JOINT REVIEW PANEL FOR THE ENBRIDGE NORTHERN GATEWAY PROJECT COMMISSION D’EXAMEN CONJOINT DU PROJET ENBRIDGE NORTHERN GATEWAY
Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Ordonnance d’audience OH-4-2011
Northern Gateway Pipelines Inc. Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Application of 27 May 2010
Demande de Northern Gateway Pipelines Inc. du 27 mai 2010 relative au projet Enbridge Northern Gateway
VOLUME 22 (Revised)
Hearing held at Audience tenue à
Old Massett Community Hall 348 Eagle Avenue Old Massett, British Columbia
February 28, 2012 Le 28 février 2012
International Reporting Inc. Ottawa, Ontario (613) 748-6043
© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada 2012 © Sa Majesté du Chef du Canada 2012 as represented by the Minister of the Environment représentée par le Ministre de l’Environnement et and the National Energy Board l’Office national de l’énergie
This publication is the recorded verbatim transcript Cette publication est un compte rendu textuel des and, as such, is taped and transcribed in either of the délibérations et, en tant que tel, est enregistrée et official languages, depending on the languages transcrite dans l’une ou l’autre des deux langues spoken by the participant at the public hearing. officielles, compte tenu de la langue utilisée par le participant à l’audience publique.
Printed in Canada Imprimé au Canada
HEARING /AUDIENCE OH-4-2011
IN THE MATTER OF an application filed by the Northern Gateway Pipelines Limited Partnership for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity pursuant to section 52 of the National Energy Board Act, for authorization to construct and operate the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project.
HEARING LOCATION/LIEU DE L'AUDIENCE
Hearing held in Old Massett (British Columbia), Tuesday, February 28, 2012 Audience tenue à Old Massett (Colombie-Britannique), Mardi, le 28 février 2012
JOINT REVIEW PANEL/LA COMMISSION D’EXAMEN CONJOINT
S. Leggett Chairperson/Présidente
K. Bateman Member/Membre
H. Matthews Member/Membre
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011
ORAL PRESENTATIONS/REPRÉSENTATIONS ORALES
Council of the Haida Nation/Old Massett Village Council Chief Guujaaw Margaret Edgars Reg Davidson Oliver Bell Allan Davidson Trevor Russ Leslie Brown Vanessa Bellis Ronald Brown Jr. Chief Allan Wilson Russ Jones Robert Davidson
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS/TABLE DES MATIÈRES (i)
Description Paragraph No./No. de paragraphe
Opening remarks by Chief Allan Wilson 12294 Opening remarks by Chief Guujaaw 12301 Opening remarks by the Chairperson 12309 Opening remarks by Member Matthews 12313 Opening remarks by Member Bateman 12316 Opening remarks by the Chairperson (Continued) 12318
Preliminary matters 12336
Council of the Haida Nation/Old Massett Village Council Chief Guujaaw Margaret Edgars Reg Davidson Oliver Bell Allan Davidson Trevor Russ Leslie Brown Vanessa Bellis Ronald Brown Jr. Chief Allan Wilson Russ Jones Robert Davidson
- Oral presentation by Chief Guujaaw 12364 - Oral presentation by Margaret Edgars 12423 - Oral presentation by Reg Davidson 12533 - Oral presentation by Oliver Bell 12599 - Oral presentation by Allan Davidson 12689 - Oral presentation by Trevor Russ 12731 - Oral presentation by Leslie Brown 12778 - Oral presentation by Vanessa Bellis 12839 - Oral presentation by Ronald Brown Jr. 12926 - Oral presentation by Chief Allan Wilson 12969 - Oral presentation by Russ Jones 13091 - Oral presentation by Robert Davidson 13250
Closing remarks by Reverend Bell 13333
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011
LIST OF EXHIBITS/LISTE DES PIÈCES (i)
No. Description Paragraph No./No. de paragraphe
Ruling No. 26 To accept the request of the Council of the Haida Nation and the Old Massett Village Council to make their oral evidence presentations together for a total of six hours 12346
Ruling No. 27 To accept the expert report by Susan Marsden entitled “The Gitga’at: Their History and their Territories” to be filed as late written evidence on the public registry - A39471 12919
Visual Aid No. 32 Package of documents submitted by the Haida Nation to be used as visual aids for their presentation - A39478 12595
Visual Aid No. 33 Late written evidence received from Old Massett Village Council 13214
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Opening remarks
--- Upon commencing at 9:10 a.m./L’audience débute à 9h10
(Opening Ceremony and Opening Prayer/Cérémonie d’ouverture et Prière d’ouverture)
12294. CHIEF ALLAN WILSON: Good morning, people of the Haida Nation, visitors to Haida Gwaii. Xaadaa ‘Laasis, my fellow Chiefs at Haida Nation welcome you. People of Haida Gwaii, friends and relatives welcome you.
12295. Haida Gwaii is our home. Just saying that, it sounds so powerful. We the people of the Haida Nation and friends of the nation have had battle for a number of years. The Haida people have stood up for what they believe in. We faced many adversaries, some a multitude, some singly. And I’m going to brag; we’ve always come out the victor.
12296. We have support of many. This is our home, Haida Gwaii, and we the people of the Haida Nation will protect it at all costs. It belongs not only to us, but to our children and grandchildren and those in the future.
12297. There’s many here on Haida Gwaii that have chosen it as home. They know the value of it as we do and we’ll stop at nothing to protect it. It’s our home. We live by it every day.
12298. I just want to thank all our friends of the Haida Nation that have come out in support and we will give you everything that we have from our heart to let you know about our home and how much we value it. And I just want to thank everyone for coming out today. Hai, it makes me feel so proud to see this.
12299. Our ladies held in high esteem sitting at the table, all our witnesses sitting at this table, our fellow villages seated at the table there, all our Chiefs, welcome to everyone. Thank you for your support.
12300. And I would just like to call on our President of the Council of the Haida Nation to say a few words. Guujaaw.
12301. CHIEF GUUJAAW: XaaydaGa 'Laasis, our Chiefs, matriarchs, I just wanted to say a few words before we turn this over to the Panel, and mainly to dispel some of the misgivings and mistrust that we feel in coming into this, just to say it so that the Panel understands our feelings but also so that we don’t have to bear it throughout the whole process.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Opening remarks
12302. Our people, of course, are concerned about what is proposed here and more concerned when they see a government who have seems to have already made up their mind. We know the stakes that are in front of us for our people and we know that it’s about big money, and big money could mean -- usually means big trouble.
12303. There’s been lots of things reported and some of it has to do with our people. There was stories that our Chiefs had all taken money from environmentalists. We’ve heard stories about people being paid off by Enbridge and other things. I want to assure you that our Chiefs have not taken any money from anybody for this; as far as I know, anyway.
12304. And it is, you know, a rude insult for somebody to suggest that such a thing -- that this is our motive for what we’re saying here today.
12305. Our people have been here for a long, long time and it’s not through any gift of the government that we have rights or privileges or anything like that. It comes from our ancestry, our birthplace here, and there was -- there is scheduled to be another guest. He’s not here. I hope to say this in front of him, but that also makes us uncomfortable that there is people coming in from outside to speak here on what really is -- we thought was a forum for our people and the island people to speak.
12306. He’s from the Métis and our people of mixed blood are simply Haidas; it’s not -- and enjoy all the rights that all of us enjoy. And so I just wanted to say that so that the discomfort of not saying it doesn’t persist throughout the hearing.
12307. So at that, I thank all the Chiefs for being here with us and to the Panel for coming here and all the people that are in attendance.
12308. And we’ll turn it now to the Panel. Háw'aa.
12309. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
12310. Good morning, everyone. My name is Sheila Leggett and on my left-hand side is Mr. Hans Matthews and on my right-hand side is Mr. Kenneth Bateman, and we’re the Panel who are here today. We’re honoured and privileged to have the opportunity to be here today.
12311. And I think my Panel mates would like to just say a few words before we get under way with the procedural aspects of this.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Opening remarks
12312. Thank you.
12313. MEMBER MATTHEWS: Thank you.
12314. I’d like to really thank the Elders and the Hereditary Chiefs, the Chiefs for inviting us and welcoming us. It’s so nice to be here. It’s the first time I’ve ever been here. I’ve flown over it once and I was really impressed, and I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone from the Haida Nation has to share with us.
12315. And I want thank the many generations of the Haida Nation for being here today. So thank you.
12316. MEMBER BATEMAN: Good morning. Thank you for inviting us into your community for the opening ceremony for the dignity that it brings to this occasion. We are here -- I am here to listen, to learn and to understand. I look forward to hearing from all who participate over the next two days.
12317. Thank you.
12318. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
12319. And it’s just tremendous, as my -- as Kenneth has said, and Hans has also said, to see both the number of people who’ve come to be a part of this, the multi- generations who have been here, and to the incredibly warm welcome that you’ve provided us. We really look forward to learning in our two days while we’re here at this point.
12320. We’re not alone here as far as the representatives of the Secretariat. We also have staff who are here to both help us and help you if you have any procedural questions that you might have, and I would invite you to seek them out. All our staff who are here with us are wearing gold name tags so you should be able to spot them.
12321. I would like to just introduce them to you, though, before we get under way, and hopefully that means if you do have any questions you’d be able to find them at some point.
12322. I’d ask staff just to raise your hands so that everybody can see who you are. We have Ms. Louise Niro, our Regulatory Officer; Ms. Ruth Mills, our Hearing Manager; Ms. Sarah Devin, our Panel Manager; Ms. Margaret McQuiston, our
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Opening remarks
Process Advisor, upstairs in the balcony. Ms. Rebecca Brown, our counsel; Ms. Jessica Fung, our IT person that keeps all the lights on and everything running; she’s over in the corner up there.
12323. In addition to that, we have some contract personnel with us again to be able to help us achieve what we can do here to be able to webcast and to have the sound system and that sort of thing.
12324. We have Mr. Myles Toews, our Safety and Security Consultant, in the room on the left-hand side; Mr. Sean Prouse, our court reporter, who’s seated at the same table as Ms. Louise Niro, as well as Mr. Alex Barber, our sound technician, who is at the -- there he is; over there.
12325. So thank you.
12326. Kenneth, Hans and I are all Members of the National Energy Board and have been tasked to make decisions under both the National Energy Board Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act for the Northern Gateway Pipelines Limited Partnership Application.
12327. The NEB is an independent quasi-judicial regulatory body. It’s a lot of words to say that our decisions as a Panel will be based solely on the relevant information we obtain through this Joint Review Process.
12328. This hearing today, as all the hearings, is being webcast. So that means for people who aren’t in this room, they could go on our website and be able to follow the audio version of everything that’s happening today. And I would encourage you, if you want to follow us as we go on in our meetings in different locations at the various stages of the process, to join our webcast as well.
12329. In addition to that, our website has all the information, all the filings that have happened since this Application began to be considered, as well as all the transcripts on a daily basis of all the proceedings from all the meetings that we’ve had.
12330. The process for the joint review includes two sets of hearings; the community hearings, which we’re here today for, where we’re going to hear oral evidence be provided to the Panel, and then the final hearings, which will take place later on in the year. At the moment they’re scheduled to begin in September. And at
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Preliminary matters
those final hearings, Northern Gateway and other parties can be asked questions about their evidence and provide their final arguments to the Panel.
12331. Sharing your traditional knowledge and your personal knowledge and experiences on the impacts that the proposed project may have on you and your community and how any impacts could be eliminated or reduced is of great help to us. This is the type of information that we’re here to listen to at this point in our proceedings. We’re honoured and appreciate that you’ve chosen to be with us today, and we are here to listen to you.
12332. Following each presentation, it could be that a Panel Member may have a question of clarification just to make sure that we’ve understood the presentation. I have to tell you, in the experience so far in the last couple of months, that’s been rare. We haven’t had too many questions. So don’t take that as any sign of anything other than we’ve understood what you’ve had to say. If other parties have questions of you, though, that would happen at the final hearing stage.
12333. And with that, I believe we’re ready to get under way. Ms. Williams- Davidson, I understand you’re counsel for the parties today. You just need to press your button that’s in front of you.
12334. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes, I am.
12335. CHIEF GUUJAAW: Just before we proceed, our singers have one more song they want to put into the record here, and it’s a song composed about Haida Gwaii. It means a lot to this village and to the Haida Nation and we want to put this into your hearts.
(Haida Gwaii song)
12336. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
12337. Ms. Williams-Davidson, I believe that there was a letter of request filed the 23rd of February asking for permission to combine the allotted presentation time for the Council of the Haida Nation and the allotted presentation time for the Old Massett Village Council to make their presentations together.
12338. Am I correct that you still wish to proceed in this way?
12339. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes, we do. Thank you.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Preliminary matters
12340. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
12341. Mr. Roth, the Panel notes that you and your client, Northern Gateways, received a copy of this letter of request. Do you have any objections to this request?
12342. MR. ROTH: No objections, Madam Chair.
12343. THE CHAIRPERSON: Are there any other objections?
12344. Ms. Williams-Davidson, the Panel is convinced that there is no prejudice caused by combining the two allotted presentation times, and grants the request of the Council of the Haida Nation and the Old Massett Village Council to make their oral evidence presentations together for a total of six hours.
12345. As this was a written request placed on the registry, Ms. Niro, may we have a ruling number, please?
12346. THE REGULATORY OFFICER: Yes. This would be Ruling Number 26.
--- RULING NO. 26/DÉCISION No. 26:
To accept the request of the Council of the Haida Nation and the Old Massett Village Council to make their oral evidence presentations together for a total of six hours
12347. THE CHAIRPERSON: Terrific. Thank you very much.
12348. Ms. Williams-Davidson, are there any other preliminary matters you'd like to deal with at this point?
12349. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Not at this point, no. Thank you.
12350. THE CHAIRPERSON: I understand that you're going to guide us through the combined panel of witnesses. So can I turn it over to you to begin that process?
12351. Are we going to start with the two who are seated here at this point?
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw
12352. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes, we will.
12353. THE CHAIRPERSON: So perhaps, Ms. Niro, could we have them sworn or affirmed at this point? Thank you.
GUUJAAW: Affirmed MARGARET EDGARS: Affirmed AMANDA BEDARD: Affirmed
12354. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. That's the formalities at this point, I believe, and now I'll turn it over to you, Ms. Williams-Davidson, to have the witnesses give us the evidence and we'll go into listening mode.
12355. Thank you.
12356. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12357. I'll just begin by introducing myself as well. My Haida name is Gid7ahl Gudsllaay Lalaxaaygans. I'm from the Gak'yaals Kiigawaay Clan from Skedans.
12358. We're going to begin this morning with Guujaaw, the President of the Haida Nation, who will begin the day. Thank you.
12359. Guujaaw?
12360. THE CHAIRPERSON: Could I just interrupt for a second?
12361. Do I understand there's a presentation that's going to be used at this point?
12362. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: There's not a presentation, but I would like to call up Visual Aid A2K2Y2 during this statement. Thank you.
12363. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR CHIEF GUUJAAW:
12364. CHIEF GUUJAAW: I will provide somewhat of an overview along with my personal history and my -- and that of my position that I hold.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw
12365. I'm Guujaaw. I was born in Massett up Delkatla and I grew up there until I was about 15 years old.
12366. Almost from the time that I could walk I would go with my mother. There's a point of land just a walking distance of maybe took us 15, 20 minutes to get there where we would go and gather cockles occasionally. And right out in the front we would catch smelts and sometimes we would walk over to the -- near where the entrance of Massett is and on the beach there we would gather things like sea cucumbers and sea urchins.
12367. So that, in those early days, was kind of normal for me. It is kind of typical of how our people grew up near and around, playing on the beaches and had developed a relationship with the land from the early days. With my father, I hunted and fished.
12368. I later moved in to Skidegate where I lived with my uncle. He's now the Chief of Skedans. And I would hunt and trap with him this time of year. And as we did so, we would gather all sorts of seafood, abalone and butter clams and all the good things. And most of that would be brought into the village at the end of our trip.
12369. As -- on my own, I travelled around the islands on little boats, little rowboats and canoes and just generally enjoyed the adventure and often brought things to the Elders that were in the village as was proper for a young person to be doing, and in that way I learned stories from the old people and some deeper knowledge of the culture and relationship to the land and the places.
12370. I fished occasionally, trolling, being out on seine boats, being out on food trips to bring back to the village. So each year as it is right now, I go out and mainly to Needan River where I get the sockeye that I need for the year. I often go with my own kids and there's other people there. Other people go to different rivers.
12371. As well, I usually get enough halibut and other things that I need throughout the months and when they're accessible. And so through the year, I'm able to feed my family. Probably five times out of the week I feed them from things that we had gathered, seaweeds and clams and the fish that we had put away in various ways.
12372. We prepared them in different ways and so when we serve these foods, we know exactly how they were handled from the time that they were taken from the
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw earth, and that this is the way that I keep in touch with the land. Everybody has their different ways in their times of close intimate contact with the land.
12373. A lot of our people go and pick strawberries out at Rose Spit and out on the North Beach and the time they’re very close to the land. The strawberries were seen as the chief of the plants, the highest one.
12374. Our people trace the genesis of our -- and our origins back to -- they talk about the times before human beings and how we came to be emerging out of the sea. Our people will -- the witnesses will tell you more about that as they come forward.
12375. So that’s the way that we understand that we were -- that we came -- came about. Our stories go back to before the ice age. We know of the time -- we heard the stories of the times when the whole Hecate Strait was dry land and our people lived there, hunted caribou and lived in an entirely different way than they do today.
12376. There’s a lot of the things that were spoken of or referred to as myth amongst our people that over the last 10 or 20 years had been supported by a science as in the fact that the Hecate Strait had been dry during the ice age and that’s where our people lived.
12377. We had stories of grizzly bears that came down and raised havoc amongst the people; we’ve got songs about that and yet, today, there’s no grizzly bears on the island. And in recent years with the research and archaeology on the islands, they found grizzly bear skulls that -- in fact, the biggest grizzly bear ever found was on Haida Gwaii.
12378. So the witnesses and myself we’re here to try to make you understand how a culture is born, how it’s developed, and far different than the aspects of civilization which is measured by how far people can be removed from the earth. Our culture is about how close we can be to the earth. And that’s where our songs come from, our language, our dance, all of our crests and all of the material culture is directly from the earth.
12379. For thousands of years our people lived here basically surviving from all that this land provided. In fact, living -- it said that this was the highest density of hunter gatherers anywhere in the world, which says something of the wealth of this land and what this land has provided for us.
12380. When the first contacts with the Europeans that occurred, our people were
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw very open to it and if you look at the early logs of the first explorers and settlers, everything was quite easy with our people. They worked fine with them, traded with them and there was no conflict.
12381. And over the years, as cheating came into it and alcohol, the conflict had arisen and as the -- there was a big push to get gold out of here. Our people fought and resisted and drove off the gold miners and eventually were -- died off on account of small pox, which according to not just our own people but some of the people who had written of what had happened at that time, that it was deliberate.
12382. And following that there was other occurrences that likely weren’t deliberate but at the same time our people suffered from tuberculosis and flus and a lot of other things that were unfamiliar to them.
12383. So when there was -- our population was down to 600 people from many thousands, there’s only estimates of what it might have been. It was in excess of 10,000 people, which, to us, seems like a lot, I think, in the -- in today’s terms that doesn’t sound like a lot of people, but our people, the 600 people had to basically to survive and to try to adapt to the changes and create a life for ourselves.
12384. And it’s only really in the last 50 to 60 years where we’ve seen the heavy industrial assault on our land with forestry and mining and other things that were occurring. And we knew as we’ve seen those things unleashing the lack of respect for other life, for the salmon bearing streams, for the continuance of fish stocks and all the things that we held dear to us, that we were into a whole different world in our life.
12385. Our culture could potentially be ended by industrialization; our culture could be put away. So where disease and oppression had failed the destruction of our lands did stand to end our culture.
12386. Over the years our people fought, there was blockades, court cases, a lot of different things that occurred, and eventually we had -- the laws of the land had changed and processes were set up for dealing with issues of Aboriginal title and for the most part we found that they were not acceptable.
12387. We weren’t going to go through and exchange our title for a treaty which would have been far less -- it would have meant surrendering 95 percent of our land to -- to the Crown. We haven’t done that.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw 12388. We have negotiated, and this was after years of blockades, and I think eventually it was such that the economy of this island and the economy of the Province of B.C. started to realize that they needed the First People to be involved. They needed the First People not -- they won't say approval but generally that's where it goes for most of these things.
12389. And we've, over the last few years, sat in a process of reconciliation with both provincial and Government of Canada and while we are able to accomplish some things with the provincial government outside of treaty discussions in exploring whether or not we can reconcile the existence of the Haida people with Canada, we are able to set aside the lands that our people had determined need to be set aside to protect our culture.
12390. This is most of the shoreline of Haida Gwaii, all of the wild lands that remain basically and the cedar. And there's more protection for the wildlife and for the creeks that salmon come into, as one of our Elders who passed on described the salmon as a creature of the forest because that's -- he is born in the forest and that's where they die.
12391. But in this century, at this time, if you consider all that's happened to this earth, all of the destruction, all of the overpopulation, and all of the consumption that's occurred, how many places on the earth can people still go and get their own food? How many places could they draw upon for fresh salmon or Dungeness crabs that do go to the rich people mainly?
12392. There aren't that many. And we have seen the trends where basically the Crown industrial interests had seen it as more suitable to grow salmon in pens like chickens and to basically industrialize all of the food that people eat today, and as a consequence, there's ill health and a lot of medication to counter that.
12393. A lot of the foods that we eat, the seaweed and the plants are showing up now as medicinal plants and some of them have been taken by the pharmaceuticals and used as medicines. These are plants that were used by our people, shown to our people to be useful for various ailments.
12394. We've got medicine that fix people with cancer, fix people with AIDS, and these are things, again, that the supernaturals had given us and are very much real as we apply them today.
12395. But these things which are so precious and have been so secret to our
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw people all these years, and we realize we know that we're not in isolation from the events and things that happen around the world. We're people who live clearly and, I think, quite comfortably straddled between the worlds.
12396. I think that we've been using oil and petroleum products for about as long as anybody else in this world. And we've become dependent upon it, as everybody else, all of the goods that we purchase and use out of the stores come by way of ships that are run on diesel and bunker fuel.
12397. But this project that's proposed right now is -- we hear that kind of argument, "you use oil so therefore let them do whatever they want to do to get it, wherever it has to go." And if you consider that if mankind is dependent upon oil at this time, certainly there is oil to be used and -- but at the same time, there's got to be better consideration for how it's used and how to best get it to the people that need it.
12398. Like if you consider that the -- they bring oil into this country, they bring oil onto this continent and at the same time, want to ship it off, certainly the marketplace, the destination of those -- of that oil could pick up the oil if it was -- if all of the oil from the tar sands was used domestically for instance, there would be more oil available from the Middle East and Venezuela and these other places from where it's coming.
12399. Our concern is not just for the oil but for the -- in the shipping. Those big ships cannot function properly without a load on it, and so they fill their hulls with water, which is full of other biological things, jellyfish and other life.
12400. Our people have been dealing with introduced species like raccoons that are wiping out -- they're wiping out the seabirds. Rats are wiping out birds and cats. Every species that they've introduced -- we've got knotweed here. When you start adding introduced species into the water, it's a lot different story. It's a lot harder to deal with.
12401. We've already seen some sea plants that have arrived, and we know that all over the world people are struggling with how to deal with jellyfish, whether it's in the Mediterranean or the North Sea or Panama, Hawaii, any place where there's heavy shipping there's heavy movement of biological -- other animals from one place to another in the sea.
12402. As they move around as well there's -- they pump their bilge. We're out in the range of where those things would be pumped. We're in an area where the ocean
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw can be quite unforgiving. We know how metal boats can be fatigued on a wild and open sea like that, and all of these things are a great concern of ours.
12403. The eventual spill, we know that -- you know, when we get to the point of doing arguments, we'll talk about the figures that Enbridge is using to say it will be once every 1,500 years. We're seeing continual spills around the world, collisions of tankers with other boats and we know that eventually if these things come into our water, there will be -- that time will come.
12404. And so -- I've got my shaker; so thank you for being here and this is -- basically we want you to know how we feel about the land, our concerns. We hope to convince you to share these concerns and that we know there are other things that can happen.
12405. The pipeline to the West Coast is not essential to life on this planet. It’s not essential to us, it’s not essential to the Asian markets, and could be nothing but grief for all the people who live here. It may be profits for people in Calgary and other places, but I don’t think that it’s your job to worry about them.
12406. So thank you for the time.
12407. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
12408. I believe Mr. Matthews has a question of clarification he’d like to ask.
12409. MEMBER MATTHEWS: Thank you, Guujaaw. Thanks for your comments.
12410. In your testimony you mentioned something, you mentioned that you had a reconciliation process occurring, and you mentioned the provincial and federal governments. And am I correct in assuming that you have an agreement with both the federal and provincial governments?
12411. If you could clarify that, it would be great. Thanks.
12412. CHIEF GUUJAAW: I’m glad you asked because we filed a case to prove Aboriginal title, and in discussions with the federal and provincial Crown we agreed that we would sit down and try to see what can be reconciled between us. You know, is there -- is there a chance that we could see the day when Aboriginal title is recognized within Canada.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Guujaaw
12413. And the discussions, the things that I mentioned, all the areas are protected. We're basically in joint management over the forestry; we’re in joint management of determining how much logging will occur, where it’ll occur. We’ve already determined where it will not occur.
