UNDERSTANDING CONCEPTIONS OF LAND TENURE IN THE LAKE BABINE NATION by Corbin Greening B.A., University ofNorthem British Columbia, 2010 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN FIRST NATIONS STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA September 2014 © Corbin Greening, 2014 UMI Number: 1526481 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Di!ss0?t&iori Publishing UMI 1526481 Published by ProQuest LLC 2015. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract Understanding Conceptions o f Land Tenure in the Lake Babine is about Nation evolving values and the leaders who navigate them. The traditional territory of the Lake Babine Nation (LBN) is situated on Babine Lake, east of Smithers and north of Bums Lake - a community adjacent to the Lake Babine Nation’s largest community by population. Ownership and stewardship of land in the LBN has been rapidly evolving since the imposition of the Indian Act and other government legislation in the early 20th century, forcing the Babine to adapt their social and land management techniques. With the prospect of self-govemance on the horizon and pressure from the Federal and Provincial governments to adopt a system of land tenure based on private property, the LBN is at a crossroads. In this work, leaders from Chief and Council, the LBN Treaty Office, and the Hereditary Chiefs, expressed their vision for the management of the traditional territories, including traditional and western forms of ownership and stewardship, with an emphasis on collective responsibility. This work is designed to facilitate a discussion about the fundamental land values of the LBN and how they can be represented in the governance structure of a self- governing nation. T able o f C ontents Abstract......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................... 0 Chapter 1: Introduction to the Research.............................................................................. 1 Locating Myself......................................................................................... 6 Introduction to the Research....................................................................................................8 The Babine and the Lake Babine Nation...............................................................................11 The Bah'lats..............................................................................................................................12 The Barricade Treaty, Amalgamation, and Migration........................................................ 16 Overview of the Research Study............................................................................................20 Research Limitations................................. 21 Chapter 2: Literature Review......................................... 23 Accounts of Traditional Conceptions of Ownership................... 24 Philosophy of Western Conceptions of Ownership.............................................................38 Property Policy and Representations of Land Tenure....................................................... 51 Chapter 3: Methods...................................................................................................................62 Theoretical Approach: The Four ..................................................................R’s 62 Single-Case Study.....................................................................................................................66 Defining the Case.......................................................... 68 Contextualizing the Case..................................................................... 70 Ethics..........................................................................................................................................71 The Interviews............................................................................ 72 Analysis of the Data.......................................................................................................... 73 Chapter 4: Results...........................................................................................................74 Political Climate.................................................................................. 76 The Interview Questions................................................................... 78 Conclusion.............................................................................................. .97 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusions.......................................................................99 Reflections.............................................................................................................................. 106 Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those that have contributed to my work and helped me through my thesis writing process. First, I would like to thank the Lake Babine Nation and the leaders that participated in this work. Without you and your passion for the people and the land, this project would have been impossible. I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Ross Hoffman, who was my mentor throughout. You kept me grounded and excited about the work. Even in the toughest times, your office was a welcoming place to be. I would like to thank my committee, whose breadth of knowledge enriched both my work and me. I would also like to recognize my family, friends, peers, and many others in the UNBC community who were constantly entertaining my ideas. The conversations I had with you about everything from thesis formatting to personal development and the mysteries of the universe were profoundly important to me. Finally, I would like to recognize the late Joe Michelle, whose inquisitive energy was an inspiration for this project. Thank you. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Research Over the past two decades, comprehensive claims and self-government agreements have become a common pursuit of First Nations in British Columbia. Such agreements promise a greater breadth and depth of legal independence for First Nations who have been oppressed and restricted by the Indian Act and other colonial laws. For the vast majority of First Nations in British Columbia (BC), however, negotiation has been financially taxing and fruitless, making the inevitable sacrifice of traditional territory and traditional land tenure practices less palatable, and some self-governance agreements may restrict First Nations’ ability to practice land tenure that their values uphold. Most First Nations in BC have been in treaty negotiations with the Provincial and Federal Governments but have yet to procure a settlement. First Nations have begun exploring governance alternatives to treaty and the Indian Act that might better represent their cultural, political, and economic needs. The Lake Babine Nation is one of those groups. The Nisga’a treaty, the First Modem Treaty in British Columbia, set a precedent for the land tenure structure of treaties in BC when it was signed in 1999. While the Nisga’a treaty was being negotiated, the BC Treaty Process (BCTP) was developed to resolve outstanding title issues in British Columbia, and a small number of groups, such as the Tsawwassen First Nation, have signed treaties under its guidance. Other groups, such as the Westbank First Nation and the Haida, have signed self-government agreements outside of this process that have an ongoing influence on the expectations of structure of self- government. Comprehensive claims and self-government are not just tickets to cultural, political and economic independence, however. They have allowed the governments of Canada and BC to use their place of power to direct the structure of land tenure away from the centralized, usufructuary property of reserves toward western forms of land tenure, leaving little room for traditional land tenure practices in the governance of First Nations’ traditional territories. For groups like the Lake Babine Nation (LBN), who have a long history of their own unique traditional governance and land tenure systems, it seems presumptuous to expect that western land tenure is an immediate and viable alternative. The long history of colonialism in British Columbia and Canada have impacted First Nations peoples’ conceptions of land tenure, from the patriarchal re-organization of hunting grounds and the dismantling of salmon fisheries (D. C. Harris, 2001), to the development of the reserve system. Yet traditional Babine land tenure values are still strong, and western land tenure practices are not the only option for First Nations in BC. The Lake Babine Nation currently practice their traditional land stewardship and the Bah Tats governance system, but ideologically western policy changes have further impacted the people’s ability to practice it. Considering this, neither