Madison Terbasket of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band, pictured in snpinktn (Penticton) in syilx Okanagan territory on Dec. 3, 2024.

Image Credit: Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative

Madison Terbasket grew up learning about syilx title and rights from her culture’s worldview as a member of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band (LSIB).

Since childhood, the 25-year-old has been deeply rooted in her homelands of nk?rulaux? (Blind Creek, Place of Yellow Dirt) in sm?lqmíx (Similkameen, Eagle Valley) territory.

As she got older, she said she began to realize that the nearby Copper Mountain Mine was violating not just her First Nation’s ancestral laws governing water, but other syilx laws, too.

Located south of “Princeton, B.C.,” in sm?qmíx homelands in syilx Okanagan territory, the site now known as Copper Mountain Mine has seen operations since 1923. While the mine’s owners want to significantly expand the mine’s operations, many are concerned about threats to the Similkameen River and its tributaries.

Terbasket said the sm?lqmíx’s “entire identity comes from that river.”

“We’re the valley of the eagles — how can you feed the eagles if there’s no river?” she said. “It’s our identity. It’s also very much the lifeblood of our land.”

An aerial view of the Similkameen River, pictured on Dec. 4, 2024, flowing through the town of Keremeos in sm?lqmíx homelands.

Image Credit: Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative

No access to medicines at mine site: knowledge keeper

In an interview, cewel’na Leon Louis — a knowledge keeper from LSIB — explained that sm?lqmíx translates to Eagle Valley, from the nsyilxc?n language. 

“We are the eagle people, famous for eagle feathers and ochre,” Louis told IndigiNews. “That’s what we used to paint our faces and paint our rock paintings. That’s what our people are known for.”

sknir?mn (Buttercup) Anona Kampe, a syilx Okanagan knowledge keeper, said in March that the rock paintings found throughout the territory range from hundreds to thousands of years old.

“When anthropologists were first making their journey throughout our territory, they came to the false conclusion that this was our first attempt at a written language. And we knew that wasn’t true,” said Kampe.

An account published by a local settler historian in 1958 details how the Similkameen Valley between “Princeton” and Hedley” features 20 sets of red ochre paintings.

“Some of the paintings have to do with tribal rites and initiation ceremonies, some are guides for hunters and travelers, others are historical records,” says John Goodfellow’s The Story of Similkameen.

Goodfellow details how Indigenous people in the valley dug for bitterroot, gathered wild potato and wild onions, picked huckleberries, seeds and much more. 

“Fishing in lakes and rivers supplied much of the Indian diet. Basket traps were used, also horsehair lines to which thorns, or cactus hooks were attached,” the account states.

“Native women made the baskets, and homemade twine. Before they were able to obtain rifles for hunting the natives used bows and arrows, lariats and snares. Even deer were snared. 

“At other times a whole tribe, with the help of their dogs, would herd deer into a natural corral, where they were quickly killed with bows and arrows.”

This same historical account details how settlement led to a deliberate attempted extinction of syilx ways of knowing in favour of “the white men’s civilization.” This began with the fur trade, then evolved into mining and the search for gold, copper and coal.

Under settler colonialism, the Copper Mountain Mine’s location saw its first operations a century ago. Several companies have acquired ownership of the project over the last century, as the mine saw intervals of activity and inactivity.

Louis said the mine site itself bars sm?lqmíx members from practicing culture and ceremony in that area, as they had done in the past. 

“We would go hunt, fish. Picking our roots, our berries, gathering our medicines,” he said. 

The mine not only infringes on their title to land and their right to practice culture and conduct ceremonies, Louis said. Both Terbasket and Louis spoke of how the mining operation also interferes with the sm?lqmíx’s responsibilities to uphold their rights in taking care of the tmx?ulax? (the land), siw?k? (water) and tmix? (all living things) for the next seven generations to come.

“These are our laws that take care of the land. Because if we take care of the land, the land takes care of us,” he said.

“We think about seven generations yet to come. They’re not yet born. They need to have clean water, clean air, have access to our foods and medicines. That’s what seven generations before us did so that we would have access to that. Now, it’s our responsibility.”

The problem with Copper Mountain Mine and all of its owners throughout its history is that they only care about profit and have no connection to the land, Louis said.

“Contaminating the land, contaminating the water, contaminating our medicines, our foods. All that affects us. When we eat that, it’s going to make us sick,” he said.

“We have a prophecy about that. Eventually, we won’t have any access to any of our foods, our medicines, the water.”

‘Is a syilx law not being broken every day by that mine?’

In July, staff at Hudbay Minerals, the current co-owners of Copper Mountain Mine, hosted a meeting with the sm?lqmíx community. 

The band members-only gathering was for the company to share its plans to extend the mine’s life by 14 years, by reviving the mine’s former Ingerbelle Pit. IndigiNews obtained an audio recording of the meeting.