12414. We looked jointly at what to do with leases, renewals or applications, but with the federal government, basically what we had was their negotiator sat there with no mandate to negotiate so we just basically have given them notice that we’re not going to proceed any more with that.
12415. The process now is we’ve given them notice. They have -- there’s a four- month period before we go into the Courts and set a trial date. But basically, the federal government has not done anything.
12416. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Guujaaw, I believe you also wanted to speak about the co-management agreement with the Government of Canada, just prior to the reconciliation process.
12417. CHIEF GUUJAAW: There were a couple of agreements that we made with the federal government before we entered into the process or it is done kind of separately and it is one -- one is joint management of the Gwaii Haanas area, in which case we basically agreed to disagree on ownership but we agreed that there’s a need to look after those lands and the agreement is around management.
12418. It’s a management agreement where we set up equal numbers of federal and Haida people to work together in management on all decisions.
12419. That agreement was about 25 years ago and, more recently, we made a similar agreement for a marine component around it that goes out about five miles, and it’s also under joint management.
12420. And there’s one other agreement that was made. It’s for the Sgaan kiinghlas -- that’s the Bowie Seamount -- which is about 100 miles off the west coast of Haida Gwaii, and it’s a marine protected area. There’s some lesser degree of fishing than there had been. There’s some interest in the black cod, but generally it’s set up to look after that. It’s a very rich and important seamount out there.
12421. I think those were also evidence filed with the Panel.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars
12422. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12423. So the next speaker will be Margaret Edgars.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MS. MARGARET EDGARS:
12424. MS. EDGARS: Hi, my name is StagaK’uns and my given government name is Margaret Edgars. I’ve lived in Old Massett on Haida Gwaii where I have lived my entire life.
12425. My grandmother delivered me in my mom and dad’s home, so I was born right at home. I am the eldest of my parents' 12 children. I’m a Raven, and I belong to the Kyaanusalii Clan, our clan crests are bear, raven star, dogfish and killer whale, single fin.
12426. My parents are Elizabeth Irene Thompson and Victor Clarence Thompson. My mother was born in Massett in 1929, and was also from the Kyaanusalii Clan. She passed away in 1999. My mom was from the Ts'iij Git'anee Clan and passed away around 1979. I have five children.
12427. I was growing up through the Haida traditional way of life. My parents and grandmothers, Emily Abrahams and Emily Thompson, taught me the Haida way of life, just like their parents and grandparents taught them. They all spoke Haida.
12428. I attended school in Old Massett. I spent part of the school year, from April to June, fishing on North Island. That’s down in Langara Island. That’s how I escaped the residential school system and -- because I was always away from Massett.
12429. In the old way of teachings, uncles raised the nephews and taught them how to fish and aunties taught the girls. My maternal Auntie May and my grandmother Emily Abrahams, who are both deceased, were always teaching me things all through my life.
12430. My parents, Naanii Emily Thompson and Naanii Emily Abrahams, taught me about Haida traditions and practices just like their parents and grandparents taught them.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars 12431. Tsannii Charlie also told us a lot of stories when we visited him. I will share some of the teachings with my children and families.
12432. Seafood is our basic source of food throughout the whole island. I have fished and gathered seafood all my life. It’s our traditional food that we go out together and put away for the winter.
12433. My family has always gathered seafood. My parents taught me how to collect and prepare seafood. That’s what our life was all about; going around gathering our own food all through the year. I continue to fish. I taught my children to gather seafood. If we don’t gather our food, we don’t eat.
12434. Some of the foods we harvest are razor clams, butter clams, and collected seaweed, sea urchins, scallops, cockles and chitons.
12435. Nowadays, because of them putting the sea urchins out for sale, and the abalone, we have them depleted. We don’t have any abalone to go out after any more; same with sea urchins. Some of the foods we harvest are all getting depleted because of mismanagement through the fisheries.
12436. North Beach and Tow Hill are areas that our clams and cockles and chitons are. We dig butter clams at North Beach. I’ve been gathering them out there for as long as I can remember. We got butter clams, chitons and cockles. The cockles used to just drift in with certain tides. By North Beach we also gather chiton, razor clams and butter clams. The razor clam beds all -- go all the way to Tow Hill and South Beach.
12437. We just used to get enough to eat. We just cook the chitons and clean them. The best way to prepare chitons is to grind them and fry it with onions. You really have to know how to clean them. If you boil them too long, they will turn really hard and you won’t even be able to clean it. So you just dump boiling water on them and stir them until the black starts peeling and then peel the black off -- right off. You have to leave it just the right time so it doesn’t get hard. It tastes almost like abalone.
12438. At Tow Hill, we went clam digging from March to June. My dad brought us, but I continued going after he was gone. There was lots of trout in the rivers. We used to always fish for trout.
12439. There are razor clam beds all along South Beach and out towards Tow Hill
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars and Rose Spit. Everyone had a cabin at Tow Hill. We lived out there during clam digging season. We were the last one to have a cabin out in the area. My husband, Benny, built it.
12440. We dug clams for commercial sale and for food fishing. We go for razor clams at Tow Hill almost all year for food fishing. I always try to put up a lot of clams, and some are for winter months, but I slowed down after my family moved on. I was one of the best women clam diggers. I used to beat even the boys out on the beach there.
12441. You can get razor clams in March through May or June. You get butter clams from October to November through to January and February. A good way to tell when you get clams is by watching the plants. You can’t get clams when the dandelions start growing because of what the clams are eating at this time. The insides are all black inside the butter clams when it starts feeding during this time.
12442. My parents, Victor and Elizabeth, taught me about that. Dad’s the one that always taught me clam digging. My mom taught me other things about food harvesting. She used to always say when there’s going to be lots of berries, there’s going to be lots of fish. She also said that when the weather is going to be good, there’s going to be good fishing.
12443. North coast of Haida Gwaii seaweed; we gathered seaweed from end of March until July. The seaweed goes all the way from here at Yaan and Yaakan Point west of Cape Endenshaw and North Island. We started picking seaweed at Yaakan Point. This is early winter seaweed, ready from the end of March and the first part of April. The seaweed is sandy here and takes a long time to wash, but it’s the best seaweed. It starts over by the village where the longhouse and totem pole is.
12444. I would get seaweed from Yaan at the end of April to May. Two weeks later, around end of May, we would start moving towards Straie Island, just northwest of Yaan. From here we moved further northwest along to Seven Mile and out towards Langara at the end of June to the first week of July.
12445. I still gather seaweed. I go out around North Island and bring it back to dry it. I get nice clean cardboard from the store or put a table out and put a clean cloth on it to dry it. I spread the seaweed out and, after it’s dried, you toast it in the oven, flake it up and put it away. My mom and dad and Naanii Emily taught me how to prepare seaweed.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars 12446. Seaweed is one of our trade items that we go and trade around Rupert area or the people come from Rupert or the Nass Valley to trade. So this is one of my trade items that we do in Massett or Rupert.
12447. THE CHAIRPERSON: Could you maybe just describe it for us so that people listening on the webcast can have an appreciation for what you’re showing us?
12448. You have many things in your bag. If you just take a time just to describe for us the things that you’re talking about and that you’re holding up, that would be terrific.
12449. MS. EDGARS: This is the seaweed that I gather out in our beaches and it’s called Black Gold.
12450. THE CHAIRPERSON: And is it dried?
12451. MS. EDGARS: Yes.
12452. And this is eulachon grease that we trade from the mainland for our seaweed or our dry halibut.
12453. THE CHAIRPERSON: So you have a jar of eulachon grease.
12454. MS. EDGARS: Yes.
12455. THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.
12456. MS. EDGARS: This is the dry halibut that we put up throughout the year when the halibut season starts.
12457. THE CHAIRPERSON: So a bag of dried halibut.
12458. MS. EDGARS: Yes.
12459. This is dry salmon.
12460. THE CHAIRPERSON: I beg your pardon; dried salmon?
12461. MS. EDGARS: Yes.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars 12462. THE CHAIRPERSON: Perfect. Thank you. A bag of dried salmon.
12463. MS. EDGARS: And this is what we -- the way we used to put it up all the time, and I still do it. And when you want any cooked you soak it through the night and then eat it the next day.
12464. And this other thing is Soap berries. We don’t get this on the island either because the only place you can find it is on the mainland, in the Nass Valley area.
12465. THE CHAIRPERSON: So a jar of choke cherries.
12466. MS. EDGARS: Pardon?
12467. THE CHAIRPERSON: So you have a jar of choke cherries there as well.
12468. MS. EDGARS: Soap.
12469. THE CHAIRPERSON: Soap. Oh, I’m glad that I clarified that, Soap berries.
12470. MS. EDGARS: Yes.
12471. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you.
12472. MS. EDGARS: You whip it up with branches or whatever. Nowadays I just try to use an egg beater, but I think it works best when you use Salal branches and it takes a lot of work to whip them up.
12473. Everything that is here is all medicinal.
12474. We used to also get mussels at North Island in the same place where the seaweed is. At one time, my mother, she just loved her mussels; so I took it upon myself and I got enough to put in the smokehouse. So I brought her smoked mussels while she was still with me.
12475. Langara Island, dad fished a lot at Coho Point on Langara Island. That is where all the Haida people caught all of our Coho salmon. We went there every year. His dad taught him where to go. A lot of people fished at Langara Island, including Haida people from Skidegate.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars
12476. When summer came my family, including myself, my sister and oldest brother, parents and grandparents moved from Massett to North Island.
12477. I had a cabin -- we had a cabin and lived at Daadans at North Island from April or May until the end of June. It was nice there, everyone had cabins.
12478. We didn’t even have to go home to get supplies because there was a skull from the canaries out where they delivered all the things we didn’t get from the land and water such as flour and sugar.
12479. There was a big camp area that there where the lodge is and Xinstlang Cove is now. We salted and dried fish right where the fishing lodges are now, up on that hill. We also canned and smoked our fish and clams there.
12480. A lot of Haida people used to go to Xinstlang Cove on North Island which is Langara, North Island is the same. Our camp used to be around Fury Bay which is west of Fenslo (ph).
12481. There were clam bays at North Island too. I used to dig butter clams just outside of K’yuusda throughout the K’yuusda area and east around Pillar. We also got abalone around Pillar Bay. We’d gather up Abalone and mussels across from Langara Island, that K’yuusda area and also around Straie Island. We smoked mussel’s right in front of K’yuusda village. We canned the seafood, we harvest when we didn’t have freezers.
12482. We also got Sgiidaana a little around Pillar Bay where the caves and big rocks are. My uncle Bobby Robert Swanson was always out there collecting Sgiidaana with my dad. They went out and collected it at night time usually using fire torches; that’s the only time they were able to catch them. They taught us how to gut them and clean them and take their feathers off. Mom used to prepare the Sgiidaana and I cleaned them too. I loved toasting the birds; it smelled so good.
12483. I haven’t eaten them for a long time because they don’t allow us to go after them anymore; they’re ancient murrulets. We went after Sgiidaana in the second week of May through the first week of June.
12484. I don’t even know if I want to talk about this part but -- when the babies all start swimming out to sea, they’re really cute, like little fluffy and grey things, they could run over big rocks, under everything to get away from you. The big rats
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars killed them all off. I don’t know if they’re on Langara anymore.
12485. Seagull eggs is another thing that we always went out and gathered. We got our seagull eggs in June. Seagull lay big eggs and they nest in the rocks. We gathered eggs wherever the seagulls were nesting. They were around Pillar Rock, around Seven Mile and up Massett Inlet around Ship Island.
12486. Mom used to take us out and collect them. You boil them up like regular eggs but they’re kind of big so they take a little longer. One big egg will replace two or three chicken eggs. Mom made a cake with them one time. She said they are the best eggs for cakes.
12487. There’s a small bed of butter clams in the Bay just outside Port Clements. We used to be able to dig a lot of butter clams all along that beach. We used to go there with Doris Williams, who has passed on quite a while ago. People are afraid to eat it now because of pollution from the runoff from the Town of Port Clements.
12488. Sea urchins, there are lots -- there are lots of crabs at Lepas where we had a rediscovery camp at Lepas but they -- there are sea urchins too that you can get on big tides. The only time we could get sea urchins is when the tide is zero. I love to eat sea urchins just right out of the shell.
12489. The crabs, I was working at the rediscovery camp probably in 1994 and I was able to get crabs for the -- once I was out there cooking for her -- was the cook at Lepas Bay and you’d have to go out and put a pot out in the water and -- when the tide is out and you have to wait until the tide is out again to go get the crabs out of the traps.
12490. Needan Harbour, we stop at Needan Harbour on the way to North Island. Haida people also lived in Kung area near the entrance at Needan Harbour. There was a fishing camp there long before I was born. We used to get our clams in the area by Kung but the logging wrecked that. They’d drag logs right through the beach, through the clam bed. They also caught crabs all around and outside of Kung.
12491. We fished spring salmon at Shag Rock; we used to get our halibut around there. There are a lot of fishing out around Needan Harbour. I food fished around there with my husband who would troll for spring salmon and halibut in the 1970’s. We used to get fish from Jaalan River to around June for sockeye. We fished there with a net at Massett Inlet. Then we went to North Island. And after North Island fishing was over we went all the way up to Aayan. We fished at the mouth of Aayan
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars River during the spring and -- during the spring for salmon.
12492. After Aayan River we went to Awan River and then to Yakoun River in May. We went back to the Aayan River for sockeye in June and again in the fall for dog salmon. We stayed there from the first week of October until the end of October to prepare -- to work on our dog salmon there.
12493. We had -- each family had great big smokehouses to hang the fish into smoke and there was about eight or 10 people that were living there every October. The smokehouses were so big, about two or three families would put their fish in there and over a 100 of fish would be hanging in there smoking.
12494. Nowadays there’s -- we don’t even get that much fish to hang in a smokehouse that big. Today, we just bring our fish down here to smoke because if everybody had a smokehouses around their -- behind their homes -- and -- I feel kind of bad about that because it was so much fun going around after your own fish and, people nowadays don’t do that and I wish that we can get that back because it was our way of life all the time. And I think everyone that was there up in Aayan River because they taught me a lot about how to prepare and live off the land, we never had to come home to -- until our fish was gone, all done.
12495. The families that were all up there are all gone, which is Naanii, Emily Thompson, Willie Russ and his wife, Eddie Jones, Minnie Edgars, Jimmy Edgars, Violet Marks, Wilfred Marks, Hannah Parnell. These are the ones that were always up at Aayan River to help us prepare our food up there. They were two-storey smokehouses. We used to use pulleys to put the drier fish way up and the ones that just get hung up in there is on the lower racks.
12496. We go up for dog salmon at Aayan River in September and October. We used to fish up there for the whole month of October. It was just a little town up in Aayan when the dog salmon were running. We smoke our dog salmon because it is tastier that way, and we salt it. We used to smoke it and dry it right out because it keeps for a long time that way. After it was dry, we'd just soak it and eat it the next day, so this is the dog salmon.
12497. We fished for halibut just outside the mouth of Massett Inlet. We went from outside of Massett Inlet all the way down to Needan.
12498. There was a camp at Seven Mile, and we used to bunk in there on the boat. There are also quite a few food-gathering locations close to Massett where I have
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars gathered food. There's Coho in Hancock River just across Massett and there's crab in the shallows around Massett Inlet -- Massett Island, which is just across from New Massett.
12499. You can get smelts in Delkatla Inlet. There's halibut from entry point and all around in McHenry Bay. My dad taught me where all the clams and other seafood were.
12500. So I thank my dad for being such a patient teacher. Because I am left- handed, my mom used to have a hard time trying to teach me to -- how to do digging and other things that you had to use your hands. So I thank him for teaching me everything that I needed to know for my survival and for myself to be able to teach my children.
12501. And I've taught my children how to prepare fish, and they really enjoyed it, but with all the things that are happening with her family, they had to move over to Terrace because we don't have enough resources here for my handicapped grandson.
12502. I had to take it upon myself to prepare their food and bring it to them whenever I can, so I am just so thankful for all my teachers. Like Naanii Florence also taught me about -- she had a hole in her heart at one time and the doctor told her that she was too old to get an operation, so she asked me to bring her some medicinal medicine that we have right around Massett here. And she'd have a teaspoon morning, lunch and supper.
12503. Went back to the doctor and they told her -- asked her, "What did you do? You don't have a hole in your heart any more". "Here", she said, "it's a secret. I don't share anything that I shouldn't".
12504. So I really am thankful for all my teachers that have taught me these really important things for our survival. And our medicines and our food are so very essential for our survival here. And if we had an oil spill on the island here, it would be so devastating. It would impact on our fishing and our way of life.
12505. So the other thing that I'm kind of upset about is our foods have been mismanaged by DFO for many years. We have lost much of our food. Urchins and abalone are all gone because of mismanagement. We had urchins close by. Because of the loss of our foods, it's hard for us to go around and gather close by any more.
12506. Our urchins used to be right out in front of us, and a tugboat came and ran
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars over the reef where the urchins were and they met -- they wrecked it. And there used to be some just outside of where the sea plane base used to be where the CBI Island Fisheries are now, and those are all gone.
12507. My parents used to tell us whenever you go out and gather, don't go eating it out where you gather or they'll move away. So that's another reason why our foods are gone from the beaches, because they don't respect the laws of our people nowadays. And it's really hard for me to talk to people about it because some people that have mismanaged our areas are -- they never listen.
12508. We have lost much of our food and I wouldn't want to see any more harm to our foods like our salmon and urchins. And the ocean is our livelihood, which I have a hard time talking about because it's been so mismanaged and not treated with respect.
12509. I wouldn't want to see the oil tanker come through this island or anywhere near. My parents or my grandparents also told me that the Hecate Straits, the currents are so strong that anything -- any boat that size will only do damage. We also don’t want to have any wind -- windmills out there, either, because of what it will do to our way of life.
12510. Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12511. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us. It’s much appreciated.
12512. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: I’m wondering if you wanted to take a break now or call up the next two witnesses.
12513. THE CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps this might be a good time to take a break.
12514. Would a 15-minute break be appropriate? Would that give you enough time to seat the next panel?
12515. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: That’s fine. Yes.
12516. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay; so we’ll come back at 11:15.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Margaret Edgars
12517. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12518. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
--- Upon recessing at 10:56 a.m./L’audience est suspendue à 10h56 --- Upon resuming at 11:16 a.m./L’audience est reprise à 11h16
12519. THE CHAIRPERSON: I believe we’re ready to get under way; so if we could get quiet in the room so we’ll be able to hear the witnesses.
12520. Ms. Williams-Davidson, could you proceed with the introduction of the next witnesses, please?
12521. I’d ask everyone to be quiet.
12522. Thank you very much.
12523. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12524. The first witness who will speak from the next panel is Reg Davidson.
12525. MR. REG DAVIDSON: I want to thank you for coming here to Haida Gwaii today to listen to us and to consult with us. I feel it’s important that you come to the people that lived here for thousands of years, as we have been here for so long so we understand Haida Gwaii.
12526. I thank you for taking time to come and listen to us. Háw’aa.
12527. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
12528. If we could just get the two witnesses sworn or affirmed and then we’ll get under way with the evidence.
12529. Thank you.
REG DAVIDSON: Affirmed OLIVER BELL: Affirmed
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson 12530. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks very much.
12531. Mr. Davidson, we’re now ready to listen to what you have to say and we’re done all the process-related material.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. REG DAVIDSON:
12532. MR. REG DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12533. I’d just like to point on the map what I’m going to be talking about. When I’m talking about Rose Spit, it’s this area here. When I’m talking about Massett Inlet, it’s this area here; this is Seven Mile, here is Needan; over here is Langara. So when I’m speaking, I’m talking about all of Dixon Entrance, it’s what’s all here.
12534. So I’m just showing you the areas I’m talking about, like Yakoun River is up here, Needan, Jaalan River is here and Langara is all -- and Frederick Island is about here and that’s the west side of our island, so that’s the areas I’m covering.
12535. What I’m speaking here today, I’m speaking of all of Haida. When I say “I” or when I say “we”, I mean Haida people because we all have the similar story as what I’m going to cover today because we’ve been here forever. So when I say “we” or “I”, I mean all of Haida people. Thank you.
12536. My name is Reg Davidson. I live in Old Massett. My Haida name is Skil kaatl’aas. It means Spirit Weath who is rising; Hlk 'yaan K’ustaan Sgaanuwee, it means Frog Spirit; and Kiidlajuuwee, it’s the bow of the canoe that cuts the water in half.
12537. I want to read a story, “The Origin of Haida People”. So I’d like to read it to you.
“After the great flood has long receded, Raven was able to gorge himself in food. For the first time he was not hungry. Raven gazed up and down the beach, but it was pretty but lifeless. Finally Raven cried out, the empty sky was a loud exasperated cry.
Before the echoes of his cry faded from the shore, he heard a muffled squeak. He looked up and down the beach for its source and saw nothing. He strutted back and forth, once, twice, three times, and still saw nothing. Then he spied a flash of white in the
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson sand. Peering down into the opening between the halves of the shell, he saw a full tiny creatures cowering in fear at his shadow.
Raven was delighted. Here was a break in the monotony of the day. But how was he to get the creatures to come out of the shell and play with him? Nothing would happen as long as they stayed inside the giant clamshell. It was long before first one and then another and then the little shell-dwellers emerged from the shell. Some scurried back when they saw Raven, but eventually curiosity overcame their cautiousness and all of them had crept or scrambled out.
For a long time, Raven assumed himself with these new playthings, laughing as they explored the wondrous, much expanded world. Sometimes they helped each other; sometimes they fought over something they had found. Raven even taught them some tricks, but soon he became tired of their ceaseless activity. There were no girls among them; only boys.
Raven, about to shove these tired, demanding and annoying creatures back into their shell and forget them, when he so often happens with Raven, he had an idea for some fun. Raven began to search for girls, but as he searched the tide was going out. And as it reached its lowest, Raven spotted some giant chitons clinging to the rocks. These giant shellfish had but one shell fastened tightly to the rocks with the huge soft lips around their edges.
Raven pried one loose with his beak, and there inside was a girl. He pried off another and another and another, and each was a girl. These were as frightened of Raven.
He gathered them onto his back with difficulty and brought them to the boys that he found in the clamshell. Raven was expecting the Raven's creatures to be very happy, and he found the girl creatures but, to his surprise, they were frightened of them and some even ran back into the giant clamshell to hide.
The girl creatures were just as shy, huddled together, watching the males with fearful and curious eyes. Both the boys and girls seemed very modest and sought to cover their bodies with stripes of kelp and woven seaweed from the shore.
Raven watched all these increasing interests and surprise. Among all creatures of the world there were few whose males and females were so different, the males proud, agile, strong; the females gentle, soft and tender. Sometimes the males would be too rough
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson in their play with the females and there would be tears, but the same tears seemed to have an emotional power over the males, bringing out of them protective instincts, the strengths of each balance and weakness.
Since that day, Raven never bored, in fact, at times almost regretted bringing the first men and women together. From the strong muscles of the clam and the soft lips of the chitons from the pairing of these first peoples came the first families. Children were born, some strong and male, some soft and female.
Many generations have been born, have grown and flourished, have built, created or fought and destroyed. Many have blamed the Raven for playing a terrible joke on humanity, for often men and women just barely get along. But somehow, for this strange combination of reasons and intuition of muscle and emotion arose in which was needed for the race to survive the storms of life on the shores."
12538. The story of the Haida people is documented in the large yellow sculpture by Bill Reid house at UBC Museum of Anthropology.
12539. For years, our culture was underground because it was banned. We practised our laws and the way of life only in our villages where we trusted one another.
12540. And all my life, I've been a fisherman for -- I was taught by my dad and my grandfather. And the number one staple food for me is fish. And we live on an island where we all depend on an ocean, and our number one food that we eat, it comes from the ocean.
12541. When we have our ceremonies where we have our potlatches, all our seafood, the food that we serve all the people that come from the ocean. When I'm talking about serving people at our potlatches, I'm talking about an average of 1,000 people coming here. That's the people that we serve our seafood to.
12542. As long as I've been alive and for generations, there's been abundance of food here. I mean, for me to have a potlatch or anybody to have a potlatch, all we do is we call our friends and we'll get food and we serve it to all the guests that arrive there.
12543. It's quite scary when the outside world comes into our territory and they're
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson starting to show us new things or what other areas of the world need when we're talking about oil tankers. Even though it has nothing to do with us, it will affect us in so many ways.
12544. I mean, it's -- when I'm talking about our territories, I'm talking about Haida Gwaii.
12545. And I went online to look at an oil tanker, and the largest one is 1,500 feet in length. It's 415 metres. So I live about the same distance on this road. For me to see the size of it, I visualized that it went from here to the other shore of the inlet. That's the length that that boat would be. It's pretty hard for me to comprehend that.
12546. From beginning of Haida existence, we have always had supernatural beings here. In all our legends, if you were to go to any old books, they talk about supernatural beings. There's a long history of stories about our legends. Everything has been documented and a lot of it published.
12547. If we were all to speak, we could talk about days about all our legends, supernatural beings, but I have 30 minutes to squeeze 58 years of my life into --30 minutes. So I'll try and cover as much as I can in this.
12548. For our culture, I was quite fortunate to have my grandparents alive. They were -- I mean, my grandfather was 89 years old fishing at the Yakoun River. He still did his own food fishing until he passed away. And my grandmother was still alive, and she was teaching us to sing song and dance, the culture of doing our ceremonies. And I feel quite fortunate that they were alive to be able to teach us these things.
