduce it to 600,000 cu- Haida and the federal government. But these were stop-gap bic feet. According to B.C. regulations, reducing their cut measures: for the Haida, the real goal is to establish legal title could cost them their license. “As a company we are caught be- over the lands of Haida Gwaii as well as the resources in and tween two governments: the provincial government and the under the sea. The Haida claim that because they never signed Haida government,” Tom Holmes, Weyerhaeuser vice-presi- a treaty with the Canadian or British imperial governments, dent, told the Vancouver Sun in July. “We are the meat in the they never relinquished their legal ownership. sandwich here.” “The province’s attitude is that they own it because they [exist],” says Guujaaw, whose dark hair and beard, shot dale lore doesn’t feel much pity for multi- through with grey, combined with a steady gaze, give him a nationals like Weyerhaeuser. “They’re not interested in sus- leonine appearance. “Not because they defeated us, because tainability. They want to cut the best [timber] as quickly as certainly they didn’t defeat us in war. Unless germ warfare they can at as high a volume as they can, make as much money counts as fair play in international or Canadian law.” In February 2002, the Haida scored a legal victory against Dale Lore is one of the local loggers supporting the Haida’s title claim. the province and Weyerhaeuser. The Haida argued that be- He claims that companies like Weyerhaeuser aren’t interested cause they have a reasonable chance of proving title, they in sustaining the forests or the local community. “They use us up, should be consulted regarding forest management on the is- spit us out, and go to the next place without a thought.” 32 THIS january/february2003 as they can,” says Lore, a bluff man with a gift for the populist nition that fault is accepted by the other side. But without a harangue. major open-ended discussion in Canada about the inclusion Lore was recently elected mayor of the island community of native people in society on an equal basis, reconciliation will of Port Clements, but for all of his 15 years on the Queen Char- happen a lot slower, if at all.” lotte Islands he’s been a logger. Over that time he’s converted Paris lists off important elements of other reconciliation from a self-confessed redneck to someone with a lot of respect movements, elements she feels are lacking in Canada. But as for the land. His family has adopted local customs like filling she mentions each one, it’s striking how much it is happening their freezers with smoked salmon, venison and chanterelle on the Queen Charlottes. mushrooms. “We don’t have money for Kraft dinner, but there “If reconciliation and understanding are to have any real ef- is plenty of food to be hunted and gathered,”he says. fect on a country as a whole, the issues have to be massively Lore set up the Small Hall meeting as the inauguration of publicly debated,” she says, and the islands’ buzz of discussion the Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlotte Islands Forest Workers As- about treaties and aboriginal rights comes to mind—the im- sociation, whose goal is to keep logging jobs on-island now promptu speeches you overhear at cafes, and the history that and in the future. He claims that the partnership with the breathes through Haida Gwaii. It seems that everyone has an Haida came about because the loggers—the ones who actually opinion on the logging issue and the Haida title claim. Even live on the islands—want to stick around. That means that the the Port Clements Elementary School newsletter weighs in on island resources and jobs have to be shepherded for future the debates. “People who live here don’t really have a problem generations. He also suspects that the Haida will win their with aboriginal title,” Dale Lore says, “we’d sure like a chance land claim, and that non-aboriginal residents need to prove to sit down and discuss what it means.” their solidarity now. “Once the Haida have aboriginal title, “Groups need to maintain their identity, but not if it leads and don’t particularly need any co-operation with us,” says to the splintering off of a general identity,” Paris adds. A Haida Lore, “it will be difficult to say, ‘Hey, help me out. I’m the guy flag flies from the trucks and equipment of many of the islands’ that wasn’t a good neighbour’.” non-aboriginal loggers. There is a sense of fellow feeling on The Haida and resident non-Haida share everything from Haida Gwaii, from the ubiquitous smokehouses and apprecia- logging crews to school sports teams. They also share a grow- tion of k’aaw to the common front against Weyerhaeuser. ing resentment toward the provincial government and Weyer- “There has to be a tremendous perceived need for reconcil- haeuser. The stories that circulate around town often focus on iation…not just by aboriginals themselves.” On Haida Gwaii island residents versus outsiders, regardless of race. you get a sense that people want to really understand each There is also a keener sense of the history of colonization other’s interests and outlooks. As one local remarked in a cof- on Haida Gwaii than in the rest of the province, if not the fee shop, this mutual understanding is essential on the islands country. History feels fresh here, and not just to the Haida, because “we’re all here together, we’re all here to stay, and which makes reconciliation seem more possible. “There was a some decisions are going to be made together.” thriving culture when we got here,” says Lore. “And we’re not Finally, says Paris “you need symbolic acts, like national talking that long ago. There are still people alive...who knew memorials...or ceremonies of apology.” How about a potlatch what happened here. It’s not a fabled 200 or 300 years ago.” at Small Hall? Non-aboriginals on the islands can’t say, as did a woman in a pre-referendum debate at Simon Fraser University: “I’m sorry, doug caul, the province’s chief negotiator on but my family came to Canada in the 1970s. Why should I be the Haida file, understands the frustration at the lack of held responsible for something done by 19th, or 18th, or even treaties. He also knows that