Terbasket, one of the youngest members to speak at the community gathering, shared her concerns about the proposed Ingerbelle Pit expansion, and the mine as a whole. 

She told the meeting’s participants that the mine has repeatedly violated syilx laws, and has a history of harming the water. 

This year, the provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy issued six fines to Copper Mountain Mine totalling $105,348, with all of the offences related to the pollution of nearby waters. In 2021, the mine at one point exceeded the legal limit of copper waste discharged from its tailings pond into Wolfe Creek by more than 4,500 per cent.

“Does that mine treat our water with respect that we have been taught? How much have they abused that water? And if that is true, then is a syilx law not being broken every day by that mine?” Terbasket said during the meeting. “It’s really terrifying.”

She acknowledged that in today’s world, corporate profits often “outweigh the impact” of resource extraction.

“But right now as it stands, I see this as a clear attack on our title and rights,” she said, “and threatening our water — the lifeblood of our land.”

A syilx Elder and knowledge keeper also spoke up during the meeting, saying they are worried for future generations. IndigiNews did not receive permission to publish their name.

“I sit in this room and see a few of the young ones, the kids. I worry about them — what’s going to be their future? By the time that child is grown up, some of you that’s making a deal (on the Ingerbelle pit) will be in a bone yard,” the Elder said.

“I’m worried about my valley here, where I grew up. Too much damage — I don’t want to see any more of it.”

At one point during the meeting, a child from the community approached the mic and said she has something to say about the Similkameen River.

“I just like the river, and you all like the river, do you?” she asked, to which many in the community enthusiastically responded, “Yeah! We love the river.”

syilx Okanagan laws about water ‘all intertwined’

In their 2014 siw?k? (Water) Declaration, the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) recognized water as a “relation” of people — a sacred entity to be treated with reverence and respect.

“Any use of water should be an act of reverence and a commitment to our responsibilities,” the declaration states.

As well, the ONA’s 2018 I? Syilx i? suk?naqinx scq??lq?ilt?t Syilx Okanagan Language Declaration outlines that the laws related to their territory, lands, water and resources are held in their nsyilxc?n language.

“The Creator has stood us, the nsyilxc?n-speaking people, up here as keepers of our territory, lands, water and resources for the good of all time,” the declaration states in its first clause. 

Meanwhile, the ONA’s 2022 axá i? sccunt?t i? tl x?a?xit?t x?l i? nqsil?t?t Family Declaration states that Creator gave syilx people “the responsibility to be keepers of their waters, territory, lands, foods, and resources,” its seventh article says, “and we continue to do so.”

Terbasket, who works for Penticton Indian Band’s natural resources department, told IndigiNews her nation’s numerous official documents governing water are interconnected.

“They’re all intertwined,” she explained. “Even though you’re breaking the water declaration, you’re still going to break the family [and] still breaking the language declarations.

In 2022, LSIB y?ilmix?m (Chief) kal?lùpa?'n Keith Crow told IndigiNews the Similkameen River is “endangered” by a number of factors, including mining contamination, forestry, and climate change. 

“If we lose the Similkameen, which is the lifeblood of our valley … we lose our identity,” he said. “We lose who we are.”

In November, Crow and Upper Similkameen Indian Band (USIB) Chief Bonnie Jacobsen were among the group of syilx and non-syilx leaders who signed a memorandum of agreement vowing with other regional leaders to work together to protect the Okanagan and Similkameen watersheds.

Both Jacobsen and Crow declined IndigiNews’ requests to speak about the mine, the proposed Ingerbelle pit expansion, and the contents of the community meeting from July.

In 2019, LSIB and USIB entered “participation agreements” with then mine-owners Copper Mountain Mining Corporation. That same year, the application for the New Ingerbelle project had been applied for. 

sm?qmíx leadership has not yet made a decision on the New Ingerbelle Expansion project. It’s unclear how much revenue the two bands themselves generate from the mining operations.

A joint statement from LSIB and USIB released in 2023 said both First Nations “have been frustrated with the mine for years and the relationship has become increasingly strained.” 

“First Nations governments are joint decision makers, and we expect companies on our land to treat us with fairness and respect as the caretakers of our lands and waters since time immemorial,” said a statement from Jacobsen at the time. 

“Our lands have never been ceded, surrendered, or sold.”

IndigiNews also reached out to Hudbay Minerals but did not receive a response. 

Louis said that even in the face of environmental injustice and corporate greed, the community should never lose their hope and their strength in pushing back against the mine’s expansion.

“We should always try. Never give up. It’s like trying to push a big boulder up a hill,” he said.

“You can’t lose hope. You always gotta keep going. Everything I do is to help my people. I cannot get discouraged.”

— This article was originally published by IndigiNews

News from © iNFOnews, 2024