12549. I want to talk about the fishing a little bit, my experiences. For me, living in Massett where when I go for sockeye I go to the Yakoun River, and that is up in Massett Inlet. And so when we go food fishing there, I remember when I was a kid we'd start in April and then they would close the river down for us for June 15th because that's when commercial fishing started.
12550. And so when we'd go do our food fishing, we'd go at Yakoun River and they would open for maybe Wednesday and they'd close it Sunday, and so we were allowed to fish for that time period.
12551. There's a lot of rivers that we all fish for Sockeye. There's the Awan River, there's the Aayan River, there's the river at Needan and river at Jaalan. And so that's where we would get just straight Sockeye from April to -- like Needan, you can
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson go in July and Jaalan River, July until the end of July.
12552. After we'd go fishing at the Yakoun River, we would move back home and then we'd go for halibut. And when I'd go for halibut, we always went to the chicken banks, which is straight outside of Tow Hill. A lot of times, that area we went when I was fishing with my dad, we only had a 19-foot boat, but today when I go for halibut, I'll go in the same area, but I have a friend that will go on a 30-foot boat and we would go -- it's about six miles off of Shag Rock and we'll go for halibut there.
12553. And there was some man by the name of Iggy, and he fished there all the time; so they called it Iggy's spot. So if you ask anybody where Iggy’s spot here is, they’d pretty much know where it is. And it’s about six miles offshore, that’s -- and that’s where also we’d get halibut.
12554. I remember going to Langara to fish for spring salmon, and on our way we dropped our gear fishing for halibut just outside of Langara. So for me to get halibut, I can get it anywhere from Tow Hill all the way to Langara.
12555. And for crab fishing, the areas I would go for crab would be outside Tow Hill or else there’s the sandbar. And when we talk about the sandbar, it just right in Dixon entrance here. And it’s -- there’s a lot of crab there or else at Needan Harbour. Those are the three areas where when I’m fishing for food or crab, that’s the areas I would go.
12556. When I’m -- when I was fishing at the Yakoun River, my grandfather was still alive and they’d be slicing fish and he’d -- we’d take the backbone out and before they sliced the fish, they’d dry it in the sun and then we’d have posts along the river and then when we’d put the fish on it, I remember putting the fish on the sticks and I had it facing down river.
12557. He said, “You’re not supposed to do it that way; you’ve got to face the fish going upriver”. He said, “You want their spirit to continue going up the river.” So he said it was very important that when you’re doing your fish, that you point it upriver so that their spirits will still continue going up the river.
12558. And he also told us that when we’re fishing, to respect all the animals that we are getting because they’re giving up their life to feed to us. He said it’s very important that you respect it because they all give up their life so we can all survive. And that was the law of respect.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson
12559. I remember my dad, when he was at the end of his life, he took up sport fishing. He was a commercial fisherman and an artist, but at the end, he decided to try sport fishing and he took one of our friends out and the guy got a fish and he was busy trying to reel it in and he got it in and he wanted to just let it go out again, and it upset my dad a lot.
12560. He said, “You know, you guys are so goofy; you even want to play with your food now.” He said, you know, “You’ve got to respect your food; you don’t just play with it.” So it bothered him to see the person playing with his food.
12561. When I talk about going for Coho, there’s a river right across from our village. It’s a small river that starting in the middle of August we can catch Coho there or else, when I’m at -- before we -- if we want to get Coho in June or July we’ll go out towards Tow Hill at Yakoun Point, and then also at Seven Mile. Coho travels out of Dixon entrance here. Like a lot of -- all our seafood that I get is all in Dixon entrance. That covers the whole north end of our island.
12562. When I would go fishing, they would always tell me to only catch what I can work on for that day. And he’d always say, “Never go get more than two or different three species because you’re creating too much work for yourself and you won’t be able to do it all.” And if -- and the way it works today, not everyone owns boats. So whoever owns boats, they’ll catch a little extra and bring home for their family.
12563. So if I’m talking about catching 50 springs, it’s not for me. It covers my whole family. Not everyone owns boats, so a lot of people that own them, they’ll catch a few for their family.
12564. A lot of -- from the beginning of time, we’ve been fishermen and for my dad and my grandfather and myself, when we talk about areas we all know areas where fish hang out. We all have our secret spots, but 10 people can own that same secret spot. So who knows, because we never ever tell people where we’re getting our tea food from.
12565. When we’re at the Yakoun River getting Sockeye, the seaweed starts growing around the same time, in May, and the first area it starts to grows, it grows in Yaan. And as we go in from May, June, July, it starts working its way north or west when it’ll start growing Seven Mile and then down at Cape Endenshaw and it goes over to Shag Rock and it’ll -- by the end of July, it’s growing at Langara. So it’ll start
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson here and it covers the whole Dixon entrance. As it warms up, it works its way north.
12566. When I was learning how to fish, my dad or my grandparents, they -- they took us out and that’s how they taught us. And when I go food fishing, or when I go fishing on my boat, I bring a crew because I always need help. And that’s how I teach them, because that’s -- I was taught the same thing.
12567. It’s amazing how fast 20 minutes goes when you’re talking. My grandfather and my dad, they commercial fished all the way from Rose Pit all the way to Langara, down to the west side. And when I was a child, I’d go commercial fishing there at the same time. It still happens today, where it’s still a commercial fisherman and the whole of Dixon entrance.
12568. All the things that I’ve learned about, it’s all been taught to me by all our elders. We all have the same story. We all -- the same blood is going through us as it went through my dad or my grandparents and we all -- we all love this area. When I talk about Langara, it’s quite scary because every fish that’s going south goes past Langara.
12569. When I go fishing for sockeye there in August, I’m catching Fraser River sockeye. If I’m trolling at Cape -- at Shag Rock, I’m catching a fish that goes to the Columbia. If I’m fishing down the west side, I’m catching sockeye that goes down to the Fraser River or I’m catching fish that goes all the way to Vancouver Island.
12570. Any fish that’s going south goes around our island and it’s quite scary when you’re dealing with a tanker that’s bigger than our village, carrying oil. It’s -- the way I look at it, it’s like Russian roulette. I mean, everybody knows what Russian roulette is. If you have a gun with one shell and you spin it and you’re ready to pull the trigger and nothing happens; you spin it, nothing happens. And then you spin it, and you pull the trigger and the gun goes off.
12571. That’s what I see happening if we have an oil spill. Us, as Haida people, will no longer exist because we depend on the ocean. It would kill everything. Our culture would die. Everything would die.
12572. The only thing that would be benefiting it is still the shareholders that belong to Enbridge. And the people that they’re making money for, they don’t even know who they’re making money for.
12573. But we, as people, we survive on the ocean. This is our life. This is our
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Reg Davidson culture. This is the way we lived from the beginning of time and we still do this today.
12574. Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissement)
12575. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: The next speaker is Oliver Bell and for the visual aids we’d like to pull up some photos that we just asked -- sought late disclosure for last week.
12576. THE CHAIRPERSON: Do I understand that that was the -- the motion filed on the 22nd of February was A39478?
12577. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
12578. THE CHAIRPERSON: Is there still 13 documents in that ---
12579. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: No, we’ll be showing two documents with photos ---
12580. THE CHAIRPERSON: With photos?
12581. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: --- from that larger disclosure list.
12582. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. And so are you still seeking to have the entire ---
12583. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
12584. THE CHAIRPERSON: --- the entire package admitted as ---
12585. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
12586. THE CHAIRPERSON: --- late evidence? Okay. Thank you very much.
12587. Now, I understand also that on the 27th of February you provided a new map which you'd requested be substituted for the map entitled "Map of North Graham Island". And in addition, on the 23rd of February you asked and we have removed the
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell map of North Graham Island oil sensitivity.
12588. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
12589. THE CHAIRPERSON: Terrific.
12590. Mr. Roth, have you -- I understand that you've had an opportunity and your clients have had an opportunity to see this. Do you have any comments you'd like to make?
12591. MR. ROTH: No objections to the introduction of it as late intervenor evidence.
12592. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
12593. Are there any other objections?
12594. Ms. Williams-Davidson, the Panel is satisfied that there is no prejudice caused by the use of these documents and would allow these to be used today as visual aids. So if we could get a visual aid number for this package, Ms. Niro?
12595. THE REGULATORY OFFICER: Yes. That will be Visual Aid Number 32.
--- VISUAL AID NO./AIDE VISUELLE No. 32:
Package of documents submitted by the Haida Nation to be used as visual aids - A39478
12596. THE CHAIRPERSON: Terrific. Thank you very much.
12597. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12598. Oliver Bell?
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. OLIVER BELL:
12599. MR. BELL: My name is Oliver. My Haida name is Gliii glaa, which means Calm Sea. My mother's name is Naya. Her Haida name was Guulee, which
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell means Like Gold.
12600. We belong to the Ts'iij Git'anee Clan. My Naanii's name was Eliza Bell and my Tsannii's name was John Bell. I was born in Old Massett at my mother's house, and raised there as well. I've lived all but two years of my life on Haida Gwaii.
12601. I've fished and gathered seafood since I was four years old with my Uncle Wesley Bell, my mother's brother. He taught me most everything I know on how to fish and where to fish.
12602. Can I introduce my uncle?
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12603. MR. BELL: My uncle always talked about how they moved from spot to spot, Langara Island to Needan Harbour in the summer months, and how they did their food fishery there, and like he'd talk about the whole village moving to Langara, also known as North Island.
12604. They would move into Daadans and Xinstlang Cove on Langara and spend the summer around there, those areas, gathering and drying the seaweed, the salmon and the halibut. It doesn't show up on here.
12605. This here is my uncle with a great-nephew gathering seaweed. That's a bag of seaweed behind him and the great-nephew there is holding up a long string of seaweed.
12606. My uncle talked about hand trolling around the island, and in the evenings they would build a big fire. The light of the fire attracted the ancient murrelet. When they flew close enough to the ground, my uncle would knock them out of the sky with a stick and prepare them to eat.
12607. They also spent time in Needan Harbour fishing for crabs, Sockeye salmon, pink salmon, chum salmon and hunted deer and dug butter clams. Needan Harbour and Massett Inlet are two of the spawning grounds for herring, as well as being a nursery for all salmon fry.
12608. And Needan River -- can I point at a map? Can I have a map put up there?
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell 12609. Needan River is down in this area here, and Needan River you can still see the remains of the fish weirs our ancestors made to catch salmon. By September all the families would be starting their way back home to Massett.
12610. I consider myself a seafood gatherer. I gather crab, prawns, shrimp, sea urchin, octopus, roe on kelp and seaweed. I fish for spring salmon, Coho, pink and chum salmon, as well as for halibut, rock fish, ling cod, red snapper, black cod and herring.
12611. Summer months -- spring, summer and fall I take my family to camp at Awan River, Aayan River, Jaalan River and the Yakoun River when I'm gillnetting for Sockeye, Coho, chum salmon that are returning to the rivers to spawn.
12612. All the creeks and rivers that access -- that have access to the ocean have some kind of salmon in it. Awan and Aayan are down in Massett Inlet along with the Yakoun and Jaalan.
12613. I also camp at Langara when I'm trolling for spring salmon. I bring my uncle there, who is 87. We circumnavigate the island every year because it's such a special place. Being there brings back so many memories that he shares with me.
12614. He also talks about the special fishing spots that he remembers, talks about Skidegate being around Daadans area -- I mean Xinstlang Cove area, and we just enjoy watching seabirds, sea lions, whales, porpoises that live around the island and all the eagles up in the trees on the beach there.
12615. I collect seaweed at Langara and Straie Island. Straie Island is right around in here, right there, that island there. Fish the whole top-end of Haida Gwaii for rock fish, halibut and salmon.
12616. I've also gone down to Port Louis, Alliford Bay, Selwyn Inlet for roe on kelp. Port Louis, down in this area here, and Alliford Bay and Selwyn Inlet is down the south end of the island.
12617. I fished for octopus on the beaches of the Langara and Needan Harbour, Massett Inlet, dug for razor clams and collected cockles, scallops from Tow Hill to Rose Spit, all along in here, and then the cockles up in here, as well as butter clams, cockles found it along in there.
12618. My Uncle Wesley taught me these land -- oh. Sometimes when I'm
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell fishing, I do what I call is a spot fishery. A spot fishery is when I look for three landmarks, line them up so that I'm in the same area all the time. Can I give you an example?
12619. Say I take Seven Mile there, Rose Spit and I take this point here off what we call the circle, that's Chaawan River. And I'll take that landmark or this landmark, put those two together and that's my distance out.
12620. And here, this area here, I have a mountain in behind that I line up with another certain building or whatever and I go -- that's my line up here. So I've got this little spot here that I'm fishing halibut in, and I go there every time.
12621. And those areas that were taught to me by my uncle in those -- that type of fishery, he also taught me to prepare my mind mentally when I go fishing, with positive thoughts. When I do this, there's always something there for me. I strongly think there is a spiritual connection between Haida people and the ocean. The beaches of Haida Gwaii are always -- has always been a place where I can just sit, relax, walk, just enjoy the beautiful scenery.
12622. Seafood is quite important to our diet. I preserve it for the winter by smoking, canning, drying and freezing. It is the mainstay of my family and my extended family. We catch just enough to sustain our family and other family members.
12623. Sometimes seafood is hard to get. Seafood is a big part of every Haida person's life, as well as others who live on Haida Gwaii. All my uncles and my Tsanniis were fishermen. I want my children, my grandchildren and their children to have the same opportunity that I have today.
12624. In my fishing career, I got to see the tail end of some of the boats that were built when my uncle was young.
12625. I’ve seen some of the same boats and some of the trawlers and the mosquito boats ranging from 16 to 21-foot boats that were built in Old Massett.
12626. It’s so important that the history of the Haida fishermen is passed on to everybody. I think of the fleet that once fished out of Old Massett and the boat building that went on here in the 1930s and 1940s. Boat building in Old Massett was done by the Davidson family, the Jones, the Whites, the Bennetts, the Edgars, the Yorks, just to name a few. It was amazing how boat building and fishing supported
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell so many families.
12627. The Davidsons built a boat called “The Davidson Girl”. “The Haida Warrior” was built by the Whites. “The Bennett” was built by the Bennetts. “The May Queen” was built by Joe Edgars. “Haida Brave” was built by Andrew York -- pardon me, “The Gwen Rose” was built by the Jones; “The Haida Warrior” was built -- I think I said that right.
12628. Anyway, Old Massett has a blanket licence for the North Beach area. We consider this the North Beach area, right from here they dig all the way down to about here, Rose Spit, just about to Rose Spit.
12629. People rely on the clam fishery for employment, not only digging and selling the clams, but also working in the fish plants that exist here. Massett has two fish plants that are trying to survive on what fish is processed here.
12630. An oil spill here will affect the clam beaches and we can’t afford any further depletion in the fishery.
12631. I went seining in 1977 as a deckhand. In 1985, when I was 26, my uncle retired and I bought his 19-foot boat with a salmon and halibut licence that came with it. He was part of the Mosquito Fleet, small boats that deliver their catch every day.
12632. I fished that for a couple of years and decided I want to make my living as a fisherman and I was able to purchase a 39-foot trawler in 1987.
12633. Another uncle of mine, Henry Hageman, was always there guiding me for my family -- me and my family while we learnt how to fish.
12634. Can I have the photo up, please? He’s missing on the photo.
12635. This is my Uncle Henry here; he’s working on a tag line. He owns a 40- foot trawler, and this is my son here helping him out.
12636. I’ve trawled down the west side of Haida Gwaii to Frederick Island for spring salmon, all salmon species. I’ve gone down the east side to Cumshewa seining for chum salmon and fished all across the top end, from Tow Hill to Langara, long- lining for halibut and trolling for salmon.
12637. Cumshewa is beyond the map that we have here. It’s down the south end
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell of the island, on the east side.
12638. I’ve seen big pods of humpback and killer whales breaching and feeding around the top end of Haida Gwaii. I’ve had porpoises travelling with me for miles on my trawler, you know, off the wake of the bow; they’d be there and they’d just kind of show themselves.
12639. I’ve also seen big pods of porpoises covering an area of about a half a mile square, just travelling through Virago Sound.
12640. Can I scroll down, please? No, the other way -- or up.
12641. This here is Virago Sound, all in there.
12642. We’ve fished for halibut in Central Dixon Entrance; it’s about 14 miles offshore, up in this area here. It’s kind of about halfway to Alaska. There’s about Central Dixon Entrance there, somewhere in there.
12643. You have to watch the tides and weather there very closely, but sometimes you still get caught in bad weather. Out there I’ve seen 50 knot winds building very steep seas in a short time and changing direction within minutes, from one direction to another. The weather and navigation in these waters can be very rough.
12644. I also crossed the Hecate Straits in a seine boat during the summer months when the seas were 25 feet. The ocean around Haida Gwaii can be pretty scary. The tidal currents flood from west to east and ebb east to west across the top end.
12645. The tides ranging from 0.4 low to a 24-foot high, it can run about eight knots in certain areas. One of these areas is Massett Inlet all the way down in here, and the strongest point is about here.
12646. On every tide, the water continues to run in and out of Massett Inlet for three hours after the tide change in Dixon Entrance. So if it’s high water out here, the tide is continuing in all the way down to Massett Inlet, Port Clements area for three hours. Up here -- where did it go -- yeah, right here. Back up. Right here is Massett Inlet. So up in there when it’s high water at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s high water out here three hours before.
12647. Rose Spit and Learmonth Bank are two of the most dangerous areas. Rose Spit is a sandbar that reaches into the Hecate Straits which creates a lot of turbulence.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell Travelling through this area can be terrifying in big tides. It’s where the shallow water meets the deep water, strong tiderips and heavy overfalls occur.
12648. Can you scroll, please?
12649. Right down in here is overfalls there, where the water meets -- where the shallow water meets the deep water, and it could be pretty terrifying there.
12650. Learmonth Bank is a shallow area north of Langara Island which can create huge swells after a westerly storm, creating dangerous overfalls and rips again.
12651. Can we go west, please, up in here. Up.
12652. Learmonth Bank is around this area here. It’s kind of halfway between here and Alaska -- Langara and Alaska -- and that’s where the shipping lane is, out in here. Out past where we were halibut fishing, that’s also in a shipping lane. We’ve seen huge ships passing through there.
12653. Today with the automated weather buoy reports, we hear reference to groundswells occasionally reaching 10 to 12 metres with chop on top and combined seas in the Central Dixon Entrance in the west coast of Haida Gwaii. What I mean by combined seas is where the wind is switching so fast the waves are going this way and all of a sudden the wind starts going the other direction and the seas are meeting. It’s quite dangerous.
12654. It is windier in the winter months. We’ve already had over 90 knot winds twice this year. I have seen 50 knot winds, but my uncle has experienced winds over 80 knots crossing the Hecate Straits, on the same boat called “The Haida Brave”.
12655. The boat would roll so far the prop would come out of the water and the skipper, when he was steering, went from standing on the floor to standing on the side of the wheelhouse.
12656. In those days, there were no weather stations or reports. They were taught to read the clouds, the sky to predict the weather. Uncle Wesley handed down that knowledge to me, but I mostly rely on weather channels, which are not always accurate anyway.
12657. Every Haida person is handed down knowledge of the water and life in the water. The ocean and the rivers can give you so much, yet take away life so fast. The
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell Haida respect the water and, like every nation in B.C., you want to take care of it.
12658. We don't want to see no oil spill. Today, I'm still active in the fishing industry. Now, I do charters for salmon, halibut, cod, crab, sightseeing.
12659. In 1984, I took a little break from sailing from '81 to '84 and worked for another outfit and started a family. In 1984, I worked for BC Parks branch on the East Coast of Naikoon Park. Due to weather, a large -- due to weather, a barge with 130 tonnes of diesel and 30 tonnes of gasoline was wrecked on the beaches in front of Eagle Creek. I had the opportunity to work with a surveyor to assess the damage and what I saw was devastating.
12660. Can I scroll over to the east side please? It's right up in here somewhere, in there, right up in this area. That's Eagle Creek. On the rocks, there were no barnacles, kelp, seaweed and under the rocks, there were no crabs, no life of any kind in the tidal pools. In the tidal pools, normally you would find little bullheads, eels, flounders, snails. The smell of diesel was very strong and you could see oil slicks on the surface of the water in every tidal pool. I can imagine what it would be like with crude oil in something like that.
12661. We have a rediscovery program at Lepas Bay on the northwest tip of Haida Gwaii. Children are taught Haida culture, how to gather seafood and survival skills. They also have the use of canoes, kayaks and do a lot of hiking and playing on the sandy beaches. This beautiful spot has a lot of seafood surrounding it.
12662. Children who attend have memorable experiences. I've had the opportunity to drop off salmon to these kids and I've had the opportunity as well to build platforms out there for them. So I could see the happiness on their faces.
12663. Lepas Bay is around the corner of Perry Pass. The force of the tide running through Perry Pass creates a back eddy into Lepas Bay. Any kind of disaster will wipe out that beautiful spot.
12664. Can I go west please? Perry Pass is what separates Langara to the other island here, Graham Island and the tide roars through here, especially on a 24-foot tide running out. The back eddy will come in here and it'd be a disaster in here if any kind of oil slick happened.
12665. We rely on the seafood and commercial fishery for a way of life and livelihood. Old Masset has clam diggers, salmon fishermen, halibut fishermen, crab
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell fishermen and food gatherers, and an oil spill would take away everything that we eat. Every family in the village gathers seafood.
12666. Can I go back to pictures please? This here is my uncle. We're gathering seafood. That's a halibut there and there's a little halibut. We're not the only ones that rely on seafood here in Haida Gwaii. The deer, otter, other animals who go to the beaches to eat kelp for salt would be affected by any spill.
12667. There are six other communities on the island that rely on seafood as well. An oil spill would take everything away from all of us in Haida Gwaii. It would be devastating to have an oil spill. Every time we look at the water, we're excited about going somewhere, catch a fish, dig a clam, pick seaweed or go hunting on the beaches. I can't imagine looking at the water if there's nothing there for me.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12668. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12669. I think it might be an appropriate time for a lunch break.
12670. THE CHAIRPERSON: Terrific. Thank you.
12671. What would you recommend for timing of a lunch break?
12672. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: We have lost some time this morning. I think we had originally planned on an hour lunch. I don't know if we could shave some time off that break or not? How fast can we eat comfortably? Half an hour would be fine.
12673. THE CHAIRPERSON: Terrific, that's great. Let's take a break for half an hour. So we'll reconvene at 12:45?
12674. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12675. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
--- Upon recessing at 12:09 p.m./L'audience est suspendue à 12h09 --- Upon resuming at 12:45 p.m./L'audience est reprise à 12h45
12676. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, everyone, for coming
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Oliver Bell back and taking your seats so that we can get under way.
12677. As we get under way, I just want to express the Panel's appreciation to the Haida Gwaii for your generosity in terms of sharing with us your facilities and your food and your welcome. It's very much appreciated and has, certainly from my perspective, helped create a tremendous opportunity for all of us in the room to listen to each other. So thank you very much for that.
12678. Ms. Williams-Davidson, are we ready to get under way now?
12679. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes, we are. We're going to begin with Allan Davidson and then Trevor Russ. And if we could have Ms. Niro attend to the swearing in before we begin please?
TREVOR RUSS: Affirmed ALLAN DAVIDSON: Affirmed
12680. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Mr. Davidson will refer to Documents A2K2X4 and A2K4C8, and he will let you know when to bring those up.
12681. Thank you.
12682. THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms. Niro, were you able to catch both those numbers? Perhaps you could just repeat them one more time?
12683. Thank you.
12684. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: A2K2X4, the Haida Ocean and Way of Life Map, and A2K4C8, the aerial photograph of K’iit.
12685. THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you going to need the information right away or are you ready to get under way? And I know that Ms. Niro will catch up with us as we go along.
12686. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: So Allan Davidson will begin.
12687. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you.
12688. Thanks, Mr. Davidson.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Allan Davidson
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. ALLAN DAVIDSON:
12689. MR. ALLAN DAVIDSON: First of all, haaw’a for this opportunity. Thank you. And also haaw’a to the cooks for that delicious lunch.
12690. My name is Allan Davidson. My ancestral name is Guskin, translated to seagulls diving for fish.
12691. My parents are Annie Davidson and Alfred Davidson. I am a proud member of the St’langng ‘Laanas, Raven Clan. Our crests are the killer whale, thunderbird, grizzly bear, hawk, raven and cumulous cloud.
12692. My presentation today is going to focus on two areas, as previous speakers experienced growing up here on Haida Gwaii. I was born in Queen Charlotte City and I was raised here until I was about 22.
12693. Second part I’m going to look at, I’m going to discuss, is my experience as a Haida person looking at archaeology on Haida Gwaii.
12694. So as I said, like our previous speakers, I was fortunate enough to grow up with my great-grandmother, my Naanii Florence. I learned a lot of stories in my early age from Naanii Florence, my Tsannii Brady Edwards, Grandfather Brady Edwards.
12695. So I was going to reference the raven and the clamshell, and I think that -- I feel like Reg has covered that quite nicely, so I’ll just pass on that part.
12696. So my experience growing in Haida Gwaii, like everybody else, you know, I learned how to fish from my dad and my grandfather and my mom’s brother, Alvin Edwards.
