Westbank First Nation gained self-government with the commitment to becoming self-sufficient by leasing out their land.

Image Credit: Submitted/Westbank First Nation

Ever wonder how European colonizers decided where to put Indian reserves in the Okanagan?

It may have come down to a failure to communicate — and cows.

“How our reserves came to be came from a messed up discussion,” Coralee Miller, the docent at Westbank First Nation’s Sncwips Heritage Museum, told iNFOnews.ca. “The way we talk kind of got us in trouble.”

Their way of talking is to be very direct and only answer the specific questions that are asked of them without adding further detail, she explained.

That had a bearing on the Okanagan people being called by that name instead of Syilx after they were asked by early explorers what they were (scouts) not who they were (Syilx).

READ MORE: How Europeans distorted the true names of Kamloops and the Okanagan

The reserve system in the Okanagan actually dates back to the 1860s when the Syilx were at odds with the Shuswap and were forming a war council at the head of Okanagan Lake.

The Indian Agent got word and suggested they talk first.

“As a result, the Dominion of Canada promised to formally set aside lands for the Sylix Okanagan Nation,” says the Okanagan Nation Alliance website.

Surveying for reserves began in 1870 under the Indian Act, the site says.

It took until 1888-1893 for Commissioner Peter O’Reilly to allot Indian Reserves “on behalf of, and without the consent of, Syilx Okanagan Nation communities,” the site says.

This is where the cows come in, according to Miller, who also acknowledges that there may be different versions of the story dating back to that war council.

“We demanded that we speak our language,” she said. “He (the Indian Agent) said OK. The first red flag was, they got it translated.”

That was problematic since many Syilx words don’t translate easily into English.

“The second red flag was, they only wanted to talk to our men and the leaders in our community are women,” Miller said.

What was supposed to be a discussion turned into the men being asked three questions, starting with how many people were in each family. There were not many, given the impacts of things like smallpox.

Then they were asked how many cattle they had. Not being cattle people, that was rather a moot point.

“So then they asked us: ‘If you had cattle, where would you feed them?’” Miller said.

The Europeans opened a map and pointed to different locations, asking if the Syilx would graze cattle at various locations. For most they answered no.

For some areas they answered maybe, which became the reserves.

“They gave the land where we would feed the cows if we had any, but they never asked us: ‘Why wouldn’t you feed cattle there?’” Miller said.

“We would have said: ‘Well this is a marsh. This is where my salmon come down, I don’t want cows walking in the creek or stepping on the eggs. This is where my people are buried. This is where my medicine grows. This is where I hunt. This is a sacred site. This is where I sweat. This is where I pray. This is where I dig for roots, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.’

“They figured, well you’re not using that land. Not in the way that’s important to you but in a way that keeps our people going. So every inch of this land, we had been utilizing.”

READ MORE: Spiritualists, Japanese warlords and mispronounced words: Where the Okunaakan got its names

Fast forward 100 years to the time Westbank started campaigning for self-government.

That process began in the 1970s but it took another 30 years to get there.

“In 1993, we sent a letter of intent to Ottawa saying we’re going to become a government and Ottawa says: ‘Bring it on,’” Miller said. “So we did. It was a lot of campaigning. It was a lot of going to Parliament and just fighting around the table for about 10 years mostly because Ottawa thought we were stupid Indians. They would slide us a contract. We would look at it and go: ‘We know what these words mean. Stop it.’ and slide it back.”

This is where the cows come back into the picture.

“When we were going for self-government, we had to prove: No that (reserve site) is all messed up. We were actually using everything in this land,” Miller said.

“We had to rely on oral history but oral history back then did not count in court so we had to translate the elders, and this is hard. You’ve heard our language. It’s a little throaty. It’s a little guttural and a lot of words are really hard to spell in English phonetics.”

The Self-Government Agreement was initialed by the federal government in 2000 but it still had to be passed by an absolute majority of band members – meaning more than 50% of all eligible voters.

The first vote got 60% support and the second, in 2002, had 69% of voters in favour. But those were not absolute majorities, according to an article on the Westbank First Nation website.

The rules were changed to a simple majority, which passed in a third referendum in May 2022.

The final hurdle came in 2004.

“We were so close,” Miller said. “Ottawa said: ‘Hold on. Everything looks great but, how are you guys going to make money? How do we know you’re not going to become a welfare state?’

“We were actually: ‘Yes. How are we going to make money?’ So what we did, we got our community together and we made the decision to lease our lands so, by leasing our lands, anybody who is living on here or does their business here, they pay a land tax which goes back to our government which goes into infrastructure, into programming and resources.”

Westbank First Nation got its formal self-government powers on April 1, 2005.

“We celebrated, then it was straight to work,” Miller said. “We had to make money to prove to them that we’re legit and that meant donning the business suits and learning how to walk in the white world.”

As a self-governing body, the band was able to change its name to Westbank First Nation while most Indigenous people in the Okanagan are still dubbed Indian Bands.

“When we became Westbank First Nation we came out from under the Indian Act,” Miller said. “They (other bands) can’t change it. If we go: ‘We’re not Indians,’ the government says: ‘I’m sorry. All these rights are for Indians. Are you telling us you’re not Indians now?’”

Westbank did not get back all the land they were using before the Europeans came.

"That’s why it’s important with those land acknowledgements the word unceded is used," Miller said. "Unceded means we did not trade. We did not sell. We were just seriously at the end of a barrel and told to move."

For more on Westbank First Nation history, go here.

 - This story was updated at 7:32 a.m. on Aug. 7, 2023 to correct a date.

- This story was updated a 8:57 a.m. on Aug. 11, 2023 to correct the use of the word reserves.

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