aboriginal groups are looking for 17th-century Europeans?” more than treaties can offer. “A treaty,”says Caul, “is ultimately The attempt to dismiss history, says Erna Paris, is a signifi- about land, resources, money and governance. It’s fairly nar- cant obstacle to reconciliation between Canada’s aboriginals row, and that’s perhaps why there is some disagreement with and non-aboriginals. Paris is a Toronto historian and author of First Nations, who want to look at broader issues about what the 2000 book Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History. She has they are able to do on their land.” spent more than two decades studying how countries come to To bridge that gap, the province signed a protocol agree- terms with their . She has examined reconciliation move- ment in 2001 with eight coastal First Nations—including the ments from around the world—from South Africa to post- Haida. Called the Turning Point agreement, it committed the Holocaust France—and she has often thought of Canada’s groups to environmentally responsible logging and land-use First Nations in that context. planning in the forests stretching from the northern tip of “Reconciliation is first an acknowledgement that there are Vancouver Island to the border with Alaska. Caul later noted outstanding issues in a culture and a nation that need to be re- that, “Speaking as the province, ultimately we’re the decision- solved,” she says, “and secondly, a willingness to try and do makers still, and they know that.” (You can almost hear Guu- something about it.” jaaw growl: “Let’s see what a judge says about that.”) Still, What we need to do, Paris argues, is address the legacies of Turning Point is an indication that what’s happening on Haida the 19th-century colonial attitude about the superiority of Eu- Gwaii won’t simply be ignored by the government. ropean culture, everything from residential school abuse to continuing economic inequality. But she fears Canadians have Guujaaw, Dale Lore, Weyerhaeuser contractor Stan Schiller and other resigned this job to the courts and cash settlements. loggers and Haida meet at the Council of the Haida Nation office. “In North American society we go for the money, not for the ideas or understanding. We go for the money, as if that will The Haida flag flies from the trucks and equipment solve the problems. It’s nice to get the money and it is a recog- of many of the islands’ non-aboriginal loggers. 34 THIS january/february2003 january/february2003 THIS 35 Part of the muscle behind the process came from the orga- redefined.” The reconciliation he sees happening is “a formula nized environmental movement, including the David Suzuki for mutual respect and a formula for sharing of responsibility.” Foundation. In 1999, the foundation hosted a conference for Why here, before anywhere else? Broadhead admits that the leaders of First Nations communities along the B.C. coast, the Haida enjoy a rare cultural cachet and moral authority. But to help define the common ground, common problems and he thinks that the political experiment is taking place partly be- common solutions that became the basis of the protocol cause of Haida Gwaii’s isolation. agreement. “Isolation has a way of breeding uniqueness in solutions to “Often I think environmentalists in the past used Native life’s opportunities and challenges,” he says. “You find that bi- people,” says Suzuki, describing previous partnerships to pro- ologically, with the distinct kinds of life that are here. It hap- tect areas against logging or development. “We used them by pens politically, as well.” saying, ‘Yes, this is your land.’ And then the minute they got More evidence of these strange partnerships comes the the land [protected] the environmentalists moved on and said, next day, when Guujaaw and Dale Lore meet with the current ‘Okay, now it’s your problem’.” Weyerhaeuser contractor, Stan Schiller, at the Council of the “My attitude now is that if we get involved with them, it’s a Haida Nation’s office. Dale Lore leads the charge, hoping to lifetime involvement,” he says. Suzuki now believes that what press Schiller to accept the aims of the Forest Workers Associ- environmentalists need to say is: “I am making this place my ation. Guujaaw lets Lore do most of the talking, watching home and I have no intention of moving…and if a logging from the head of the table. Schiller seems slightly over- company brings in a 15-year logging plan I tell them ‘Get lost. whelmed, but by the end of the evening, they shake hands. Bring back a 500-year logging plan.’” He then quotes the Like the species that evolve on islands, this union of loggers American poet, Gary Snyder: “The most revolutionary thing and Haida is both innovative and fragile. It’s easy to imagine an environmentalist can say is ‘I am staying.’” reasons why it won’t work. Weyerhaeuser could threaten to leave, and a lot of people might abandon partnerships to hold john broadhead, a haida gwaii resident for onto jobs. Plus, there’s no telling where the legal battle for the almost 30 years, is exactly this kind of environmentalist. He’s islands will go. Yet, in this timeless place there is a sense that the president of the Gowgaia Institute, a local conservation and something new is being created. Something that speaks to in- community development organization. Broadhead is a justices of the past and , and says they won’t be tolerated thoughtful man, someone who chews over questions carefully in the future. A notion of partnership that contradicts the zero- before giving you a paragraph-long answer. And it’s obvious sum games we read about, where every gain of the aboriginals he’s been thinking a lot about the recent changes on the island. is a burden on the rest of Canada. The question now: is it an at- “I think we’re talking about a socio-political healing from tur- tractive and doomed aberration, like the golden spruce, or moil,”he says, sitting in his regular cafe in Queen Charlotte City something more adaptable, that can flourish on Haida Gwaii in late October 2002. “All of the relationships are going to be and perhaps, one day, cross the channel to the mainland? T

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