12697. When I was young, my mom would take us up to Yakoun.
12698. Could we bring up the Ocean and Way of Life Map, please?
12699. So Oliver referenced Yakoun in his presentation to you, so while they’re doing that, I -- when I was young, my parents would bring me up to Yakoun while my Uncle Alvin, my Tsannii Brady and my Uncle Homer Edwards were up there fishing, gathering Sockeye for the family and one of the memories that really sticks
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Allan Davidson out for me during those visits, my tsannii would be standing -- he’d have a table set up on the riverbank, and one day I was standing there watching him prepare the fish for the smokehouse and I stood there for probably about an hour watching him.
12700. He passed me the knife, and he said “I think you’ve watched long enough.” He passed me the knife. I thought he would coach me through it, but he walked away, left me to learn. Through trial and error I think I got pretty good at it.
12701. So that was one of the highlights of my life, being able to go to Yakoun and fish and learn how to prepare our food.
12702. One of the other things that I did with my father, we would go to north beach in the winter and gather butter clams. One of the highlights of that, we would pick up my great-uncle Victor Adams. So we’d pick him up on the way.
12703. He would come with us and my dad would be sitting -- they’d both be sitting there cleaning the clams as I’m digging it, and just the joy that they got and I got from that, sitting -- the three of us were sitting there, and to hear them both speaking in Haida, laughing, having a good time. And these are the things that will be heavily impacted when we have an oil spill.
12704. With my father also I’d go and gather seaweed, in the same areas that Oliver was mentioning. One of the main areas that I went with my dad was at Seven Mile, just north of -- northwest of Yaan.
12705. There is it. Sorry, I was trying to find -- so we’d be just in here gathering seaweed. So we’d gather seaweed at low tide. We’d get what we need and on the way home we would fish for Coho, spring salmon.
12706. So like Oliver and Reg, I learned the whole area from -- from Rose Spit all the way to Langara. I’m pretty familiar with that area. And we’d also go in to Needan Harbour, do some fishing and also could gather some crabs.
12707. So in addition to the fishing and the shellfish, we would gather the razor clams there and just in behind here we’d get our butter clams in the winter.
12708. So these teachings are handed down from generation to generation and my dad and my grandfather, they learned from their fathers and their uncles.
12709. So with that I’m going to move into my portion of my experiences as a
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Allan Davidson Haida person, practising archaeology on Haida Gwaii.
12710. When I left here to go to university, I studied anthropology and while I was studying I hadn’t considered a career in archaeology. A friend of mine called me and said there’s some archaeology work going on on Haida Gwaii. He gave me some contact numbers.
12711. So a number was for a Dr. Quinton Mackie from the University of Victoria and I got a hold of him and that’s where I started. Like I said, I hadn’t considered it but once I got into the field, you know, I was -- I just loved it, being able to look at our ancestral cultural remains.
12712. So when I first started working with Dr. Mackie and Daryl Fedje we were excavating Richardson Island. We don’t have a -- sorry, could you go back to the way of life map, please? Can you scroll up? Sorry, I want to go further south of the island. That’s good.
12713. So Richardson Island is it -- Lyle Island is there, just right in about there. So that was the first -- my first experience working in the field of archaeology. The first year I worked there we didn’t -- we couldn’t get to the bottom. When we say “bottom” it means the sterile level of deposits. But the importance of this site for me there’s over 100 cultural layers and there’s -- of those 20 deposits are occupation.
12714. So the following year, in 2002, we bottomed out, we hit sterile beach sand, and when we hit the bottom I climbed into this 2x2 excavation unit, and to be able to stand there and I got chills on the back of my neck and my hair stood up; just the power of feeling my ancestors standing on the ground my ancestor did 10,700 years ago.
12715. I tried to explain it to my colleagues when we got back to camp but I believe they couldn’t fathom how I felt. So it was just the most powerful feeling that I’d ever had, just that connection I had with being able to just feel that feeling.
12716. When I started off in archaeology I’d already spent a couple of years in academia and I had an inner struggle whether it was oral -- I believed oral history or if I believed the science that I was studying.
12717. That day when I stood in that 2x2 unit it became clear to me, our ancestors have been here for thousands of years. And in a forward written by our President Guujaaw said the science is finally catching up to us.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Allan Davidson
12718. There are many other sites that I worked on. One of them is Kiilgii Gwaay.
12719. Can you go right to the bottom of that map, please? Sorry, up a little.
12720. There it is right there. Right in there. This site is in the intertidal zone, and this site dates back to 10,700 years. At this site we found a basket -- spruce root basket handle. We found like spikes, similar to that of what you would see a tent peg; they were long, probably about a foot long, made out of spruce.
12721. And again, just the feeling there it’s -- like it’s hard to explain but I’m sure, you know, if any other Haida felt this feeling they’d understand what I’m saying, to be able to stand on the ground our ancestors did.
12722. There were many other sites that I worked on, and all the sites I’ve worked on range from 600 years to 10,700.
12723. Can you go up a little bit on that, please? Thank you.
12724. There’s another site that I worked on just right there called Gaduu Din and these are cave sites. That -- there’s that one and then there’s another. These ones are 12,000 calendar years old -- 12,700. And there we found -- at Gaduu Din we found some cultural layers, we found some of our cultural remains, stone tools, at these sites.
12725. And Rose Spit is the most recent site that I’ve worked at. As I’ve mentioned, it’s 600 years old. And at all these sites there are fish bones, there are clam shells, shellfish. So as the previous speakers, we’ve lived off the oceans for thousands of years.
12726. An oil spill can affect all this. You know, I look around this morning, seen all these little ones, I want them to be able to experience the life that I’ve had up ‘til now, learning from my grandparents and my parents how to live off the land.
12727. There’s just too much risk for our lands. We as Haida people live off of it. When we have an oil spill all the beauty you see today will never be returned to its natural state. It might not happen in our lifetime but my cousin here sitting beside me in the back, her little baby, I want her to be able to see what I see.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Trevor Russ
12728. So with that, haaw’a for this opportunity.
--- (Applause/Applaudisement)
12729. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you, Allen.
12730. The next speaker will be Trevor Russ, and he will also -- may also refer to the Haida Ocean and way of life map, A2K2X4, which we’ve just seen, as well as the photograph A2K3X2.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. TREVOR RUSS:
12731. MR. RUSS: Haaw’a. Good afternoon.
12732. I’ll first introduce myself with my two given names. Kuns was my name that was given to me as a young man, and most recently, the name I was given was Gin 'waadluwaan uu 'laa isdaa aayaagang. My English name is Trevor Russ. I come from the Maaman Git’anee Clan from Masset Inlet. We originally originate from Delkatla. My mother is Corrina Russ. My father was Richard Davenport. I was born here in Massett, raised for most of my life, and I still reside here today.
12733. I was fortunate enough to be taken at birth by my great-grandparents, Willie and Flora Russ. From -- those were the -- my two teachers through the early -- earlier part of my life until they both passed on. My grandfather told me a lot of stories and taught me a lot about our traditional harvest and our ways. And from there, my great-uncles took over from them.
12734. My grandmother, she taught me how to work on our traditional harvest, be it salmon or shellfish or whatever it was that we were working on at the time. And for the first parts of my years, I remember it was just watching, watching, and that’s how I was learning. Similarly to my friend next to me, he said, you know, there’s a time they handed you the tools to do it on your own.
12735. For the most part, I spent -- well, all my life even until today, I gather a lot of seafood for myself and my family, whether it be the salmon, the halibut, black cod, shellfish from razor clams, butter clams, scallops, cockles, chitons, seaweed, and there’s a -- throughout the seasons there’s always something you’re going to harvest, and I know that’s something you guys have heard all day from everyone that’s
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Trevor Russ presented to you today, that this is a part of our culture. It’s who we are.
12736. So with that, I’m not going to get into a whole lot of detail about my traditional harvest. But first I want to talk more about the last 20 years of my life that I’ve spent as a commercial fisherman. I’ve had the opportunity to fish in many different fisheries from starting out as a young teenage boy in the trolling fleet. I fished around -- can you scroll to the north end of the island please?
12737. So we did a lot of fishing around Langara Island when I was young, trolling in more, over in to this way and to the north end of Virago Sound off of Shag Rock. And as I got out of the trolling fleet, I started gill netting, and when we gill netted around Haida Gwaii, it was around in this area as well, which is outside of the Jaalan River. We targeted sockeye. I wasn’t fishing with any of my relatives then; I was fishing with someone from the mainland. So I travelled also to the mainland to fish in that fishery.
12738. After I got out of the gill net fishery, I had the opportunity to participate in the Dungeness crab fishery on Haida Gwaii. If you can scroll to the east side of Haida Gwaii and keep going, keep going, right there and south. So for the last 16 years, I guess, or so, that I’ve been fishing, I’ve been fishing in this area all circumferenced here of Hecate Strait.
12739. Closer to the mainland, it’s what we call the Rupert Edge. It’s just a body of water that’s just off to the -- just before the deepest part of Hecate. We also fished a lot to the northeast of Rose Spit. Rose Spit would be up here and we fished a lot what we called Twelve Mile for the sea otter up in that area.
12740. Down the middle of Hecate Strait, we spent a lot of time fishing there for Dungeness crab as well. And, excuse me, a little bit further south in this area, just off the coast, we also fished for a lot of Dungeness.
12741. In the last few years, with the crew that I have fished with -- can you scroll back up a bit please -- other way, other way, sorry. Yes, up. Thank you.
12742. We’ve fished a lot along this eastern shoreline, along the beach. This is where we spent our summers fishing for the Dungeness and in the fall, McIntyre Bay, which you guys were describing earlier, this northern beach all along in here opens for Dungeness crab as well.
12743. And the reason why it’s closed through the summer months is because
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Trevor Russ they’re mating on our beaches. The Dungeness move in to our sand beaches and they come in into the shallows along this northern shore and this eastern shore where -- where it’s all sandy and they bury themselves in the sand while they molt and also when they’re mating.
12744. And I feel, you know, when there would be an oil spill that would take a huge effect on not only the industry I participate in, but also in a traditional harvest that many of the Haida people and non-Haida people participate in locally.
12745. I’ve also had the opportunity to fish roe-on-kelp on the southern parts of Haida Gwaii. So I’ve fished roe-on-kelp down here in Skincuddle Inlet and this area, known as Delabesh (ph) and a little bit more north, just up in here, an area called Selwyn.
12746. As most know, most of the herring stocks on Haida Gwaii have been wiped out over the years from herring fishing. So now there is no commercial fishery on Haida Gwaii, on this eastern side, for herring or for roe-on-kelp. It’s still used today as a traditional fishing area for Haida people.
12747. Also, I did a lot of halibut fishing to the north. West please. Good, thanks.
12748. I fished up in central Dixon entrance where we caught halibut, brought many different species of rock fish and black cod. I fished off the shelf, Continental Shelf, also for halibut and black cod and many different species of rock fish, off to the west -- to the northwest of Frederic Island.
12749. For the most part, like I said earlier, I spent most of my years fishing the Dungeness crab fishery but I -- I participated in those fisheries for a number of years but I took a step back from it because I wanted to spend more time at home.
12750. Now, traditionally on the -- when I’m harvesting for home I do most of my harvesting in this northern area of Haida Gwaii as well, whether it be Massett Inlet, all the way out, anywhere from Langara to Rose Spit, as you guys have heard from many earlier, that this is an area that we treasure and we get a lot of our sustenance from.
12751. I was taught at a young age Yahgudang, which in our language is respect, and it’s you respect everything, whether it be what you’re harvesting or just the ocean itself, when you’re out on the ocean and that you only need to take what you need to
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Trevor Russ survive or what you need to provide for your family; you don’t need to take anymore then.
12752. I was very fortunate to be taught by my great-grandparents how to preserve all the different species of shellfish and salmon and ground fish that we have and it’s something that I -- where today I’ve come to an age where I have children of my own and I have nephews that are coming of age that can be taught to harvest for their families and to carry on that knowledge going forward.
12753. I know we don’t stand right in the line of where the proposed pipelines, as they will be travelling through the mainland from Alberta through to B.C., the impacts of that directly don’t affect us because the pipeline won’t be travelling through our area but indirectly, yes, they will affect us with the tanker traffic that would come around our islands.
12754. And the thought of a spill happening and taking away everything that we know and everything that we have that makes us Haida, I don’t think there’s anything you can -- I can think of to explain what that feels like, to know that that could happen.
12755. I’d have to say that myself, along with the hundreds of people that are present, will do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen and stand behind the people that are along that pipeline route and support them to ensure that nothing goes through their territory as well.
12756. Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12757. MEMBER MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Russ, that was good.
12758. I have just one question and you’re the first person to mention about herring stocks and I’m just wondering if you could clarify, is there a herring fishery currently on the eastern shore of ---
12759. MR. RUSS: Commercial fishery, no. On the eastern shore of Haida Gwaii there’s no commercial fishery for herring on Haida Gwaii whatsoever.
12760. MEMBER MATTHEWS: Okay.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Trevor Russ 12761. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Just one question, Trevor, I know you wanted to also talk about the traditional herring fishery and the importance to Haida people.
12762. MR. RUSS: Yes. Thank you, Terri.
12763. The traditional herring fishery, more for the roe I guess is what we treasure. We call it k’aaw, that’s roe on kelp. A lot of our neighbours also like to harvest it on branches, hemlock branches as well.
12764. It’s something that’s very treasured by all of our people and we consider it a -- to be a treat for us when we do get to enjoy it.
12765. It takes a lot of work and it starts right around this time of year where a lot of our people are heading south to gather the kelp, to go and head to the spawning grounds of the herring in hopes that the herring will come there to lay their eggs.
12766. There’s many different ways that we do preserve it; one being sun-dried which I remember as a young boy that was always served on the tables at the feasts that were happening. And today for most times it’s salted and put away and kept throughout the year in that form.
12767. That reminded me also I was going to talk a bit about the other ways that we preserve the salmon species and the halibut. This picture kind of help remind me of it. The different forms of preserving our catch. In this they’re preserving it looks to be salmon bones and some ts’iilts’, dried salmon. We also do the same with the halibut, cut it into thin strips and put it out in the sun to dry.
12768. I believe Margaret shared -- not very close for you guys to see but -- a very good treat, I’m sure you’d see some of the kids running around here eating it today as well.
12769. Yeah, I think that was about it.
12770. Thank you.
12771. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
12772. Does that complete this panel? We’re ready to have two more witnesses?
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown
12773. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes it does. Thank you.
12774. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12775. THE CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Ms. Niro, if we could get you to come forward.
VANESSA BELLIS: Affirmed LESLIE BROWN: Affirmed
12776. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: The first speaker will be Leslie Brown and she will also be speaking to the photograph that you have up there, as well as the prior photograph, A2K3X2.
12777. Thank you.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MS. LESLIE BROWN:
12778. MS. BROWN: Good afternoon. My name is Xylang jaad xyaala which means “Thunder Woman Dancer”. I am from the St’langng ’Laanas Clan. I am also known as Leslie Brown. I am from Old Massett.
12779. I currently live in Massett, and have lived here for almost five years. I was born June 7th, 1974 here in Massett. My mother is Cindy Williams, also of St'langng 'Laanas. My dad is Reg Davidson, who presented earlier. He's Yahgu 'Laanas.
12780. I was born and raised here in Old Massett until I was 14. I then moved to White Rock and came back home to graduate high school. I then moved away for 12 years for post-secondary and some work experience.
12781. I have learned our clan, the St'langng 'Laanas, has migrated from the Village of Yaan, which is across the inlet here in Massett. If you go near the end of the village, you can see a totem pole carved by 7idansuu, Jim Hart, who is one of our Hereditary Chiefs, that was carved in early '90s. That is the Village of Yaan.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown 12782. Our main crest is the killer whale. We are from the Raven Moiety of the Haida Nation. Some other crests include raven, thunderbird, hawk, grizzly bear and cumulus cloud. Allan Davidson, who presented earlier, is my clan cousin.
12783. I don't want to give the impression that I'm scripted today. I have written this down for my own sake, to maintain my own focus. And I want to thank everybody who is here today from all communities of Haida Gwaii. I'll do my best to be their voice today.
12784. I'm here -- I'm presenting for a couple of reasons. I wanted to share my stories of growing up here in Haida Gwaii as a young Haida girl, and I also wanted to share my employment experience that has served the Haida Nation throughout my career.
12785. I'll first begin my personal story as a young girl living in Old Massett. I've been blessed in my life to be raised by my nanniis and my tsanniis, and also by my parents. I've lived with Emsley and Nina Williams, who are my mom's parents, and Claude and Sarah Davidson. Claude is my dad's dad.
12786. It is from them that I learned we treat Haida Gwaii like a person, that our island is living being. We are not here to take it for granted. We are -- we show our island respect, appreciation and we are grateful for everything that it offers us.
12787. Geographically, it is not connected to anything else. This is what makes us Haida people. If we have no Haida Gwaii, we have no traditional territory other than our Kaigani cousins in Alaska.
12788. As a child, I remember being by the coast, learning about food harvesting. We went to the Yakoun River every year and canned salmon until I was 16 years old. I learned by hands-on teaching by my Tsanniis Claude and my Uncle Robert and my dad, standing beside him as he cleaned fish. He told me what he was doing. It wasn't a classroom. It's not a group of youth learning from one person. I stood beside them with a knife in one hand and our fish in the other. That's how we learned. We went through the motions together.
12789. Traditionally, I've learned that it's -- as a Haida woman, I am supposed to learn from my mother's side. I've been blessed to be -- or because we are a matrilineal society. I've been blessed to learn from both sides of my family. I have learned from my dad, my uncle and their dad. They've taught me about my culture, singing and dancing, harvesting food for the winter and gathering cedar bark for
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown weaving.
12790. My mother's side has taught me a lot about respect, acceptance, encouragement and the importance of helping family when you can.
12791. In the '80s, my tsanniis had the foresight of having his house full of kids, up to 50 at a time, to teach us the Haida songs and dances that he's learned. This group was called the K'aads Naay Dancers. It was him and his wife, Sarah, who welcomed us every Monday night at 7:00 p.m. into their home. If you talk to any of these children today, they would say it was probably the best years of their youth because it was at this time we all -- he got us all together; he taught us and he gave us the confidence and kept our culture alive.
12792. I think I may need to repeat this. There was 50 kids in one living room of one house -- 50 -- and it was amazing.
12793. When I was 14 or 15 years old, Uncle Robert did a ceremony he called welcome back the salmon at the Yakoun River. Our family has fished at the Yakoun River as long as I can remember. Uncle had the ceremony at the river and then he hosted a feast in this hall.
12794. One of our Elders at the time came up to him and thanked him for bringing back a ceremony, and yet at that time we thought it was new.
12795. If you're on the outside looking in, you'd see the Haida people rely on the shoreline and the waters of Haida Gwaii. It is a part of our nourishment and also a part of a way we make a living, where we make a living to provide for our families. We have razor clams, k'aaw, seaweed, Sockeye, spring salmon, halibut; the list continues.
12796. I thought I practised this enough to not cry.
12797. These are our traditional foods. It's what makes us Haida. Without our Gwaay, we are nothing.
12798. Today, both of my parents rely on the waters for our family. My mom and her spouse make a living from fishing, hunting and digging for razor clams. There isn't a day where he's not out on the water fishing or hunting, even through our winter months.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown 12799. My dad and my brother, Cecil, have fished together many times. Although I don't go out on the boats, my contribution is when they return home. I help them prepare the fish for the winter feed.
12800. I'm a mother to two boys. My oldest son is five. His name is Kai, who is sitting up here with my husband. And my young one is -- will be two on Thursday. His name is Silas. My sons have always been on the waters or the shoreline. They go fishing with my dad; they go digging with my mom. They are always on the beach every chance we get for family picnics and hikes.
12801. One story I want to share with -- about my son. Our family was driving out to Tow Hill to go see my mom digging. He had his little hip waders on. And he says to me, "I've been a digger all my life, eh, mom?" He also says, "I know how to fish and I just need to learn to hunt". It's part of our lifestyle. It's part of his lifestyle, and he's only five.
12802. I do my best to teach my boys about what I learned as a child because I think it’s what I learned that is -- what I have learned has taught me about respect, hard work and being a part of a community and learning about our history as Haida people. Because I learned this, I have been given confidence, trust in my family and a lot of pride knowing how far our people have become with the effects of small pox and residential school, where we’ve endured abuse, alcoholism, loss of our language and our songs.
12803. There’s this picture here about drying fish. This is how we dried fish as a kid. I started going to the river when I was about five years old with my Tsannii Claude. This is how he taught me how to dry fish. It was a family reunion for us every spring. My dad and my uncle didn’t live here, so they would come up here. My cousins would come and we’d be living at the river for two months. That was where I was able to get to know my cousins who didn’t live here. We’ve used the smokehouse. We’ve done drying outside. We still use the smokehouse today.
12804. I wanted to show you a bag of seaweed and a bag of ts’iilts’ that I brought here today, and my son and my nephew caught sight of my fish and I almost had none left to show you. They kept on coming back asking for more.
12805. THE CHAIRPERSON: Could I just interrupt you to ask you what the second bag was? I didn’t quite catch it.
12806. MS. BROWN: It’s a bag of seaweed.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown
12807. THE CHAIRPERSON: And then the other one?
12808. MS. BROWN: Dried fish.
12809. THE CHAIRPERSON: Dried fish.
12810. MS. BROWN: Yeah.
12811. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you.
12812. MS. BROWN: It’s what we take on our road trips. I wanted to show you that these are our preferred snacks.
12813. I tell you this to show you, the Panel, this is our livelihood. This land is ours and we’re very proud people on how we take care of it, and we’ve always fought for it to be treated properly. It’s part of our history as a nation to fight for our land and to ensure that it’s treated with respect. For as long as I can remember, in my lifetime, we have fought for a say in what happens with our lands and our resources.
12814. I’m very afraid of what will happen if any tragedy has happened on our island that we have no control over. We are very proud people on taking responsibility of this land of the good people, Haida Gwaii.
12815. I will now move into my adult life throughout my career. I moved back into Haida Gwaii in 2007 when my son was a few months old. I’ve worked for various organizations on Haida Gwaii. I’ve worked for the Council of the Haida Nation as an interviewer for the Marine Use Plan. I’ve worked for the Employment and Training Centre in Massett and I’ve also served on Old Massett Village Council as a councillor for three years where I was on the finance, education and health committees. I’ve worked as a project officer for the Gwaii Trust Society for two years, and recently I’m the Skills Development Coordinator for HaiCo Development Corporation.
12816. I grew up in political meetings at the Council of the Haida Nation. I skipped school to come to watch the House of Assembly. What I’ve learned is that our people have endured a lot of pain throughout the decade since European contact. We’ve had small pox and residential schools that’s broken up families. We’ve been told that we cannot speak our own language. This affects our confidence, our pride, which in turn affects our ability to have a healthy environment for our families.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown
12817. In my positions I’ve held, I’ve seen a lot of divide, competition for resources, funding and power struggles of decision making of the direction of our Haida people will be going.
12818. When I worked for CHN, still in college, I worked with Ernie Collison, who has since passed. He taught me a lot of what I know about Haida politics and processes. I thank him for taking the time to teach me about how politics work for our Nation with Council of the Haida Nation, Skidegate Band Council and Old Massett Village Council. It was his teaching that drove me to ensure that I was educated enough to serve our Nation the best way I can through business.
12819. Since I’ve moved home, our Haida Gwaii organizations are working together more and more. I am fortunate to be a good friend with the councillor from Skidegate, James Cowpar, who is present today. We both started our village councils around the same time and we began joint council meetings and these meetings still happen today.
12820. I worked for Gwaii Trust Society as the project officer helping local organizations and community members with various funding programs for youth, economic development, education and arts. In that position I’ve seen the same struggle for resources. Now there are partnerships between communities to make this island move ahead in capacity building, infrastructure and the economy of Haida Gwaii as a whole.
12821. Recently I started working for the HaiCo Development Corporation as a Skills Development Coordinator. Although I’m in no position to predict the direction of this organization on where it’s going in the next five years, I’m able to give my personal experience working towards capacity building and the current employment opportunities for our Nation.
12822. HaiCo is the business arm of the Council of the Haida Nation. Essentially, if Council of the Haida Nation wants to own and operate any businesses, it is run through HaiCo. It will keep business and politics separate.
12823. My role with HaiCo is capacity building and current employment opportunities within our business subsidiary. HaiCo has four business subsidiaries, Taan Forestry, West Coast Resource, Haida House at Tilaal and AquaCo. My job is to ensure that all Nation citizens are aware of current employment opportunities to ensure that the proper programs -- they are taking the proper programs so they are
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown qualified for jobs within HaiCo.
12824. Right now we are planning on local delivery of a Haida Hospitality Certificate Program. This will be the first that the college will be offering a university credit locally here on Haida Gwaii.
12825. And just this last week, Northwest Community College completed the marine training courses for both Haida communities on island, both Old Massett and Skidegate.
12826. I’ve worked with the CHN fisheries manager and Skidegate Band Council, along with the Haida Gwaii Watchman Program to ensure this program was up and running before the deadlines of job applications where they could apply at West Coast Resorts as sports lodge guides. There were 14 from Old Massett and up to 18 in Skidegate that have taken this course. The courses are small vessel operator proficiency, marine basic first aid, restricted operator certificate, marine emergency duties. All these courses were offered in both communities.
12827. In planning this program, I realize that this is an essential basis of employment for Haida Gwaii. If you have these four certificates you have options of where you could work. It gives you the basic requirements to be a sports fishing lodge guide, a commercial vessel deckhand, Haida Gwaii watchman program and the guardian programs through CHN. I’ve also learned that these certificates are encouraged for the youth workers at Rediscovery and Swan Bay. So if you have these certificates you are qualified to apply to these organizations for seasonal employment.
12828. I’ve been in this position since September 2011. In October we participated in job fairs both in Massett and Skidegate -- no, sorry, Queen Charlotte City. Since I wasn’t fully prepared with the positions available at HaiCo, I wanted to get a sense of where our community members were at with their interest in employment training and what certificates they held.
12829. I learned that two out of three people that participated in this questionnaire wanted part-time or seasonal work. In the last two weeks, I’ve told up to 60 people of the current job openings for this upcoming tourist season for the Haida House at Tllal and West Coast Resorts.
12830. As you can see, we rely on the coastlines of Haida Gwaii for food as well as employment. Right now, we have partnerships with organizations that once
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Leslie Brown competed for our resources. They are partnering to ensure that we have a sustainable economy on all of Haida Gwaii. This is the first time since I've moved home that this is happening.
12831. We are starting to stand up on our own to ensure that we have an economy that is sustainable and ensures our people that we have long-term planning for future opportunities.
12832. Northwest Community College, our Band Councils and CHN are working together for training and employment of Haida Gwaii. After the smallpox, after the residential school, after the loss of decision-making power with INAC, we are starting to stand on our own. We are part of the decision making of what happens here on Haida Gwaii.
12833. I finally see the light at the end of a tunnel for our people again where we could feel more hope, more confidence and more respect as a nation as a whole.
12834. With Enbridge asking to come to our waters puts all this progress at risk. An oil spill would put our livelihood at risk. When you drive through our islands, every town is on the shoreline. Our front yards is the ocean. This is too much for oil tanker traffic passing through our waters when it comes to the employment and livelihood of Haida Gwaii as a whole.
12835. I would like to ask each Member of the Panel to walk along the beaches. When you have spare time, please walk along the beaches, and you are walking our path and you will see what is at risk and you will hear the eagles. You would hear the ravens and you'll be walking our journey. If it's only for a half hour, I please ask you to go along our shorelines.
12836. I want to thank you for your time and consideration in hearing our stories, and I hope you leave here realizing the effect that a tragedy will leave along the shorelines of Haida Gwaii and our communities.
12837. And I appreciate the opportunity to share my personal story with everybody. Haaw’a.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12838. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: The next speaker is Vanessa Bellis.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MS. VANESSA BELLIS:
12839. MS. BELLIS: Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
12840. My name is Vanessa Bellis. My Haida name is Sgiid Kung, which means Red Moon. It was given to me by my great-grandmother, Naanii Florence Davidson, and it was a name that belonged to her mother, Isabella Edenshaw.
12841. I come from the clan Yahgu 'Laanas, and we come from the Village of Daadans on Langara Island, which is located on the northwestern tip of Haida Gwaii.
12842. My mother is Joyce Bennett; my grandmother Naanii is Primrose Adams, and my grandfather was Victor Adams from the Ts'iij Git'anee. My great- grandparents were Florence and Robert Davidson, and my great-great-grandparents were Isabella and Charles Edenshaw.
12843. My dad is John Bennett from the Sdast'a.aas Clan, and his parents were Wilfred Bennett, who was Ts'iij Git'anee, and his mother was Ivy Bennett. My Grandpa Wilfred was a boat builder.
12844. So I'll just give you another part of my family, are my brothers, Craig, Robert and John Bennett. I have brought along my youngest child here. Her name is Chloe. She is almost eight months old, and I have two older children, who are six and my oldest child is a girl named Isabelle who is six, and my son is Seth, who will be three next week.
12845. I have brought my daughter up with me to show why we need to protect Haida Gwaii.
12846. So I will talk about my experiences on the ocean as a child and as for work. So I worked for the Haida Fisheries program. I've had a commercial dive ticket for 12 years, and I -- but I've been diving for 13 years. I use my dive ticket for the research program for Haida Fisheries. I am also the watchmen's supervisor, and have been since 2007.
12847. Haida Gwaii is one of the best places in the world to go diving.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis 12848. So part of my job, I have worked a lot of years in trying to save abalone. We have been trying to build up the stocks so that they will be there again in our lifetime so we can harvest them for food, as my children have never tasted an abalone. They've seen the shells only.
12849. And I also -- through work, I belong to the Haida Gwaii Marine Stewardship Group. And part of the work that I have done for Haida Fisheries is we've created what we call condos so that juvenile abalone have a safe place to hide from predators. And when I say "condo", it is essentially a crab pot that we have cut the tunnels out of and mended the ends, and we stick cinder blocks in them so that the juveniles have a place to grow from predators. And we like to stick -- submerge them under water in groups of four up to about 10 metres apart.
12850. We have spots at the north end of Haida Gwaii from Needan Harbour to North Island at Langara Island and all over the southern part of Haida Gwaii. We check the abalone condos twice a year and do assessments.
12851. I have also done research diving to map gooey duck beds and assess the stocks. I have also done kelp surveys, which is another important group -- another important food fishery on the island. I have also worked a lot on the oceans and rivers doing sockeye enumeration in the fall, razor clam biomass assessment every year for over 10 years. And that's where we get the -- we assess the biomass for the commercial fishery.
12852. There's a commercial fishery on Haida Gwaii every year that is starting next week, and we get the assessment through the razor clam transects that we perform on the 1.6 foot tides and under.
12853. I have spent a lot of time out on the water and on the beaches around Haida Gwaii.
12854. I would also like to talk about commercial fishing. My grandfather, my Tsannii Victor Adams, was a fisherman. My grandpa Wilfred Bennett, he was a fisherman and a boat builder. He fished for crab and salmon. He always told us his favourite place to fish was on the north coast of Haida Gwaii.
12855. My grandpa Wilfred Bennett used to tell us all kinds of stories of how prosperous it was before non-Haida people lived here and how people only took what they needed. He also told us everybody owned their own boat and they rode out as far as North Island to get their fish. People went to their fish camps and collected all
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis their seafood for the year.
12856. My dad was a fisherman. My brother, Craig, is a crab fisherman and my brother, Robert, started fishing out of -- okay. My brother, Robert, started fishing at a very young age. He used to go out with my father while he was fishing and then, as a young teenager, he went and moved to his own boat to start fishing for crab and salmon and halibut and black cod.
12857. My family has fished for crab along the whole north coast to Tow Hill, along the east coast and into Needan Harbour. When my dad would tell us stories about his crab fishing days, he would say that in the spring they would go out, they would start fishing for crabs and they called it the spring crabs, and they would go out in March or April.
12858. And then they would go fall crabbing right after they would take the drum off their boat from seining. They would go crab fishing until November. My family has gone sailing at Langara, up in Massett Inlet and up towards Port Clements. They stay in the summer, in July, August and part of September. My dad has fished in Reynold Sound and all around Haida Gwaii for salmon or crab.
12859. So I would also like to talk about the traditional teachings that I have learned from my naanii and my parents and my other grandparents. So fish and seafood is just as important to my family as it to me. My mom has always done it and my Naanii Primrose. It is what we do. It’s a part of our life and it’s a part of who we are.
12860. Fish and seafood has always been a part of my life and my husband’s. I grew up here and I come from a family of fishermen. I fish and gather seafood to feed our family. It’s very, very important to us, to me and our family to gather seafood. Fishing, gathering and preparing seafood is very important in Haida living and cultures. Everyone who has spoke previously has noted and, I think it’s important to keep talking about it.
12861. I’m really thankful to my mom, my family and my dad and my grandparents for making it a priority in teaching us. We are a lot healthier people for doing it. My mom and dad taught me to fish and gather seafood when I was a kid and we used to make it a family thing to go out and get seafood together. I was taught at a young age to take only what we needed and not to be greedy.
12862. You get fish for your whole family for the winter to survive until the
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis spring. I was taught to take what you can use for a year. We always make sure we eat everything in our freezer before we start the next season. That is our number one rule.
12863. I have fished and gathered seafood since I was a little girl, for over 30 years. There are specific times to fish or gather different things.
12864. So in elaborating on different times, like specific times, I will talk about razor clams and butter clams. I was taught that the best time to gather razor clams is from April until June, before they spawn -- and when they -- from April ‘til June, that’s when they’re really nice and fat and good for canning. When I was a kid, we went out and dug butter clams and razor clams as a family. As a kid, we always picked up the razor clams for my dad and my older brothers. When I was a teenager, I also learned how to dig razor clams from my co-workers at the Haida Fisheries Program.
12865. I like to dig razor clams out at Tow Hill or at South Beach. It is something I really enjoy doing. I feel that I am good at it. I usually get my daughter to pick up the clams for me. I trade -- razor clams are also important because I -- I like to trade razor clams every year to a family from up the Naas River for eulachon grease, because we don’t have eulachons here on island. So it is an important food gathering item for myself.
12866. They come every year and I usually get a gallon of grease for some clams because they don’t have razor clams up the Naas.
12867. My dad also taught us how to dig butter clams when we were kids. Butter clams usually -- we usually go for them through the winter on the low tides from about October until March. And when I dig razor clams, I like to go and get a couple of buckets at a time. When I say buckets, they are five-gallon buckets and one five- gallon bucket will -- I will usually get eight quarts of clams out of it. And I usually can between two and six cases of quarts a year for my family.
12868. So I’m also -- I’m going to talk -- I am going to move and talk about salmon and halibut harvesting. My mom and my Naanii Primrose, my grandmother Primrose Adams have told me about my great Naanii Florence and Robert Davidson going up to the Yakoun River in Massett Inlet and gathering fish for all their daughters’ families. Each daughter would take turns going up there and bringing them food and my great-grandparents would stay up there until they had canned enough food for every one of their children’s families.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis
12869. So we would go river fishing usually in May and June for sockeye, which is one of the main fish that we work on for our year’s supply. We catch sockeye from the Awan River and the Yakoun River, which are both located in Massett Inlet, and sometimes we get sockeye from Langara Island.
12870. My dad fishes for sockeye. I have learned a lot from my father, John Bennett, about harvesting fish when we were kids. We mended and cleaned nuts for the river when we were younger. Since I was a little girl, my mom has brought me to help her with her fish. I’ve always gutted fish, fin fish and canned and smoked fish. As a family, we always get our fish and work on it at my mom and dad’s.
12871. My dad has a nice big smokehouse and so we all gather and slice and slice until we fill it up and then we smoke the fish and divide it up, and we’ll either can it or vacuum pack it for the winter for later use.
12872. We also go fishing for spring salmon and right now they call it the winter springs, and I can go right out in front of our house in the inlet to catch the spring salmon. My husband likes to go out further into the ocean towards Seven Mile and Cape Endenshaw, usually in June. My husband goes a few times a year to gather spring salmon, Coho and sockeye. He likes to use a rod and, I’ve gone out with him and it’s quite exiting to go and catch a spring salmon on a rod.
12873. We get around -- we like to get around 20 sockeye a year, so we always have a supply of canned fish and we’ll put away about eight to ten springs each year. And that’s enough to feed our family, but our family has quickly grown to five of us and our children enjoy eating the seafood. And so the numbers are going to keep going up every year on what our family needs to survive the winter.
12874. My husband sets -- likes to set half a dozen half crab pots out at Tow Hill for crabs or else -- sorry, we like to drop our crab pots a few kilometres out from Tow Hill or up the Inlet towards Port Clements.
12875. Usually, around April, Haida people start gathering seafood, seaweed -- sorry, Haida people usually start gathering seaweed. Seaweed is highly valued by the Haida because we use it in lots of our cooking and for snacks and for trading with other native people along the coasts and up the Naas.
12876. We also gather octopus at Massett Island, at North Beach at the end of our village and at South Beach. We’ve also gathered chitons at Yakoun Point in July and
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis also rock cod eggs.
12877. While diving, I have also gathered rock scallops. My brothers get black cod and give us some. We smoke it and then we all divide it up as a family. Black cod is quite a delicacy and it’s quite hard to get. We used to eat -- be able to eat abalone all the time when we were kids.
12878. My dad used to bring abalone home when I was my daughter’s age, about 30 years ago. He used to bring it home from his fishing trips. We’d be so excited when my dad would get home with it that my mom would cook it for us right away. And it didn’t matter what time of time of night it was; we would eat it before we went to bed. It was one of my favourite things to eat.
12879. My family fishes and gathers seafood to feed our family. We like to have lots of fish in the freezer for the winter because we are big seafood eaters. We also gather seafood to trade for food we don’t get here such as eulachon and eulachon grease.
12880. Like everyone else that spoke before me, the locations are the same that I have fished, personally fished or gathered seafood from Rose Spit out to Langara, so I will just name a few of those locations. Entry point, Tow Hill, South Beach, North Beach, Yaakan Point, Chaawan Point, Seven Mile, Massett Inlet and then from Wiiaa Point to Needan Harbour and Langara Island.
12881. We follow the fish. It depends on the tide and the wind on where we go for any given time.
12882. I will start talking about who taught me how to gather fish and what they have taught me.
12883. My Naanii Primrose, my grandmother, she's too old now to fish and gather seafood. She's 85. There are stories of Naanii when she got her driver's licence at the age of 46, on a whim, she would go dig a bucket of clams and be back not even two hours later because she was such a good digger. So she doesn't do that anymore, but she's busy in other ways.
12884. She's still teaching Haida at the Language Nest, and she -- and weaving spruce root baskets and hats on commission. My mom still works on seafood. My dad does the fishing, and they work on the fish together.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis 12885. I have been teaching my daughter and my cousins, who come out crabbing with us, so that some time -- so that it's something we're all learning together. I am happy to pass on these teachings onto them.
12886. I have taught my kids about seafood. My oldest daughter is getting to the age where I can show her how to cut up fish to can it and dry it and smoke it and prepare it. She has gone clam digging with me since she was a baby.
12887. We have taken all our kids out to the beach clam digging and have gone out with -- also gone out with my daughter's class to dig clams.
12888. There is a spiritual relationship between the Haida and the ocean. It's a part of who we are. We have lived off the ocean for generations from time immemorial, long before contact. We survived, and we will continue to do so.
12889. My grandfather -- my Tsannii Victor talked about ocean spirits when we were children. And also, one of our clan has a supernatural being for a crest, the two- fin killer whale. So supernatural beings are also very important to us, and a lot of it is about respect, respecting the ocean, respecting our land and where we come from.
12890. There are other supernatural beings that people have witnessed. When I was a child, my Grandpa Wilfred Bennett told a story about fishing out in Needan Harbour and he said he saw something that had the head of a horse and its eyes were as big as a dinner plate. And when I was a child and listening to that, it scared me because in the back of your mind, you're always wondering if you're going to run into something like that.
12891. We don't know what it was, but there are other stories that I heard of, the same story of that same supernatural creature, someone seeing it in Reynolds Sound when they were fishing.
12892. The ocean is important to me for other reasons, too. I have used the waters for spiritual purposes and cleansing. As a kid, my brothers and I used to swim right in front of where I live now all year round. My children also like to swim in the ocean and play on the beach as much as they can.
12893. A spill, I believe, would be devastating for me and my family. It would change the way that we gather our food because we wouldn't be able to eat the foods we rely on every year for our family.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis 12894. Likewise, a spill would be devastating to the Haida Nation. Our people rely on the ocean for food and work. We have crab fishermen and seiners. Everyone would be affected.
12895. A spill would affect the land and the waters because the people of Haida Gwaii gather different food along the shoreline. We gather seaweed, sea asparagus, clams, all species of salmon, halibut, crabs, octopus, sea urchins and rock scallops. We wouldn't be able to gather any of that anymore. A spill would impact the clam beds, sea life and all the mammals and birds and their habitat.
12896. From my experience in working in the marine environment, I have noticed that everything is tied into the ocean, all the birds, the fish, the bears, the deer. Everything goes to the ocean and eats food off the beach.
12897. The risks posed by the proposed tanker traffic are too great. Our waters are pristine, and they are unique in the world. An oil spill would devastate vast sections of our coastline, ruining habitat and fisheries.
12898. If there were an oil spill, it would wipe out everything; the kelp beds, the halibut and the entire food chain right up to the people. The oil would even go into the bedrock of the ocean floor.
12899. I would like the Panel to know that the people in Haida Gwaii rely on the ocean so much for our lives. The oceans of Haida Gwaii are pure and we would like to keep it that way. We want to continue to go out and be able to dig a bucket of clams today for our families, to catch fish to put away for the winter and to collect seaweed along our shorelines. We are so connected to the ocean and the land around it.
12900. The Panel really needs to hear this; it is not just for the Haida people. It is for all the people on Haida Gwaii. Everyone is working together to protect Haida Gwaii, and there are a lot of concerned people.
12901. I am worried about the future for my kids and grandkids and future generations to come. What is decided today affects the next seven generations. I grew up on the ocean, and I want something to be there for my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
12902. I would like to thank the Panel for listening to me today. Thank you.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis --- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12903. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: If there are no questions, perhaps this would be a good time to take a break.
12904. THE CHAIRPERSON: That sounds like a great idea. There are no questions.
12905. So again, would 15 minutes be an appropriate break time?
12906. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes, thank you.
12907. THE CHAIRPERSON: So we'll come back at 2:35, then.
12908. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12909. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
--- Upon recessing at 2:17 p.m./L’audience est suspendue à 14h17 --- Upon resuming at 2:35 p.m./L’audience est reprise à 14h35
12910. THE CHAIRPERSON: We're ready to get under way now if we could get everyone to take their seats, please.
--- (A short pause/Courte pause)
12911. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, everyone. I think we’re almost ready to get underway. Lots of great conversations going on in this room this afternoon.
12912. Just while we’re getting underway, I actually have another motion that the Panel would like to deal with at this point that’s on a different subject. It’s a motion that was filed by the Gitga’at First Nation on the 23rd of February 2012 and the filing is A39471. It requested that the expert report by Susan Marsden entitled “The Gitga’at: Their History and their Territories” be permitted to be filed as late written evidence on the public registry.
12913. Mr. Roth, the Panel understands you’ve had the opportunity on behalf of your client to review this report. Do you have any objections to this report being filed as late written evidence on the public registry?
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Ms. Vanessa Bellis
12914. MR. ROTH: No objections, Madam Chair.
12915. THE CHAIRPERSON: Are there any other objections?
12916. The Panel notes that when the Gitga’at First Nation filed their written evidence on the 23rd of December 2011, within the timeframe set out in the Hearing Order, they noted that this report was being prepared and that they would in future be submitting it for filing.
12917. The Panel is satisfied that there is no prejudice caused by permitting this report to be filed as late written evidence on the public registry and grants permission for the filing of this report as late written evidence.
12918. Ms. Niro, could we have a ruling number for that, please?
12919. THE REGULATORY OFFICER: Yes, that will be Ruling Number 27.
--- RULING NO. 27/DÉCISION No. 27:
To accept the expert report by Susan Marsden entitled “The Gitga’at: Their History and their Territories” to be filed as late written evidence on the public registry - A39471
12920. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
12921. Thank you for letting me deal with that. And with that, I turn it over back over to you, Ms. Williams-Davidson.
12922. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
12923. And if we could have Ms. Niro attend to the affirming of the witnesses, please.
RONALD M. BROWN JR.: Affirmed ALLAN WILSON: Affirmed
12924. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Ron Brown Jr. 12925. The first speaker speaking for the Old Massett Village Council is Ron Brown Jr.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. RON BROWN JR.:
12926. MR. BROWN, JR.: Good afternoon to the Panel and everybody present.
12927. My life started here a long time ago. I’m presently 54 years old. I’ve lived most of my life here on Haida Gwaii. Out of a family, five sisters, two brothers, I was the only one born in Prince Rupert, but I’ve lived my life here.
12928. My grandparents were Cecil and Beatrice Brown. My father was Ron Brown and my mother was Phyllis Brown.
12929. We come from a family of fishermen and boat builders. All my dad’s uncles were all fishermen and boat builders. All his cousins were fishermen.
12930. I went to Grade 9, I was two weeks from completing Grade 9; an opportunity came up for me to be a fisherman, I took it. It may not have been the best thing to do at the time but I could not pass up the opportunity to be a fisherman, whereas growing up my life all I heard were my dad’s uncles, his cousins talking about fishing from here up Alaska, go up halibut fishing, building boats, travelling down to Vancouver Island fishing.
12931. And, unfortunately, by the time I got to be a fisherman on my own with my brother, Randy, they started dividing up areas which started limiting where we went fishing. So on the salmon we got limited. Previous to that we got the fish around this island of Haida Gwaii. I got to circumnavigate and fish around Vancouver Island; that is for salmon and commercial herring roe. I’ve also been a fisherman at herring roe on kelp. I was also a crab fisherman.
12932. After depleting those, I was trained to be a watchman. For five years I worked at Kung, K’yuusda in helping to transport our children also to the rediscovery camp on our Haida Nation boat.
12933. In this five years we got to watch oil tankers come less than five miles away from Langara in fog. Very worrisome. We had many freighters, log carriers that pass here. We have ships anchored up off Tow Hill here. As you heard all the speakers this morning, the grave concern about our waters, the protection of our food.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Ron Brown Jr.
12934. We have governments in Ottawa who decide -- who look at a map and decide what they’re going to commercialize on our island. I’ve watched them commercialize a lot of our foods. When we go get them and we go try to make a sale we are called black marketers.
12935. I cannot speak Haida. My father couldn’t. My mother was also at residential school. So it was very hard to talk against anything with governments or anything because still today we are Indians. I was made an Indian by the Government of Canada. Took our languages away and now with this process here, I see they're taking our foods away.
12936. I think the reason I quit school, I heard all the stories, our kids being taken away. Nothing parents could do. When they tried to stop them from taking their kids, they were thrown in jail. A lot of kids didn't come back home because they blamed their parents and grandparents because they couldn't stop them, because of the courts and the police, the Navy. Everybody was used to take our kids away from here.
12937. So to me to quit school and go fishing and to do everything I could to fight what they were taking away from our people, I did it my own way by being just out there and doing these things, being a fisherman and to carry on what my grandparents and my parents did. To live off the sea for a living and also for my own use and our family's, whether it was hunting, fishing.
12938. So far, on our land you've commercialized the herring, the crab, the clams, the geoduck, the abalone, the halibut, salmon, shrimp, urchin, sea cucumber; make it harder and harder for our people to be competing against fishing lodges here.
12939. Been a watchman for five years in these waters, I watched the lodges who brought, in five-month period, 15 to 20 thousand anglers here. In that short time, I watched the smallest lodge of 16 beds took 328,000 pounds of salmon from here, plus rockfish, halibut. So they're having a very depleting effect on our resources that have been close for our people since our arrival here.
12940. So we've always been -- whether it's Needan Harbour, Massest Inlet, Rennell Sound, Skidegate Narrows. You're making our people travel further and further in very bad times of the year to harvest what they usually had the privilege of getting closer to home and to be able to get it to be fresh.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Ron Brown Jr. 12941. We've always stated that Canada can give every one of our people here a million dollars to put in our room, but we've always been taught to keep our health and to have a good life, respect the land, respect the food and everything that comes with it.
12942. I heard from the churches our people worshipped these things on the poles. I was told by our great grandmother, Emily White, who was born in 1888, that it's very hard here. She was born at such an early time and yet I didn't realize that she went through residential school. I thought that was something that was very short in our time.
12943. So my concern is when the Government of Canada and British Columbia decided to start giving us reserves, they stated right in there, they gave us very small reserves because our living and our way of life is from the sea. So we were designated very small reserve lands everywhere here in the north end and the south end. And you can check through Haida Gwaii resource certificates, some of our Chiefs spent what they call two days of wages back then, when to Metlakatla and Rupert area to register their land and pay for it and yet that has never been recognized.
12944. And travelling up and down the coast, watching everybody struggle. So from being a watchman for five years, in that time we also trained to be full fisheries guardians; the same training as all DFO officers. Because we had 24 people here from all over B.C., we were the only class out of the Fishery Guardian Training had 100 percent passing. They sent three people from Ottawa here to watch us in class because they said we were cheating.
12945. What they were trying to teach us in the Fishery Guardian Training we already knew as children; being taught to us, everything about the fishing; when, where, how. We knew all that. We taught the DFO trainers more about fishing than they knew.
12946. We thought we would start getting some work in Canada to protect our food and our way of life. I had a Minister of Fisheries come here, Anderson; met with our Hereditary Chiefs -- I'm sorry, I was President of the Haida Nation at the time. He gave us two hours to talk to him while he was waiting for a plane to go to a fishing lodge, which we were fighting.
12947. The next Minister of Fisheries was a Minister Anderson who came here. Also the same thing, a supporter of fishing lodges, waiting for a plane. Gave our
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Ron Brown Jr. Hereditary Chiefs, our Councils, two hours. Wasted our time, disrespected our Hereditary Leaders. We thought they would recognize our Hereditary Leaders as the true owners of this land, which has always been, as our ancestors said.
12948. I was a member of the Northwest Treaty Table. This was formed to start helping each other from Bella Bella to the far north of Canada, to east to the Rocky Mountains.
12949. We were watching the encroachment of all the corporations and that started high up the north after we lost all our jobs, all our support for the fishermen up here. There is an area up here that is Area C, which is the Prince Rupert area, Port Edward and including the island here. All these fishermen lost their rights, no openings, nobody cared. They lost their boats, they lost their vehicles, they lost their houses, they lost families. Nobody said anything. Nobody helped.
12950. So -- and also another thing I'd like to mention. We had a man on Council of Haida Nations many years, that was our fisheries rep here, Charlie Bellis, may he rest in peace. Many years he sat here, many meetings. We have over 250 rivers and streams and creeks on this island that were salmon producing; all have been impacted by logging. Nobody has ever been held accountable even up to this day. The Yakoun River, the biggest river on our island, has all five species of salmon, trout, and dolly varden.
12951. The village here of Old Massett, we roughly get about 2,000 sockeye out of there. We close it to conserve it, which is not very much per household. You hear them speak of the Aayan and the Awan also being destroyed. Not very much fish left in there anymore whereas in the 10, 15 years previous, we could go up there one day and get two to three hundred and come back home. Now, you'd have to stay one week to two weeks to hopefully even get close to that.
12952. And I talked to five different people over there, informing them that we had blobs of oil starting to show up on the Langara and also at Lepas Bay, and if they would like us to send a sample over there. “No, we’re not interested.”
12953. The Tow Hill area, it’s the biggest rearing area for the Dungeness crab, the razor clam, the scallops, cod eggs, rock scallops, mussels, and there’s also a big habitat area for shark. You can always see the shark packages washed up on shore very abundantly; the halibut all over June and July on all the beaches, right on the sand. You could see the little guys.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Ron Brown Jr. 12954. But when you see the crab and the clams start to spawn, you’d be amazed at what colour turns the water. As far as you can see, the whole surf is orange and brown. As I say, we do not want to put any of this at risk. As the fishermen explained this morning, it goes north and south, the waters. So the oil would be carried, the mainland to here. It would go west, would cover every part of our beaches.
12955. A few years ago, when we were watchmen, there was a spill down in Charlotte. They had a skimmer unit on wheels here. Martin Williams and myself were watchmen. We were asked to hook it on the back of our truck to tow it down. It was so rusty, it took us a while to get it moving. It took us a while to get the spool going to get the boom out. It has never been used. It was never under cover properly, and to this day, my argument is that that will never suffice because when it was brought down that day, there wasn’t even a two-foot chop. That boom was useless.
12956. Your heard our fishermen explain this morning we could go from flat calm to 16 to 22-foot waves very easily and very fast.
12957. I got to be a herring fisherman for a good 16 years, travelling it up and down the Coast, watched many boats roll over, seen people get run over by seine boats, boats ramming each other. I was very fortunate as a young -- I have to tell you, my first opportunity to go on a salmon boat, I was 12 years old. My dad was seining with his cousin, Tommy Adams, on the new island. I was supposed to phone him the night before, ask permission to go.
12958. Tommy didn’t happen to be home, but my dad was standing beside me and my mother was sitting there. I lied like a bugger. “Yup, okay, I’ll see you in the morning then. Thank you, you’re going to let me go fishing with you.” I just pretended to be talking to him and saying that he was home. That morning, I showed up down the dock. The captain was swearing the heck out of my dad, “What the heck’s a kid doing there in the morning?”
12959. It so happened he had to let me go anyway because one crewman didn’t show up, so I ran the drum on a seine boat at 12 years old. But I got to be up on the dodger first to spot jumpers, salmon, and also to run the drum. I got a pair of hip waders and $20 for my start in the fishing industry, and that got me hooked.
12960. And also, my father, 16 years old, met somebody in Miller Bay in the hospital when he lost a lung. They asked what was the worst thing he ever remembered, because he was from Peru. He said it was when the Haidas raided down
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Ron Brown Jr. there.
12961. We traveled far and wide, to Alaska, to Vancouver Island. We controlled the waters. The Haidas owned it.
12962. As I stated earlier, I was part of the Northwest Treaty Table and I also had a colleague, Percy Williams -- sorry, Percy Star, was also a member, stood up and thanked the Haidas that were there for allowing us -- for them to fish in our waters from Vancouver Island to here because we controlled those waters and we traded the halibut and everything.
12963. Now, I hope their help and your people who are travelling around this Energy Board, I hope that no decisions have been made. I’ve heard your Prime Minister say things will go ahead. I heard Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, saying this will go ahead, and now I see on the news Transport Canada has also said there is no real danger, so they are going to approve it.
12964. I can’t understand how from 1977, when we fought for a moratorium for tankers, how they turned 180 degrees to say that all those dangers to our island are gone now simply because some company can make $8 billion more a year.
12965. So I hope that this National Energy Board, that all and everything that I said to you here in these days and the ones you’ve already attended goes from your ears to your heart, that all the people that have spoken to you and the children will bring what we feel and what we need to protect for our future generations, will be all considered when you make these decisions, for coming to hear our people and our concerns for our waters and our foods.
12966. Haaw’a.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
12967. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: The next speaker will be Allan Wilson, and the visual aids that he may refer to are A2K2X4, the Haida Ocean and Way of Life Map and A2K2Y1, the Land Use Planning Map.
12968. Thank you.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson --- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR CHIEF ALLAN WILSON:
12969. CHIEF ALLAN WILSON: Thank you.
12970. My name is Sgaan 7iw7waans. It means Big Killer Whale, the boss. My English name is Allan Wilson. I live here in Old Massett on Haida Gwaii. My clan is the Duu Gwaa St'langng 'Laanas. The English translation is “People of the West Coast”. Our main crest is the killer whale and raven.
12971. As my people before me said, they gathered food from the ocean and the beaches ever since they can remember. I gathered seafood, fish. I got seaweed chitons, clams, salmon, every species of salmon. We got halibut, cod. It’s all year- round for spring salmon on the entire north coast, but in the winter the weather is too foul, so not many go out. And it kind of really starts here in the inlet, just across from New Massett.
12972. They even stole our name. They call it New Massett. This was Massett first. But right across from New Massett, by Massett Island, it gets spring salmon, and that’s the start of the year for the fresh ones, for all our young men.
12973. In the early spring, as noted, we go to the Yakoun River to get sockeye. Some families go to Aayan; some to Awan. And now it's starting to be a really controlled food gathering, that one. It's so vital to our gathering of food for the Sockeye, it's a -- as you know, the Sockeye is a prized salmon.
12974. And I've been fishing ever since I could remember, starting at about four or five years old going to the Yakoun River with my dad, my mom, my brother. They taught me how to take the fish out of the net, how to slice it for drying, how to prepare the skins. In those -- in them days, we didn't have any vacuum, vacuum sealers, so the majority of our salmon was canned. Sometimes we'd bring it home fresh near the end of the season because that was the only way it could be kept.
12975. I remember one of my friends was -- we were down at the Yakoun and he was busy with the canner. Gee, it would be perfect. The last two rounds, it would cut the top off and he would lose that can. We looked at it for a long time. I didn't know a thing about it, but I helped him anyway. And we figured it out, and we were able to can the salmon, so he was good for that winter.
12976. As I said, the main rivers -- and as my colleague said before me, the main
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson rivers are the Yakoun, Aayan and Awan. And today, the fishing is really, really depleted. And one Aayan, because of the logging, they log right up to the river and the Sockeye used to go up to the Aayan Lake for spawning in the various creeks and little streams. But because the logging went right to the edge of the lake, right to the edge of the Aayan River on one side, the salmon just didn't have -- they didn't have any protection.
12977. I went in there one year and I drove along that log road beside the river. There was hundreds of eagles and various birds feeding on the easy pickings. And that -- in the years after that, the salmon, the run got really small. And then later on in the fall for the Coho and the dog salmon, the same thing.
12978. And they tell us that salmon are coming from the forest. We heard that on one story, and it's true, because the trees protect the salmon when they go in for spawning. The bears and the various predators take the salmon up amongst the trees to fertilize them, so it's an ever-going circle like the one behind you. It doesn't stop. Each one helps the other.
12979. And every summer, we would go to the -- a lot of the people would go to Langara, our brothers and sisters from Skidegate would come from -- they would come from Skidegate to go to Langara also, and that was a sharing of the food. It would be dried. Again, we didn't have vacuum sealers, but a lot of the halibut would be dried. And they would come back with boxes and boxes of it. I can remember that.
12980. And the only one that -- only boxes that were sufficient to carry that dried salmon back was the banana ones because they were longer, easier to carry it, and there was holes in it so that it would just stay dry.
12981. And when you -- I remember the people used to get ready for fishing as they were preparing. Some of the Elders would go to church and they would pray, pray for those that were going to be out on the ground.
12982. As you heard one of my cousins talk about the storms that we have here on Haida Gwaii, when it's 90, 100, 110 kilometres per hour, that's enough to keep the mosquitoes away for us. We got so used to it.
12983. A friend of mine was a pilot. He flew for Trans-Provincial at the time. Coming from Prince Rupert crossing Hecate Strait, Dickson Entrance, he would fly his plane almost between the waves. They would be up to 60 feet high.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson
12984. And as you heard another of my cousins talking about the currents around Haida Gwaii, and they can be -- they won't be -- they can't be very friendly. They're so strong. They're so powerful. The tides come in, we know, at some spots at about eight knots. And in the inlet here, I know it goes up to maybe 12 plus. So the tides move rapidly and things get carried really quick.
12985. The seafood we get, the ones that are -- what we really go after are the razor clams, as Vanessa said earlier. We get it for canning. We get it for freezing so we could have fresh chowder. We go along the North Beach right from Entry Point down to Needan Harbour near Maseradouse (ph) to get butter clams. A lot of our young men go out to the North Beach just behind our village here to dig clams in the fall. And a lot of them always get extra, too, which is really nice.
12986. I remember when I was younger, my dad and my brother and uncles would tell me if you get some, if you get a little bit more, bring it to this person; they can't get out. Bring it to that person; they don't have a boat. Bring it to this person; they don't have fishing gear. So that's what we would do.
12987. I remember during the halibut season, there weren't very many boats on the north coast then. There was a few from the village here. We would go out to Needan Harbour by the Maseradouse (ph). There was a camp or what they called a fish pine scow there. And I remember we were out there and Joe Weir came putting out on his little boat.
12988. He was almost completely blind. He could make out shapes. And he knew the landmarks, as my cousin Oliver said. He would take three points from the land and you knew you were in the right spot. The guy would get out there and he would catch halibut.
12989. I was quite young at the time. I was only about maybe 10, 11, something like that, but he and I had an ongoing bet every day. We would bet a dollar. To me, that was almost all my wages, but we bet a dollar on who would get the most, the biggest halibut. That guy beat me almost all the time.
12990. And yet when he came in, he couldn't even hardly see to tie up his boat. He was an amazing storyteller, as many people in the village will let you know.
12991. He told us stories out there, and they were -- some of them are really funny. A lot of it was educational. So as you know in the traditions of our people, an
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson uncle is always bringing up a nephew, and to me, he was like my uncle because he taught me, too.
12992. The seafood we collect is not just for our immediate families. I remember one time I was out with my brother and we got probably about 10, 12 extra halibut. They were in the 30, 40, 50-pound range, really quite nice. I had a dispute with one of my uncles, probably about three months before. He wouldn't talk to me.
12993. So I went to his house, knocked on his door, but before I did that I put three halibut on his porch. I just left. I cleaned them, broke the tail to let them bleed, I caught them just that morning. I laid it on his porch, I knocked -- knocked on his door, his daughter came out, I said “Is your dad here?” And because of our dispute he was kind of hesitant to come to the door but his wife came in her wheelchair.
12994. “I have something for you,” and then he came to me. He never called me by my first name, he always called me Wilson. I said, “I have something for you out here”. So he opened the door a little bit more and I showed him the three halibut laying there. His demeanour changed, he thanked me for it. And he said, “Wilson, because of what you’ve done today you will never want anything.” I’ll never forget that.
12995. And to let you know about sharing, it was always a big part of our life that little bit extra to give it to someone. One year there was a fishery in the south part of the island, they had dog salmon, and in the fall they get all -- some people call them ugly -- but they all get camouflage when they’re going up the river, the dog salmon, and their teeth come out like that. They look like dogs.
12996. But the boys had some that they opened up, took the eggs from and the dog salmon really good for smoking and they said, “We only allow you 30.” I said, “Great,” he gave me 30, I started on them right away.
12997. Later that afternoon they stopped by and they said, “Some people didn’t want any, we have some more. How many do you want?” I said, “Well, whatever you can spare, I can do it for -- I can smoke some for other people.” They gave me 60. So I worked on 90 that day and I smoked them over the next two days.
12998. My son was working at the cannery and they had thrown away -- they were going to trash some vacuum-pack bags so he grabbed them for me. They were the wrong ones for their -- they didn’t want those because there was a misprint or something. And he just happened to be working at the cannery when I finished
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson smoking that fish so we vacuum-packed the whole works. I don’t know how many bags we had, but I brought some to my Aunt Adelia (ph) and she was so pleased. I think we gave her about 20 bags or something.
12999. And then we went to other Elders. I was so happy giving it away I forgot to keep some for myself. I think we kept about a dozen bags out of all that. But later on Adelia’s two boys took some out and they cooked it and she said, “I thought this was dog salmon. How come you’s calling it dog salmon? That’s black cod.” And they laughed, they said “No, it’s dog salmon.” To me it was a real big haaw’a, a big thank you, because I prepared it properly and she enjoyed it that much.
13000. And that is sharing and unfortunately we heard -- we heard talk of management of salmon fishing, halibut, herring, and to me it’s mismanagement. Because of the mismanagement we’ve lost quite a bit. We’ve come against almost a wall. We have people from Ottawa in the Fisheries Department that have no knowledge of Haida Gwaii or our Pacific Northwest coast, they control it from back there. They control it by reading paper, stats, they allow fishery.
13001. Because of the mismanagement we’ve lost that and because of the mismanagement our Elders can’t even have abalone anymore unless they become thieves in our own land, unless we become crooks in our own land.
13002. There’s so many things that we are concerned about here on Haida Gwaii. Our people can see it because we’ve lived it for so many years, we’re born into it. We have that power in our hearts and we have people like Enbridge that think they know all about everything on this coast, even Transport Canada approving their route the other day; they don’t even know.
13003. What we are born into we know by in our hearts. And our learned friends on the outside that we can accuse of mismanagement, they go to university for 8, 10, 12, even up to 20 years to try to learn about what we got here, what we got in our hearts. We know how much salmon to take; we know how many trees to cut; we know how much clams to dig and what we have to leave for next year and the year after.
13004. It just completely blows my mind that we have all these educated people managing our Haida Gwaii or our Pacific Northwest coast.
13005. You see, we’ve come up against a wall there and with these -- this oil line coming from Alberta to Kitimat, with the tankers coming in as red set, what is it, over
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson two, three football fields long; that’s incredible, huge. And they’re saying they will have one accident in 1,500 years; give me a break.
13006. Okay, if that’s the case then from all the accidents all over the world we’ve probably lived almost a billion years already in that short time, in maybe 10 years, because of all the accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Exxon Valdez, Mediterranean, and that’s only counting the big spills. There’s hundreds of them every year.
13007. We started -- we started our -- the provincial government in their -- I’m going to take a real big chance here, in their wisdom, thought it would be a good idea to have a land use plan. So they got together with the Council of the Haida Nation. It’d been talked about before but didn’t come to a head until not too long ago, in November of 2004, Supreme Court of Canada provided additional clarification and guidance regarding Aboriginal interests, accommodation, and the relationship to negotiation.
13008. I got all kinds of dates here but, doggone it, it throws me a lot because what I want to give you is what I have in my heart on my feelings for Haida Gwaii.
13009. We had this land use plan -- I’m going to give you a real brief because he’s going to be rattling at me pretty soon here. But the land use plan was a real big part of the process on Haida Gwaii. We had people from all walks of life coming in and participating.
13010. We had people from industry, from mining, from the forestry, sport lodges, hey, participants from all walks of life. We had biologists sitting there, it was just really amazing, and the province, I remember -- I think it was the second meeting we met in Queen Charlotte City and I told them at that time, I -- all the people sitting in almost a big circle, and I said, “This is a real good thing you have, or we have, sitting down and talking about Haida Gwaii. There's a lot of parts to that land use planning.”
13011. And when I said that to them, I told them -- I don't know if I should use that language here. No, I won't. But as I sat there, I pointed to the provincial reps. I said, “To you today, this is really cool.” I said, “To me, it is,” I said, “but in the next two or three years, you're going to say bullsh--, what did we start.” See, I didn't finish it. You can just form your own -- you can grasp the word I was going to say.
13012. But I said, “"In the next two or three years, maybe four, you're going to see what you've opened up. Not just a can of worms, but a whole six-pack, maybe a
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson whole case because the Haida Nation is standing up. We're going to start to face people.”
13013. That land use plan was really powerful. There are so many things came out of it, and one is ecosystem-based management of all things, like logging because each one will have its own way. There's so many details in that, the logging industry, where they can log, where they can't log, how much they can take out.
13014. It used to be clearcut and high grade. I did what I call a National Geographic tour of Haida Gwaii two years -- two or three years ago. And when I flew over Sandspit, I could see all the second growth. And what that pointed out to me was that it was clearcut.
13015. There was one island to the south in my cousin's territory there. That island was moonscaped. Every tree was cut from shoreline to shoreline. I flew over through Kitkatla and I could see. I knew it was done, but to see it is completely different.
13016. Then we look at all the management of the salmon fishery. Remember a little earlier I was talking about how the people get extra to give to Elders, but because of mismanagement, not very many of our young fellows would get a little bit extra.
13017. There are some that still do it. There are some that still share. But then there's a few that would go out because their hands are tied and they have no choice, no other way to make a living. They would bring it back to sell.
13018. And a lot of people buy because they know, and that's where -- that's a corner we've been pushed into. Remember I was talking about that wall we face already? We're going to -- we're facing another one right now.
13019. We've seen the devastation of the Exxon Valdez. We've seen the devastation of the Gulf of Mexico. We've seen what has happened in the Mediterranean with that cruise ship. We can't have that on Haida Gwaii. We can't have that along our Pacific Northwest coast. We can't.
13020. I was telling you about the winds and the tides. The Hecate Strait is known as the fiercest water in the world. It can -- as my cousin Oliver said, it can change in a matter of minutes.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson 13021. I've been out there when it is flat calm, and then in a few minutes all you could see is waves as high as the top of this here. And you could see everything for a few seconds and then the next few seconds you'll see all is water in front of you and behind.
13022. And to me, with those wave action, the wind and the tides, when we -- not if we have an accident, when we have one, the devastation will spread all along our east coast, tides will take it along our north coast, go around bottom of Cape St-James and take in the west coast around Langara. Everything will be gone.
13023. And as my friend, Reggie, said, that will be the end of the Haida Nation because we depend on Haida Gwaii for everything. Haida Gwaii is our home. Haida Gwaii is our front yard and back yard. It's ours, and we share it with many people. A lot of them are friends of the nation, but we share with them equally. And they stand with us when we go for something that would protect our Haida Gwaii. They stand with us in this opportunity to bring it forward as to what we have and what could be taken from us.
13024. Like Jim said, I wonder if the government has already made up its mind. What impact will you have on it? What impact will you have on that decision?
13025. I know we can't lose it. We can't. Our future, children, even your future will have a -- will be able to witness Haida Gwaii.
13026. Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
13027. MEMBER MATTHEWS: Thank you, Chief.
13028. I'd like to ask you just a point of clarification on the -- you made mention of the land use plan, that there was -- a lot of people were involved in the development of that plan, fishing lodges, mining companies, the communities.
13029. Was that plan completed or is it still a work in progress?
13030. CHIEF ALLAN WILSON: No, that plan is completed. It's done, and it's in -- the implementation stage started not too long ago, a few months ago.
13031. I just want to bring something -- it'll take me just a couple minutes. We
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson had a meeting -- just when you said logging, I thought of it.
13032. We had a meeting with the Hereditary Chiefs and a logging -- two logging companies in Skidegate in the small hall. And one of the -- our Elder Chiefs put up his hand, and the Chairman said, “Ernie.” He stood up real slow, pushed the chair back and he started talking about Haida Gwaii and what it means to him.
13033. And he looked at those two people -- one is the owner and one was the President of a logging company. He said, “I want you to know one thing.” He pointed to all the reps there. He said, “Everyone that has fought against the Haida Nation has died.”
13034. Oh, that floored us. What's he talking about? And then we sat down a little later, we thought about it. He was right. That's kind of scary, but it's very powerful.
13035. I'm not saying he had something to do with it, but that's exactly what happened. And that one fellow that was sitting there, he just passed away about three weeks ago. And that -- the President for that company, he works with us today.
13036. I think he thought about that. He wants to live a long time, so he jumped ship.
13037. But you know, when we listen to our Elders, when we listen to what they say, we should listen very carefully because what they have to give to us is our school, our learning.
13038. Haaw’a.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
13039. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you. The next panel are witnesses with a large number of visual aids and I’m wondering if we want to take a brief break now or continue to them?
13040. THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we’d probably -- I’m sure Ms. Niro would appreciate a break so that we can get them lined up.
13041. Again, what’s the timing that you’d recommend to be able to be back and ready to go?
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson
13042. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Ten (10) or 15.
13043. THE CHAIRPERSON: All right, let’s come back at five to four then.
13044. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Thank you.
13045. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, everyone.
--- Upon recessing at 3:37 p.m./L’audience est suspendue à 15h37 --- Upon resuming at 3:55 p.m./L’audience est reprise à 15h55
13046. THE CHAIRPERSON: If we could get underway. Thank you very much, everyone.
13047. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Order.
13048. THE CHAIRPERSON: And no microphone system or anything.
--- (Laughter/Rires)
13049. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
13050. As we get underway, Ms. Williams-Davidson, am I correct that you wish to withdraw a motion that was filed yesterday about the potential use of a PowerPoint presentation as a visual aid?
13051. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: The witness -- that’s not quite correct, no. We’d like to have a ruling on the presentation.
13052. THE CHAIRPERSON: You’d like to have a ruling on the motion that was filed?
13053. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
13054. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you.
13055. So to be clear, this was the motion that was filed yesterday, that was a request by the Council of the Haida Nation and the Old Massett Village Council to be permitted to use a PowerPoint presentation as a visual aid and that PowerPoint
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson presentation consisted of 69 slides and six videos; are we talking about the same motion?
13056. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
13057. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
13058. So it’s my understanding that these were provided late yesterday.
13059. Mr. Roth, have you had a chance to review this PowerPoint presentation?
13060. MR. ROTH: Yes, Madam Chair, and I -- on this occasion I do object. Regarding your correction number 4, the material doesn’t comply. It’s not of the nature of the type of evidence we’ve been hearing today, the oral evidence.
13061. It’s a different kind and it doesn’t relate to local community practices and how the shipping could affect people of Haida Gwaii and I don’t think it is appropriate for this stage of the hearing. It is more in the nature for a later phase of the hearing when we get to -- to argument, but I don’t think it meets direction number 4.
13062. THE CHAIRPERSON: Are there any other objections?
13063. Ms. Williams-Davidson, did you have anything that you wanted to offer as a follow-up comment?
13064. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: No, other than ---
13065. CHIEF GUUJAAW: It’s not out of touch with the information that’s been provided to our people, it is oral evidence with some visual aids. A firsthand experience of somebody who had witnessed an oil spill and somebody who was -- who had made a living in the fishing industry who happened to be a marine biologist, and seen the accident, and worked in the cleanup, and seen a community come apart.
13066. It is what we’re talking about here today, so I object to his objection.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
13067. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson 13068. If you’ll give the Panel a minute, please. Thank you.
--- (A short pause/Courte pause)
13069. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
13070. Ms. Williams-Davidson, the Panel has viewed the presentation and many of the slides and videos are not oral evidence as we’ve defined in Procedural Direction Number 4.
13071. The presentation contains technical and scientific information. It contains opinions, views, information or perspectives of others obtained from various sources, including social media.
13072. Additionally, the presentation contains information that is considered argument. For example, detailed information on your client’s views on the decisions that the Panel should make and your client’s opinions about the project.
13073. Neither of these types of information are relevant to this portion of the hearing. There is always the ability to bring a motion to have it filed for written late evidence and also there’ll be another opportunity in the final hearings, as we talked about in the opening statement, for the argument portion of this file.
13074. So for these reasons this motion is denied.
13075. Thank you.
13076. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: I want to clarify that Ms. Ott would still be presenting her evidence without the aid of those visual aids and that my client wants the community to know that that presentation is available off the record here later today.
13077. THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms. Ott -- we look forward to hearing Ms. Ott’s oral evidence as it’s outlined as oral evidence as described in Procedural Direction Number 4. The other aspects of things, as we’ve talked about, in terms of potential technical and scientific information is -- and potential argument are just for different places in the hearing process.
13078. That’s the whole purpose for saying that we’re here today to hear the oral evidence of which we’ve -- I have to tell you -- received a wealth of it today and are
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Chief Allan Wilson very humbled by the -- by the evidence that we’ve been privileged to receive today.
13079. And it would be in continuing in the light of that type of evidence that we would continue to be listening today.
13080. Thank you.
13081. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: So moving to the next panel, the first speaker is Russ Jones and he has a large number of visual aids that he will be referring to that I’ll read into the record. The first is A2K2X4, the Haida Ocean and Way of Life, which is currently projected; A2K2Z1, pages 3 and 4. These show the areas of marine protection.
13082. A2K3C4, page 95, showing herring in Haida Gwaii. A2K3C4, page 85, shows Dungeness crab in Haida Gwaii. And also A2K4F6, pages 23 to 24, showing sea density of listed marine birds. Those are all documents that were entered in as evidence in December.
13083. Additionally, the final document that Mr. Jones will refer to is A2Q5E8, and that was part of our Notice of Motion yesterday morning, February 27th.
13084. THE CHAIRPERSON: And that’s the motion that we dealt with earlier on this morning about the slides, and we have a visual aid number for that?
13085. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
13086. THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay, thank you very much. I just want to be clear.
13087. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Okay.
13088. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
13089. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: So we’ll begin first with Mr. Jones, please.
13090. THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms. Niro, can you come forward and swear or affirm the witnesses?
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones RICHARD RUSS JONES: Affirmed ROBERT CHARLES DAVIDSON: Affirmed
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. RUSS JONES:
13091. MR. JONES: Kilslaay GanGa, Kal Jaad GangGa, Nang Jingwas hinuu dii kiiGaGa. Dalang 'waadluwxaan ahl uu kil 'laaga.
13092. Fellow Chiefs, ladies held in high esteem, good people, my Haida name is Nang Jingwas. I thank you all for being here today.
13093. I’d like to start my testimony by telling you a little bit about myself. I was born in Skidegate and live in Skidegate in Haida Gwaii. I received the name Nang Jingwas in November 2009 when I was potlatched as Chief of the Naa S’aagaas Xaaydagaa, which is a branch of the Skidegate Git’ans or the Skidegate eagles.
13094. My great-grandmother Agnes Russ was a survivor of the smallpox epidemic in 1862. She was over 100 years old when she died in 1964. I was born in 1950 and as a young child I remember her sitting and tapping her cane with her great- grandchildren around her and getting us to dance.
13095. My father is Vernon Jones. He was born in 1918. One of my father’s crests was the killer whale. He’d always say when he saw a killer whale that he was going to be lucky because it’s good luck to see killer whales.
13096. My family moved away from Haida Gwaii when I was about six years old. I came back when I was in high school and almost every summer after that. I lived here for about five years in the late 1970s when I taught school in Queen Charlotte. At that time it was called Queen Charlotte City.
13097. I’ve worked for the Council Haida Nation since about 1985 and have lived here full time since 1998. I know our islands well and have travelled and fished on the east coast from Skidegate Inlet to Cape St. James and also in parts of Hecate Strait. I’ve travelled and fished most of the west coast. I know the area from Skidegate Inlet to Skidegate -- Skincuddle Inlet and from Hip Island to Sunday Inlet particularly well.
13098. So that’s these areas here from Skidegate down to Cape St. James, and then also Hip Island, you know, down to Sunday Inlet.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones
13099. I’ve also travelled and fished at the north end of Haida Gwaii and Dixon Entrance.
13100. This map doesn’t really show the shoreline that well and that’s because the water is quite shallow and so the light areas area also, you know, quite shallow areas. So, you know, this area here is Hecate Strait. Dixon Entrance is in this area up here. And the Queen Charlotte Sound is down in this area. And I’ll be kind of referring to some of those in my presentation.
13101. In my work I am the Technical Director and Manager of Marine Planning for the Council of the Haida Nations Haida Fisheries Program. I have a Master’s degree in fisheries but I’m also a professional engineer. I’ve also fished throughout my life. I’ve been a commercial troller and boat owner, as well as having worked as a deckhand on seine boats. I currently have a small skiff and regularly go out to fish to gather seafood.
13102. I speak against the Enbridge project because of the potential impact on Haida people and the environment of Haida Gwaii.
13103. So I’m going to talk now a little bit about the work that the Council of Haida Nation is doing on marine use planning.
13104. Since 2006 I’ve been the coordinator for marine planning and work closely with a Haida marine work group that the Council of Haida Nation established to lead marine planning in Haida Gwaii waters. The work group is made up of representatives from Haida government, Hereditary Chiefs, as well as the Haida public. It includes Chief Sgaan 7iw7waans, Allan Wilson, who spoke earlier.
13105. As part of this project we sought to bring Haida marine traditional knowledge forward in a manner that was respectful to Haida people while recognizing its complexity and the sensitivity of this knowledge.
13106. Our knowledge about Haida Gwaii, including our relationship to the land and ocean, goes back many generations and reflects our connection with this place that you are at today and with our ancestors.
13107. The Council of Haida Nation is engaged in marine planning with Canada because we recognize that humans have the ability to alter, damage, or destroy those things that are important to Haida people and Haida Gwaii.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones
13108. One of the things very much on our mind recently is this proposal called the Enbridge Gateway Project that could result in giant oil tankers passing by Haida Gwaii waters.
13109. Another concern has been the provincial interest in lifting the moratorium on offshore oil drilling in Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, and Dixon Entrance.
13110. Human activities have already caused changes to the oceans and sea life around Haida Gwaii. Marine planning is aimed at protecting Haida Gwaii for future generations. As Haida we rely on all species that are found in Haida Gwaii and even the smallest thing is important.
13111. Fishing around Haida Gwaii has become industrialized and it has the capacity to take fish in deep waters that were once out of their reach. Just as an example, you know, abalone populations in Haida Gwaii collapsed from overfishing around 1990, and they have not recovered despite a 20-year fishing closure.
13112. As part of the marine use study I was involved in coordinating a Haida marine traditional knowledge study aimed at documenting Haida knowledge, occupancy, and use of the waters around Haida Gwaii. This study was completed over three years ago. It involved interviews with 54 Haida, including many Elders.
13113. Results of that work are summarized in three reports that have been provided to the Joint Review Panel. This report includes over 60 maps, and documents the importance of the area for Haida people. We also prepared a summary map based on the study that we called, “Ocean and Way of Life.”
13114. And so that's the map that's up on the screen.
13115. So you won't be able to see the detail here, but the map does show -- you know, all around the island it shows places that were documented as Haida people used for fishing. So there's small icons for different species, whether it's halibut, salmon, sea urchins. So all the different species that are used in Haida Gwaii. And there's also a legend which lists some of those -- some of those species.
13116. It also has Haida place names, so all around the islands, there's a couple of hundred Haida place names. This is just a fraction of the Haida names for places around Haida Gwaii.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones 13117. Another thing, which again you're not able to see well is there's different symbols, different locations around the islands, which represents some of the supernatural beings that live in the waters around Haida Gwaii.
13118. Some of the earlier speakers have spoken about some of our legends, you know, about those supernatural beings and some of those are our crest. The crest of our clan is waasgo, which is the seawolf.
13119. I’ve relied on seafood throughout my life. I learned to fish and gather seafood from my father, cousins and other Haida. I started commercial fishing when I was about 16 years old and have travelled throughout Haida Gwaii. I fished for salmon on a troller out of both Massett and Skidegate with my dad when I was in high school.
13120. For about five seasons in the 1970s, I worked on salmon seiners with skippers from Skidegate. We fished on the East Coast at Skidegate Inlet, also Copper Bay, Skedans Creek, down in Sedgwick Bay south of Lyell Island. I’m also in Skincuttle Inlet and then down in the Skoon Inlet down at the south end of the islands.
13121. On the West Coast I fished at Rennell Sound, Kano Inlet, Cartwright Sound, you know, also up at Langara Island.
13122. For five years, in the early 1980s, I operated my own salmon troller, the Pacific Breeze. The fishing seasons were longer then, and I'd start fishing in May and fished pretty much every day until the end of September. I fished on both the East and the West Coast. I spent a fair amount of time in Cumshewa Inlet, which is just south of Skidegate Inlet and also down in Englefield Bay, which is south of Cartwright Sound.
13123. I also have fished in Hecate Strait and the Dixon Entrance area.
13124. So next, I'd like you to bring up the slide about marine protected areas in Northern B.C. and if you could display, in particular, the map, the full map. So once this map comes up, I think it's on the right side of the page. This is a different map.
13125. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: So we're looking for A2K2Z1, pages 3 to 4. Thank you.
13126. MR. JONES: And if you could zoom out so that we could see the full
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones map.
13127. So this slide shows some of the marine protected areas in Haida Gwaii and the British Columbia North Coast. This is also part of the work that we're doing in marine planning. So marine planning is looking at all the uses, but it also includes marine protection. We expect that marine planning will result in a network of marine protected areas, and the areas shown here are just a start.
13128. I’ve been involved in development of some of the protected area plans. I participated in developing the Interim Management Plan for the Gwaii Haanas marine area. So this is the south end of the island. I think Guujaaw mentioned that the areas protected out to 10 kilometres offshore and it's now been established by Canada as a national marine conservation area and it's jointly managed with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Parks Canada.
13129. The Interim Management Plan was approved by the Council of Haida Nation and the Government of Canada, and it was designated as a protected area in June 2010. The Haida had designated it as a protected area back in the late 1980s.
13130. Activities prohibited in a national marine conservation area include things like ocean dumping, dredging and non-renewable resource extraction, including oil drilling.
13131. I've also participated in development of management plans for Haida heritage sites around the coast of Haida Gwaii. And these aren't shown on this map. They're areas that have recently been established. Management plans have been approved by the Council of Haida Nation and also the province -- the B.C. Parks, the Province of British Columbia. So those areas basically go all the way from Massets Inlet down the West Coast with some other smaller areas down in Massest Sound as well as the West Coast.
13132. In addition to that, I'm involved in -- again, working on behalf of the Council of Haida Nation, we're working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to develop a management plan for Sgaan kiinghlas, the Bowie Seamount area. It's a Haida heritage site and it was designated several years ago as a marine protected area under the Ocean's Act. So this area is about 130 kilometres to the west of Haida Gwaii.
13133. Another important area which has recently been protected are sponge reefs that are found in deep trenches in the middle of Hecate Strait. So these are these pink
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones areas and I believe there might be one a little further south as well. And these are unique living structures that are thousands of years old.
13134. They were thought to be extinct and they were just found in the last 10 years and they're recognized as globally significant -- in globally significant areas. So they've been protected from fishing and there's currently work to develop management plans for those areas.
13135. The reason that I'm talking about these areas is that oil spills that might occur outside these protected areas, whether it's Gwaii Haanas or other areas, you know, the oil can be brought here by winds and currents. So even the sponge reefs, even though they're down deep in those trenches could be affected by an oil spill. You know, some oil floats on the surface but also some oil sinks to the bottom and that's how it could affect those globally significant areas.
13136. I wanted to talk further about our marine use planning. One thing that the Haida Marine Workgroup did as a start was to try to capture the essence of what we call Haida ethics and values and I'd like to share this with you.
13137. Our oral history teaches us about the need to respect all beings. And I'm going to go through six different principles that we're calling Haida ethics and values. The first is, “Gina ‘waadluwxan gud aa kwagiida”, and that means everything depends on everything else, and so it's the principle of interconnectedness.
13138. The next principle was “Yakguudang”. I believe in Massett, they say "Yahgudang." That means respect. And that's, you know, respect for other people, but it's also respect for all beings and all living things and it basically teaches us how we should treat each other.
13139. The next principle, “Laa guu ga kanhllns”, which means responsibility. This is what we as Haida people take on our shoulders. We have that from our ancestors, from our clan system, and how we work together in the Haida Nation.
13140. Next is “Isda ad diigii isdaa" and this means giving and receiving. It's the principle of reciprocity. We observe that through our potlatch. We give things that are important to us to witnesses who come to share with us some important life events, whether those are things like chieftainships or funerals or marriages.
13141. Next, "Gina k'aadang.nga gii uu tl' k'anguudang," seeking wise council. We listen to our Elders for their experiences. We also use the best information in
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones making our decisions and this is the kind of work we’ve done, both in land use planning, as well as marine use planning.
13142. And finally “giid tll’juus” and that’s a Massett word that means the world is as sharp as the edge of a knife and it captures the principle of balance. So that’s seeking balance either in the things that we do and also recognizing that things can change really fast. We have to look at basically how -- what we’re doing might affect other people as well as future generations.
13143. The principle Yahguudang, which means respect, applies to all people but also applies to other living things. You have to be respectful of all living things because they might actually be a supernatural being or a person.
13144. People weren’t on top and animals below. In the Haida world view animals could be higher than people and they could be supernatural beings. If you did something disrespectful there could be serious consequences.
13145. We see respect as a foundation of the ecosystem based management, that’s either for land use planning or marine planning. It acknowledges that the land, sea, air, and all living things, including the human community are interconnected and that we have the responsibility to sustain and restore balance and harmony.
13146. For us respect is included in traditional practices, you know, whether that be asking for permission to visit or use the resources in the territory of another nation or another Chief.
13147. Let me tell you know how I think the Enbridge Gateway Project would affect the Haida people and this is from my experience with marine planning, also fishing and as a Haida person.
13148. This would mainly be from an oil spill but also it could be introduction of foreign species by ships, either from ballast water or what might be carried on their hulls.
13149. An oil spill would affect the food that I gather and eat. It would affect the amount of fish that would be here on Haida Gwaii. I work with the Council of Haida Nation in the management of fisheries so it would affect the work I do. It would certainly change our community.
13150. I know from spills that have happened in other areas that they have long-
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones term effects on both the fish and shellfish, also marine mammals and birds. Many have died and although some may have come back -- sometimes they haven’t come back completely. It also takes many years for recovery to occur.
13151. Someone that I know named Mark King, he’s an Alaska native who lives in Cordova and he was there when the Exxon Valdez spill occurred, and he’s come down here to Haida Gwaii and talked about some of our issues and also what they encountered in their area.
13152. So I’d like to bring up the next slide which shows herring locations. So this -- I’d like that map, is what I’m interested in, and if you could show the full map, please.
13153. So this map shows areas that are important for herring in Haida Gwaii. So it’s kind of difficult to see here but there’s kind of yellow areas that show spawning areas, and so there’s a major spawning area on the east coast in the south part of Haida Gwaii. There’s also -- spawning occurs in many -- quite a few of the inlets on the west coast and there’s also smaller spawning populations in Massett Inlet and Needan Harbour.
13154. This slide also shows some of the herring summer rearing areas. So these are some of these pink areas, I believe. I thought they were yellow. It’s kind of hard to see in this -- in this light.
13155. Can you just check the title of the map again? Okay, this is the wrong map, so if you could pull up the herring map.
13156. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Ms. Niro, that’s A2K3C4, page 95.
13157. MR. JONES: So back in the 1950s herring biologists said that there were seven major stocks of herring in British Columbia, and that included not only the Gwaii Haanas area but also Skidegate Inlet as one of the seven areas.
13158. I fished herring, spawn and kelp or k’aaw as we call it in Haida Gwaii, both for food and commercially. When you’re out on the herring grounds and herring are spawning there’s a particular smell in the air, you know, all of that could be lost if there’s an oil spill.
13159. I know that herring were affected by that Exxon Valdez spill, mainly because they spawned in the inter-tidal area. If there’s oil left on the shoreline or
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones beaches of Haida Gwaii and then the herring spawn, there’ll be toxic effects on the eggs.
13160. Yes, so these yellow areas are the areas where you find herring in the summer. You know, the red areas are the herring spawning areas and then there’s also other areas like up here in the north-end where also herring -- you find herring during the summer. So they occur kind of throughout this area.
13161. So while I’ve got this map up here I also want to mention salmon. Several people have mentioned some of the salmon that we catch locally, particularly when they come back to spawning streams on the islands.
13162. But Haida Gwaii is a major pathway for salmon from all over the North Pacific. You know, salmon that spawn down as far as the Columbia River, you know, the Fraser River, most of British Columbia, where their eggs hatch and those smolts go out to sea they swim by Haida Gwaii on their way north because they go to feeding grounds and rearing grounds. You know, up in Alaska and also the North Pacific and the Bering Sea.
13163. Those fish also -- after they’ve reared in those areas they come back and again they migrate through Haida Gwaii waters, you know, both on the outside but also through Hecate Strait.
13164. So again, you know, an oil spill could affect -- it would affect fish in Haida Gwaii but it also could possibly affect salmon as far away as the Columbia River or the Fraser River.
13165. I’d like to talk a little more about the spawn and kelp fishery. So this is an important -- so we heard about that from other -- other testimony a little earlier. It is an important commercial industry here but it has been closed for at least the last six years in the southern part of the islands.
13166. We have had some commercial spawn and kelp fishing allowed on the West Coast but it’s not been a traditional area for the commercial fishery.
13167. When you fish it you catch the herring with sein nets, you put it in ponds and then you gather kelp and put strings or ropes across the pond and also hang the kelp from the pond and then the herring spawn on the kelp.
13168. Oil can have quite a serious effect on that fishery. When I fished with
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones Dempsey Collinson, the late Chief Skidegate, we did one of the very first herring spawn and kelp fisheries. It was just an experimental fishery in Skidegate Landing, so it was in Skidegate Inlet.
13169. It was about in 1973 and 1974 and there was a small oil spill at the oil dock nearby. There was just a little sheen on the water but what that did was it ruined our fishery, you know, we couldn’t sell the product that we had worked on that year. So that was one of my first experience, you know, with a relatively small oil spill.
13170. You know, as well as herring or salmon, shellfish would be affected by an oil spill because they’re near the shoreline and oil that floats, you know, will get carried by currents, or tides, or wind to the shoreline. Those are things like, you know, clams or sea urchins.
13171. So I’d like to bring up the next slide which is Dungeness crab. So this slide, you know, shows some of the habitat that’s important for Dungeness crab. So there is a -- these show kind of where you find mature crab and then also some of the areas where larvae from crab once they -- they spawn, I guess, drift around and then they’ll settle to the bottom. So this is all important habitat, you know, for crab that, you know, could be affected by oil spills.
13172. And so again from talking to people from Cordova, 20 years after Exxon Valdez, you know, they’ve lost their Dungeness crab fishery in that area and then they used to have a big Dungeness crab fishery and so this is more than 20 years, you know, after -- after the oil spill. You know, this would have a devastating effect, you know, on the community of Massett, you know, the people that are involved in the commercial fishery.
13173. I would also like to mention the razor clam fishery because on this -- it was mentioned earlier that there’s an important razor clam fishery that -- commercial razor clam fishery that incurs just close by here in Massett, that fishery will probably open in the next month and it’ll provide maybe three months of employment, mainly by Haida fishermen.
13174. Valdez used -- I mean Cordova used to be called the Razor Clam Capital in Alaska because they had beaches similar to what we have here and they had a large razor clam fishery. There’s currently no razor clam fishery there. Basically the clams, you know, haven’t come back in that area.
13175. So this is a really large concern for us because these oil spills have --
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones they’re not -- they don’t just happen and they’re fixed; basically they could have long-term effects, you know, on things that are important for us.
13176. As part of marine planning we’ve looked at the economic value of fisheries around Haida Gwaii. And I wanted to tell you that what we found was for about a decade, you know, from about 1985 to ’95 you know the average value of commercial fisheries in Haida Gwaii was about $83 million a year. This was 22 percent of the landed value of all -- in all B.C. commercial fisheries and this doesn’t include recreational fisheries. It also doesn’t include, you know, the commercial fisheries that occur on the North Coast of B.C. or also the Central Coast of B.C.
13177. So you can imagine, you know, a potential oil spill could have quite a large impact, you know, on this area.
13178. There were five major fisheries in Haida Gwaii, these included the sable fish, halibut, ground fish troll, gooey duck clams, and also the crab fishery.
13179. Sable fish, which are found on the west coast of Haida Gwaii, they actually rear in some of the coastal inlets around Haida Gwaii. You know, the halibut that -- we have halibut spawning areas here, you know, and halibut that spawn in this area, you know, their eggs are carried by currents north and hatch and then part of their life history is then they gradually migrate south. So oil could also affect halibut, the production of halibut in this region.
13180. Gooey duck clam is another valuable fishery that mostly happens in shallow water, so oil could also destroy that fishery.
13181. Abalone is an endangered species in Haida Gwaii waters and there’s a real risk that something like an oil spill could lead to their extinction. The reason they’re listed is endangered is because if there’s -- if we don’t change what we’re doing, you know, or there’s some new thing like an oil spill then we could actually -- the species could go extinct.
13182. Octopus have their dens in inter-tidal areas of Haida Gwaii. If oil gets in these areas it will hurt and kill what’s in there and the octopus might not come back for a long time.
13183. Oil spills can also affect the marketing of fisheries. You know there may be fish but the fishing areas might be closed because of fears of oil contamination.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones 13184. Marine mammals are also affected by oil spills. They’re warm-blooded and there can be lethal effects on those animals, you know, whether it’s seals, sea lions. We have had some sea otters that have come back here and they’re quire susceptible to oil.
13185. Could I have the next slide about the threatened listed seabirds?
13186. So I have myself gathered seagull eggs and the late Chief Niis Wes Ernie Wilson talked to me about catching SGinhaana also known as ancient murrelet at islands down in SkinCuddle Inlet. They had started bonfires at night and then catch the birds when they were flying back to their nesting areas.
13187. And gathering of seabird eggs is also an important food for Haida.
13188. Could I see the map as well?
13189. So an oil spill can devastate seabird population such as the ancient murrelet because they spend a lot of their time in the water. And this map shows kind of observations of listed seabird species, you know, around Haida Gwaii. So this includes the ancient murrelet, also the Kassans ocelot, black-footed albatross, short- tailed albatross and pink-footed shearwater.
13190. These seabirds, if they get oil on them they’re warm-blooded so they’ll get hypothermia and die, and also birds try to clean their feathers and they also eat -- can ingest the oil.
13191. The ancient -- the marbled murrelet in Haida Gwaii is listed as a threatened species, they also spend quite a bit of time on the water.
13192. Haida Gwaii also has 50 percent of the world’s population of ancient murrelet, that the SGinhaana and it’s the only breeding location in Canada, so it’s a very globally significant species. These ancient murrelet is considered of special concern.
13193. Seabirds are also an indicator of the heath of ecosystems. If there’s not a lot of feed around seabird populations will crash. Changes in ocean or fishing practices might affect the feed that seabirds rely on.
13194. Haida Gwaii is also on the Pacific flyway and is habitat important for other migratory birds that could be affected by an oil spill.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones
13195. I’d like to talk about seaweed because it occurs in the inter-tidal area of many shoreline locations around Haida Gwaii. You know, the black seaweed occurs quite high up in the inter-tidal zone. I’m very concerned about the effects that an oil spill could have on black seaweed. And so it doesn’t occur kind of everywhere, you know, it’s something that’s particularly abundant, you know, up in the Massett area from Massett out to North Island.
13196. So this -- you know oil basic -- could kill -- you know -- that important resource which has been harvested for multiple generations, you know, here in Haida Gwaii.
13197. And a spill would also have economic impacts and also affect tourism. I know that it can take a year or more to do cleanup from oil spills and the cleanup isn’t always effective. It’s only a small proportion of the oil that can actually be collected from a spill. Once a spill happens there’s not a lot you can do about it.
13198. Success at cleanup or containment also depends on the weather. We have big storms here in Haida Gwaii with winds up to 100 knots. Bad weather could make it difficult to contain the damage from an oil spill.
13199. Oil will not discriminate between marine-protected areas and other areas. It will affect any place it goes if it’s a large spill. If you have bad weather you’re really limited in what you can do in terms of clean up.
13200. So if you could bring up the last slide, it’s the -- some photos of invasive tunicates from Montague Bay in Prince Edward Island.
13201. THE CHAIRPERSON: If I could just interrupt you at this point. I believe that I might have missed something, this was filed as late evidence yesterday; is that correct? This particular slide, I don’t believe this is on the record at this point.
13202. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Right. And that’s what I had said, it was filed yesterday, I wanted to clarify that because you thought it had been ruled on this morning but it wasn’t, it’s the next batch of documents.
13203. THE CHAIRPERSON: Right. And I misunderstood ---
13204. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Yes.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones 13205. THE CHAIRPERSON: --- so I apologize for that.
13206. So you are seeking to file this as late evidence.
13207. Mr. Roth, have you had the opportunity to review this?
13208. MR. ROTH: Yes, Madam Chair. And no objection to it.
13209. THE CHAIRPERSON: Are there any other objections?
13210. So the Panel agrees to have this submitted as late written evidence.
13211. And could we get a visual aid number for this?
13212. THE REGULATORY OFFICER: A visual aid?
13213. THE CHAIRPERSON: I’m sorry, to have it visual -- I misspoke -- to have it filed as a visual aid.
13214. THE REGULATORY OFFICER: Okay. Visual aid number 33.
--- VISUAL AID NO./AIDE VISUELLE No. 33:
Late written evidence received from Old Massett Village Council
13215. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thirty-three (33).
13216. Thank you, I’m sorry for interrupting you.
13217. MR. JONES: So the reason I wanted to show these photos is because it -- one of the risks, you know, from ship traffic around Haida Gwaii is introduction of foreign species from ballast water that might be carried on the hulls of ships.
13218. So ships travelling the Kitimat or Price Rupert carry ballast water for stability and they discharge that in coastal waters.
13219. In British Columbia we’ve also had introduced species like green crab which came from southern waters and are spreading northward that likely came from ballast water.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones 13220. So I visited an aquaculture area at Montague Bay in Prince Edward Island in 2010 and that’s kind of where these photos are from. And that’s where I saw these invasive tunicates which are commonly called sea squirts. And they’ve colonized this bay where there are mussel farms.
13221. And these tunicates have changed the entire ecosystem in a way that is irreversible. So you can see from this line that’s being pulled up all the orange are these tunicates or sea squirts and there’s actually six species of tunicates that have been introduced to Prince Edward Island and many of those likely came from ballast water.
13222. This is a close-up which just shows this mass of sea squirts. And then here you can see where they’re actually cleaning these sea squirts off the line that has the mussels and then this worker here is just showing the mussels that are underneath the tunicates.
13223. And so these tunicates have covered the whole -- the whole bottom, and this is -- this has changed the entire ecosystem and it’s also been done in an irreversible way. There’s not really much you can do about it once that species has been introduced.
13224. And so our concern is that species like this might be brought into Haida Gwaii waters, by ships transiting our waters and also that they could also change our ecosystem here in an irreversible way.
13225. So Haida Gwaii is an important area. When your land or territory is damaged or doesn’t produce, it affects who you are; it affects your people; it affects your clan and your nation. We are all part of the Haida Nation. Any damage to any part of Haida Gwaii will affect all of us now.
13226. I think our ancestors experienced a lot of change in their life, from smallpox epidemics, when many people died, to being put on reserves and regulations restricting our activities. But an oil spill is going to have a permanent long-term effect on the environment around Haida Gwaii. I think it would be a different kind of effect on people but similar in a lot of ways to the smallpox, because it would affect the way that we live, as well as our relationship with the natural environment around Haida Gwaii.
13227. I’ve been involved in environmental assessment and know that this involves development of plans and assessments of potential benefits, as well as risks.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones
13228. In the late 1980s, I worked with an engineering company, Sigma Engineering, that worked for the Council of Haida Nation to review plans for a gold mine on the Yakoun River in Haida Gwaii. The risks included acid mine drainage from waste rock that would have affected the largest salmon river in Haida Gwaii. In that case the risks were too high and the project was cancelled.
13229. I’ve talked today about some of the risks for the Haida people and people of Haida Gwaii. We ask that the Panel look closely at what those risks are, not just for the people of Canada, including people who don’t live on the Coast, but also look fully at how it would affect the Haida and people who live on the Coast.
13230. We are assuming most of the risk in this kind of project and we must be involved in deciding whether or not something like this goes ahead.
13231. My understanding is that the Panel is supposed to consider all impacts of the project. The proposal is for two pipelines going to Kitimat, but you also are looking at tanker traffic that would carry oil from Kitimat around Haida Gwaii.
13232. It’s also easier to look at economic benefits or costs, but those aren’t the only effects on people that live there on Haida Gwaii. The effects would be on our lifestyle, the food we eat as well as our relationship to the land.
13233. It’s our responsibility as Haida to look after Haida Gwaii the way our ancestors did. If it is put at risk by allowing tanker traffic, we would not be meeting our ancestral responsibilities as Haida people. We’d be breaking our Haida laws.
13234. I have experience looking at other kinds of development projects, so I understand the process and I understand the marine environment as well as Haida people and how projects will affect the Haida people.
13235. I was a commercial fisherman and spent a lot of time fishing in the waters around here. I currently work with the Council at Haida Nation, Haida Fisheries Program. We are looking at developments that might happen in the marine environment that could affect Haida people and are planning for the kinds of activities that we’d like to see here in Haida Gwaii.
13236. The discussions we have had so far about oil is that we don’t think it’s appropriate for the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project or oil drilling in Hecate Strait to go ahead. There’s too much risk involved in these kinds of projects for the Haida
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Russ Jones people in Haida Gwaii.
13237. We’ve been quite clear about the position of the Haida, that we don’t support the pipeline and oil traffic through Hecate Strait or Dixon Entrance.
13238. It’s important that the Panel seeks consent from the Haida for any recommendation they make about what happens with this project because decisions will have the most profound effect on us.
13239. The Enbridge proposal will have a huge impact and a spill is a virtual uncertainty. I agree with what other people have said; it’s not a question of “if a spill will occur” but “when”.
13240. Local impacts are often overlooked by for the so-called national good. It may be of benefit for some people in Canada, but I think we must look at it from a Haida perspective, in our view of our title and rights. When we do that, this proposal should not be approved.
13241. Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
13242. THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Jones, I didn’t want to interrupt you as you were speaking. You obviously have a wealth of both technical and Aboriginal knowledge and personal knowledge.
13243. We are here to collect the oral evidence piece and not the argument piece. That piece will come at a later time, as we’ve mentioned. And so I just wanted to mention it at this point that it’s very helpful to the Panel if everybody can contain their information that they’re providing us -- providing to us at this point on the oral evidence and stay away from the scientific and technical pieces that have already been filed as written evidence.
13244. There’ll be an opportunity at the final hearings for the cross-examination or the final questioning portion, as well as at the end there’ll be the opportunity for everybody to present their arguments.
13245. This allows everybody to be presenting their arguments based on all the information that’s come in. So we’re not trying to cut anybody off; we’re just trying
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson to follow the sequence that has been established to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to understand all the information and then finally we’ll wrap up at the very end of the process with argument.
13246. I just wanted to mention that.
13247. Thank you.
13248. Our next witness, please?
13249. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Our next witness is Robert Davidson and he will refer to a number of visual aids that I’ll read into the record: A2Q3Z2, Raven Transformation Mask; A2Q3Z6, Southeast Wind; A2Q3Z5, Salmon Mask; A2Q3Y6, Every Year the Salmon Come Back; A2Q3Y5, Bring Back the Salmon; A2Q3Y4, Before the Snag; A2Q3Y7, Innocent Bystander; A2Q3Z4, Rock Scallop; A2Q3Y9, Nang Kilslaas Mask; A2Q3Z3 Ravenous Sculpture, and these are all documents that were included in our Notice of Motion last week.
--- ORAL PRESENTATION BY/REPRÉSENTATION ORALE PAR MR. ROBERT DAVIDSON:
13250. MR. ROBERT DAVIDSON: Dii tawlang kuyaasis, dalang ‘ahl kil ’laagang.
13251. My dear friends, I thank you very much for allowing me to be here. My name is Robert Charles Davidson. I was born in Hydaburg, Alaska and I moved here with my family, my mother and dad and sister, around 1947 where I was raised.
13252. My Haida name is Guud sans glans, Eagle of the Dawn. Dii ts’aahl gaagang; I’m from the Ts’aahl clan, from Howkan through my mother, and from before that from Ts’aahl K’iis Gwaay, which is Langara Island.
13253. My crests are eagle, frog, beaver, cormorant, two-headed eagle and halibut.
13254. Like all Haida people, I was born into my mother’s clan. My mother Vivian Davidson, nee, Anniskette, was born in 1926 and passed away in 1972.
13255. My father, Claude Davidson, was born in 1924 and passed away in 1990. His Haida name was Tlajang naa kingaas, which means “one who is known from
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson afar”. He was from the Yahgu ‘Laanas Daadans raven clan.
13256. My father’s mother was Florence Davidson, nee Edenshaw. She was from the Yahgu ‘Laanas clan Daadans. She was born in 1895. And her Haida name was Jaadgahl kiigangaa. Her mother was Isabella Edenshaw, whose Haida name was Kwiiyang, and she lived from 1858 to 1926.
13257. Naanii’s father was Charles Edenshaw. One of his Haida names was Da.axiigan, “noise in the basement”. Idɨnsaw was his Chief’s name. And he lived from 1839 to 1920.
13258. I am an artist. I speak against the project because of the impact -- the potential impact on the Haida people and the Haida Gwaii environment and Haida culture. Haida art is derived from the land and waters of Haida Gwaii, and from all the beings that inhabit the lands and waters of Haida Gwaii.
13259. I want to show a few images of Haida art that show this deep integral connection. I will begin with oral histories about the waters and oceans of Haida Gwaii.
13260. Haida Gwaii is filled with supernatural beings. Every prominent landmark and many places in the ocean are dwelling places for supernatural beings which are deeply meaningful in Haida culture. All the beings that inhabit the ocean are called Xaadaa, people, such as the ocean people and salmon people.
13261. The salmon transformation mask, this is a mask that I carved, which is privately owned, and it’s a copy of a creation made by Charles Edenshaw in the late 1800s.
13262. This illustrates an important concept in the Haida culture. Our oral histories have many examples of people transforming between these realms, between the ocean world, this world and the sky world. In our raven histories raven transforms between these realms into different beings at ease. Transformation is a key theme in our culture and our art.
13263. This mask when it’s closed it shows the image of raven and when it’s open it transforms into a woman, and the name of the mask is Nang kilsdlaas. Nang kilsdlaas means he whose voice is obeyed.
13264. Raven and his adventures teach us many things about how to live on
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson Haida Gwaii. Our art has always been an effective way to teach cultural values and traditions through potlatches and ceremonies. Our art has also taught the world about our culture. It was collected at first contact in 1774 and can be found in every public institution around the world, and today in many contemporary institutions and collections.
13265. There’s one example, the one object that was collected in 1774 is now prominently displayed at the British Museum in London. Terri-Lyne, my wife, and I were visiting the museums last year and we saw the object and it was quite a moving moment to know that this was preserved and the people -- the explorers were so intrigued by the Haida people at the time that they felt compelled to have one of the objects collected and preserved in a very prominent museum in London.
13266. The next slide, please. Southeast wind -- could you show the whole slide, please?
13267. One of the supernatural beings that is most common among the Haida is the southeast wind or Xiiw. He is so prominent and powerful that he has 10 brothers. Each of these 10 brothers are certain kinds of winds and clouds that accompany winds and tidal waves.
13268. Some of the names of the brothers are: he who takes off the tops of the trees, he who rattles the stones, passing away quickly, he that takes away the surface of the sea, he who comes before his master and melts the ice, mist, he who takes off the tips of branches, canoe breaker, and he who blows off the tops of whitecaps.
13269. Ten (10) is a number that indicates social cultural completeness in Haida culture. Having 10 brothers shows how important Xiiw was and how much he dominated the lives of the Haida people.
13270. The southeast wind is the most powerful wind affecting Haida Gwaii and affects our lives deeply. He and his brothers blow up over the sea and land around Haida Gwaii, especially in the Hecate Strait and Masset Inlet.
13271. I was crossing Hecate Strait once in a storm, in a southeast wind storm, and I counted four brothers in that storm, so not just one brother shows up at a time.
13272. Southeast wind lives in the ocean and when he is illustrated he is shown in the form of a killer whale. Here we have the killer whale, the mouth, the eye, dorsal fin, the tail -- pardon me, the body and the dorsal fin here.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson
13273. I want to turn to the importance of marine species and the Haida connection to the ocean and waters. I will begin by sharing traditional fishing knowledge that I have learned.
13274. Next slide, please.
13275. One of the most important food sources is salmon. As many people mentioned before me, the Yakoun River is an important river for the Massett Haida, as we get most of our annual food supply from there.
13276. I started fishing this river with my grandparents in my youth. When I returned from my formal art training I started going to the Yakoun River in 1969 and went for over 20 years. The families from Massett had their own cabins, campsites, and smokehouses at the Yakoun River, and at the mouths of other rivers on Massett Inlet, Needan Harbour, and the north -- from the north side. We all had areas for cleaning and slicing the fish and racks for drying the fish. Families stayed there for as long as two months and in other villages throughout Haida Gwaii.
13277. Fishing and gathering food is an important place to learn about Haida culture. I learned a lot of things from Naanii Florence Davidson, from our time together at the Yakoun River. I learned about how to respect the fish, how to slice fish, and prepare fish, and how to handle fish so that the spirit will always come back. I learned to sing Haida songs there and from there had a firm grounding in the world of Haida ceremonies and dances, such as this one mask that we use.
13278. The recovery of reconnecting with our culture was a very slow process. The many years that I’ve gone back to the Yakoun to fish, I would mentally, quietly thank the river for giving us the salmon. I would mentally, quietly thank the salmon for giving their life to us, and I had an inspirational moment where I wanted to create a ceremony to welcome back the salmon, and I thought it was a new thing. But after we performed the dance some Elder came up to me and he said, “Wow, I haven’t seen that dance done for a long time.” So we are connected in -- spiritually we are connected and we cannot deny our connection and the salmon helped us to reconnect to a very important ceremony.
13279. Salmon are the foundation of our culture and social fabric of the Haida Nation. Naanii and Tsannii, my grandparents, put away about 200 fish each year. They fished for their family and for trade. They connected with the people on the mainland and traded salmon and seaweed there. My dad always got fish for the
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson Elders and the town Chief, Tsannii Willy at the time, and Naanii Emma, his wife and other people from that generation. My brother Reg Davidson carries on that teaching.
13280. Because of this important role of salmon in Haida culture, we honour the return of the salmon each year. The return of the salmon is tied to the seasons, as indicated by their name. Sqwaagan Kats is the traditional name for Sockeye because the Sqwaagan is the name for swallow. Swallow and the sockeye return at the same time.
13281. Next slide, please.
13282. Every year the salmon come back. The name of this piece reflects my concern for the salmon. I am concerned about the decreasing abundance of salmon. The decline in salmon has affected how we transfer cultural knowledge, such as living at seasonal villages for months at a time. Further impacts that risk reducing the salmon further will have a devastating impact upon the foundation and central institutions of our culture, potlatches, and feasts.
13283. I would like to talk about fishing with Tsannii Robert Davidson Sr., my dad’s father.
13284. Next slide please. That’s not the one. Yeah, that’s it.
13285. It’s a well-known fact that the halibut are up and down the coast. The halibut inhabit the entire coast. Halibut is another of the most important food sources to the Haida. We have many oral histories about the halibut including one about raven and the blind halibut fisherman, which are illustrated by this image.
13286. Now, I would like to talk about the oral history. Raven was flying over the water and he saw the blind halibut fisherman jigging for halibut, and raven, being a prankster, at this moment he wanted to play a joke on the fisherman, so he dove into the water and -- to look for the halibut hook. And in the supernatural realm when we go from one -- from the air to the water it’s no different. When we enter the water the water is no different from the air.
13287. So raven is looking for the halibut hook, he finds it and he pretends to be the halibut and tugs on the hook and the halibut fisherman, he is so excited he caught a -- he has a bite. So he yanks the line to jerk -- to snag the halibut. He yanks so hard that he pulls off the beak of the raven. And the blind halibut fisherman when he
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson caught his -- pulled up his catch, all he could feel was a real strange object and so he - - at the end of his fishing day he brought it home.
13288. And when he was told by his -- the people in the village that it was the beak of the raven he hung it up to dry and raven snuck into the village, he was so embarrassed having lost it that he snuck in to get his beak back.
13289. But this image I wanted to illustrate this story and the title of it is, “Before the Snag”. After I completed the painting I realized that raven did not have the broken beak. The beak was still intact, so that’s why I call it “Before the Snag”. Here we have the halibut, illustration of the halibut, raven and you can’t really see it here, but the blind halibut fisherman is in the shadows here.
13290. “Innocent bystander”, please.
13291. This image represents the rest of the oral history, the story. We have the halibut here, the raven with the broken beak. The beak is hanging down. Quite often the beings are created -- when you look at a beaver, for example, or in this case the beaver -- when you’re looking at a totem pole, quite often you’ll see eyebrows on them. The -- many of the creatures, the symbols on Haida art have human attributes and that’s to show the connection. We understand that the animal kingdom, the ocean people and the air people are real -- really people.
13292. We learn from this story how well Haida people know the waters. The fisherman was blind, but he was able to get to the halibut hole.
13293. Our Elders knew the lands and waters like the backs of their hands. I learned this by going halibut fishing with Tsannii Robert Davidson, Sr. He was almost blind -- almost blind when I went fishing with him. Even with his limited vision, he was able to pinpoint where to anchor to fish where the landmarks, which are still used today.
13294. When I went jigging for halibut with Tsannii, I learned that the halibut are really our uncles to all the Haida people, because these uncles fed us and took care of our families. Tsannii talked to the halibut in Haida and called the halibut uncle. He yelled “da.aljiid kaagee”, bite it uncle.
13295. When he caught the halibut he would talk to it in Haida as he was pulling it up, “gudangang hl tl’aatsgadii”, because I’m making mine strong because I’m going to club you. When he got the halibut onboard, he got the new halibut bait and
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson rubbed it into the eyes of the halibut and said “Remember this; don’t just look at the bait bite it.” When there were long periods without bites he would say -- he would holler, “Don’t just look at the bait, bite it so I can put food on the table.”
13296. This is all in Haida. I was never brought up -- I was not brought up speaking Haida. So what I’m telling you was translated by my uncle Alfred Davidson.
13297. Our daily lives depended upon food from the ocean, and it is no different today.
13298. I fished with Tsannii during the time before motorized boats. He and other Elders rode everywhere. I marvel at the confidence of those Elders out on the water on such small boats. It was a regular occurrence for us to row to Seven Mile on the north shore and back into Masset Inlet. The boat that I went fishing with him was a 14-foot dinghy. There were two sets of oars, and I was in front pulling my set of oars and he was in the back pushing. And I was just amazed on how much strength he still had at that age when he was in his early 80s. He always outlasted my efforts.
13299. I also hunted seal with my Uncle Sam Davis on a small 16-foot outboard and we went to the Masset Inlet to North Island -- also called Langara Island, but the traditional name is K’iis Gwaay -- and all the way down the west coast of Haida Gwaii and down to Hip Island.
13300. During that time period it was common for others to do the same on boats this size. Navigating waters and boats of this size meant that all our activities were governed by the tides and winds. All of the fishermen knew the winds and could predict the weather by the waves. They learned the importance of manoeuvring boats and landing with ground swells which are always present which require us to be fast and agile. We respected the power of the ocean surrounding Haida Gwaii.
13301. Now I want to talk about other sea resources on Haida Gwaii, other traditional resources 13302. resource use.
13303. I asked my wife not to rattle. I’ll talk with you later.
--- (Laughter/Rires)
13304. MR. ROBERT DAVIDSON: There are many other marine species that
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson are important to Haida people. Everyone has talked about the many species we eat, such as butter clams, cockles, razor clams, octopus, chitons, sea urchins, seaweed and also the eggs of marine birds.
13305. This is an image -- next slide, please -- I made with a friend of mine to Gwaii Haanas, the southern part of Haida Gwaii, with the late Chief Dempsey Collinson, the Chief of Skidegate. On that trip I went for abalone with his son, the late Floyd Sugar Collinson. That was my first encounter with rock scallop. I was absolutely amazed on how brilliant red the rock scallop was at the opening of the shell. I was also fascinated with how fast the abalone moved.
13306. The red part I’m talking about on the rock scallop is this part here. This is the rock scallop. This is Sugar with the hunting stick and myself. And here is the image of abalone. Abalone is really part of the snail family.
13307. Both the rock scallop and abalone would be affected by an oil spill, which is especially important given the collapse of abalone populations in the Pacific Northwest Coast.
13308. I want to talk about the path forward. I want to share a story about getting argillite -- the slate from which Haida art is made -- with my dad Claude Davidson from Slatechuck Mountain. Along the trail my dad said “You always have to look back to where you came from so you can always find your way back.”
13309. I want to expand on this teaching and use it to look back at our history post-contact. There are many indignities that have been forced upon us through Canada’s history and Canada’s laws. Without dwelling on these indignities, I want to name a few, such as reducing our land base to reserves, outline our connection to our spirituality through our potlatches and therefore our connection to song and dance.
13310. Taking our children into residential schools, into foreign lands also had a great impact on our culture. It would be like having Canadian children taken away to Russia and not having contact with their families for years.
13311. People like my parents came home like strangers, not knowing their families, not knowing their roles in society, like how to be parents, aunties, uncles, mothers, fathers and not knowing our history. They believed it was a shameful thing to speak Haida. It took many years before my dad was able to speak Haida confidently again.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson 13312. But through all these indignities we’ve always had food on the table. It was the food from the land and oceans that helped us survive the many onslaughts on our way of life. We’ve always maintained our connection to the land, waters and oceans, and the land, waters and oceans has helped us and nurtured our bodies and spirituality in our art. But our culture cannot sustain another blow to the oceans and the food that has nourished us for millennia.
13313. Now, I want to close my presentation with an image of raven -- of a raven sculpture. Raven is our culture hero and embodies all the human attributes, both good and bad, such as seeker of knowledge, greed, connivance and even lechery. Many of our stories and many of our lessons and discoveries are all channelled through raven, such as how the rivers were formed, where the salmon came from, the medicines, fire. His name was Nang kilsdlaas, as I mentioned before, he whose voice is obeyed.
13314. It is fitting to end with another lesson from raven and should bear on every decision that impacts the lands and waters. In the very beginning of our oral history before Haida Gwaii was formed, raven was flying over the water, and he was looking for a place to rest. And he knew about this reef on the very southern tip of where Haida Gwaii would be and upon arriving there, the reef was heaped with the supernatural beings. The stronger ones were resting on the reef and the weaker ones were floating around the reef.
13315. At that moment, he realized he didn't have a place to rest; so he bit into the sky and as he bit into the sky, he was transformed into a Myth town. A Myth town has five rows of houses. And at that moment, he arrived in the village. He saw that the Chief's daughter had a baby; so he found his way to the baby and pulled the child's body out of the skin and put the skin on and became the baby.
13316. And in the evening, he was absolutely starving because he was fed baby- sized portions. And we all know Raven has a voracity -- a voracious appetite. And after everybody went to sleep, Raven went to each -- to one row of houses and plunked out one eyeball from each person and put it in a basket and took it back to where he was staying, and he cooked it on the fire. And that was his food and this happened three times. So three rows of houses -- of people, they only had one eyeball.
13317. And people were all talking furiously and asking what was happening. And in the corner of the house, there was a supernatural being that is half-human and half-rock, and that supernatural being told the people what was happening; Raven was really -- pardon me, that baby was really Raven.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 CHN/OMVC Oral presentations Mr. Robert Davidson
13318. And when they found out the baby was Raven, they threw the baby out and the baby came from the sky and landed on the water and carried on to another episode.
13319. I was puzzled by the story for a long time and I tried to make sense of it. So I covered one eye, and we all know when you cover one eye there's no depth of perception. We -- this piece here, this mask is wide but not very deep, which you might not perceive from this angle. It was made to economize on old growth wood which is becoming scarce. I made this piece to illustrate the path that Canadian society is on. The pursuit of objectives for the benefit of a few without considering the greater good will be our demise.
13320. If we allow the tankers to pass through Haida Gwaii waters, we will become those one-eyed people in that five-row story town. We will become ravenous. That's the title of this object -- sculpture and here is the one eyeball.
13321. We will become ravenous and greedy without preservation of our culture for the future of our children and grandchildren.
13322. Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
13323. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
13324. Ms. Williams-Davidson, it's been a powerful and full day, and I wonder if it would be a good idea to think about closing off today now and to come back with the rest of your panel tomorrow morning. We have the time to do that and that would perhaps allow everybody in the community to get home to their families and to carry on with the rest of their day.
13325. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: So I just want to be clear. So tomorrow morning, we would begin with the last panel for the Council of the Haida Nation?
13326. THE CHAIRPERSON: That would be my suggestion. We can work whatever way would work for you, but I know that we have the time for it tomorrow.
13327. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Okay, that's fine. We would like to,
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Closing remarks Reverend Bell however, close with a prayer for the evening and call upon Reverend Lilly Bell for that, please?
13328. THE CHAIRPERSON: And not trying to rush that part of it. I just wondered if maybe we were all starting to get pretty tired and starting again fresh in the morning might help us all.
13329. So before we close with the prayer, I'll just thank everybody who's in the room and those who have already left as well for the tremendous -- for the tremendous day, the wealth of oral evidence that you've shared with us, the Panel. I'm pretty sure I speak on behalf of my Panel mates that we’re humbled by the experience.
13330. We look forward to carrying on tomorrow and we will sit again tomorrow morning starting at 9:00. So with that, we'll let you close.
13331. MS. WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON: Okay, and just for the record, we're just getting started, so we're not tired. Thank you.
13332. THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
--- (Applause/Applaudissements)
13333. REVEREND BELL: Haaw'a, we'll close in prayer but before that, I'd like to have some humour because sometimes you guys make things so heavy.
13334. But anyway I heard that -- maybe you guys could check it on Internet. You know the man likes -- he already went to the moon. And I heard that he wants to do some mining up there. Maybe you guys can find out if that's true.
13335. And I wanted to be here so bad, I was supposed to go to a meeting in Prince Rupert. So I'm going to have to say I'm sorry to the Bishop, but this is more important for our Haida Nation. And I had a flat tire but I said, “Oh, that's okay, as long as I make it to the hall.” But I don't know how many people came in to tell me my tire was flat, but I think it's fixed now.
13336. But I am just so grateful for today and you know some of us ladies and even the guys, I think, we're having a dilemma because we heard that one of our main stores is going to close uptown, the one they call Fields. So we're all feeling so bad about it.
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011 Closing remarks Reverend Bell
13337. But I was sitting here thinking you know we could live without Fields. We could probably live without Wal-Mart. We could live without Zellers and we probably could even live without Dellmas Co-op, and we could probably live without Atwells or any of the food stores, but we cannot live without the land, the food of Haida Gwaii that has nourished us and fed us physically and spiritually ever since God our Creator, placed us here as Haida People on this precious and great and sacred holy land of Haida Gwaii.
13338. For the closing prayer, I'd like us to have a moment of silence because I think of Chief Iljuwaas, I think of Skilay, all our people, our ancestors that fought so hard that we could be here today. So we hold that in our hearts as we take this moment to think of all our precious people who are here with us in spirit telling us to keep on with this good fight.
(Closing Prayer/Prière de clôture)
--- Upon adjourning at 5:39 p.m./L'audience est ajournée à 17h39
Transcript Hearing Order OH-4-2011