An overview of the Big White Ski Resort in syilx Okanagan territory on Oct. 4, as the ski resort continues its expansion. Recently, the Sinixt Confederacy extended their area of consultation into the ski resort’s development area, causing concern amongst the syilx Okanagan Nation.

Image Credit: Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative

Leaders from the syilx Okanagan Nation are raising concerns about the “ever-expanding transborder claims” of a related tribe in the U.S. that has begun asserting land rights north of the border.

An email obtained by IndigiNews from the province’s tourism ministry confirmed the Sinixt Confederacy has extended what it considers its area of consultation to include the Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna.

The resort 80 kilometres north of the border sits on the ancestral territory of the syilx Okanagan Nation. For years, responsibility for the area has fallen under the Westbank First Nation’s (WFN) jurisdiction.

“What is happening at Big White, and in the eastern part of our territory, goes far beyond anything prescribed by the courts to date, and it risks opening a Pandora’s box of transborder claims across the province,” said WFN y?ilmix?m (Chief) Robert Louie in a statement on Monday.

The Sinixt Confederacy was recently created by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (CTC) inWashington, and opened an office in Nelson, B.C. last year. The Sinixt Confederacy has been re-establishing its presence after being falsely declared extinct by Canada in 1956.

However, syilx Okanagan Nation leaders say the Sinixt are already represented in B.C. under its umbrella. WFN is one of eight member communities within the syilx’s governing body, the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA). The U.S.-based CTC is also a member.

Sinixt people carry a dugout cedar canoe during a week-long canoe journey through their ancestral waterways in 2022, which saw Sinixt people living in the U.S. cross over the colonial border to reconnect with their territory in British Columbia.

Image Credit: Mike Graeme

According to the Sept. 16 email from the province’s Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport to WFN, the Sinixt Confederacy has extended its consultation boundary to include an area where the ski hill wants to expand.

The ministry’s email said “we are awaiting a response to determine the degree to which (the Sinixt Confederacy) wish to be involved in this process.”

IndigiNews reached out to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, but it said it could not provide comment because of restrictions during the campaign for the Oct. 19 provincial election.

Chief Louie called the development about the consultation boundary “very disturbing.”

“The province has now allowed the Sinixt Confederacy … to now be consulted and directly involved in this,” Louie said in an interview with IndigiNews.

“We want to make sure that any development that takes place is done properly and is mindful, with proper assessments being done, so that our nature and our lands are protected.”

Meanwhile, B.C.’s New Democratic Party leader released a joint statement with WFN on Monday. “While there is in some limited circumstances a legal obligation to provide notice to Aboriginal groups located outside Canada about projects proceeding in British Columbia,” David Eby said in the statement.

“First Nations located in B.C. must always be the priority and primary focus of all levels of government including the province of B.C.”

‘We’ve never been in it for money’

When asked about the Sinixt Confederacy’s expansion into the Big White Ski Resort area, Jarred-Michael Erickson, the chairman for the CTC, said that he “can’t comment much on that project in particular,” and that it’s the Confederacy staff who often deal with project consultations.

However, the Confederacy will often inquire about consultation projects near their ancestral territory in Canada, he said, to protect cultural artifacts and ensure the proper repatriation of ancestral remains.

“I don’t know where (Louie) got that we were in it for money, or anything. We’ve never been in it for money,” said Erickson. “We spend all of our own tribal money on all these consultations and projects we’re commenting on.”

Erickson said that he is “not sure what the concern is” because the Sinixt Confederacy is only claiming Sinixt — formerly known as the Lakes Tribe — territory, which he said is not the same as syilx Okanagan territory.

“We provide our ethnic history report to the B.C. government, which the B.C. government is part of, and published, showing where our territory was and how, why it was, and where was that,” he said.

As the Big White ski hill has developed and expanded over recent years, it has consulted with WFN over its use of the land, including impacts on water and wildlife, and preserving access to plants and medicines for the nation.

“The government has, inadvertently, allowed Sinixt to now be involved in this consultation,” said Louie, a member of the ONA’s Chief Executive Council. “But it’s carrying beyond consultation.”

If the Sinixt Confederacy continues to gain the support of “Canadian” governments and the broader public, Louie said the ONA is worried that the Confederacy could eventually try to assert title and other rights along the eastern boundary of syilx Okanagan territory.

He said it would be wrong to “exclude our nation in our own lands,” adding that “we’re seeing remnants” of the Sinixt Confederacy pushing further into syilx homelands. Louie added that if colonial governments were to say the Sinixt Confederacy has claim to Aboriginal title in B.C. then “that is huge.”

“Does that mean that the government is going to now include U.S. citizens to benefit from all the resources — forestry, fish, minerals, land claims — all of the above?”

Development around the Big White mountain in syilx Okanagan territory on Oct. 4, as the ski resort continues its expansion.

Image Credit: Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative

Allowing that, Louie argued, could escalate future cross-border claims far beyond just land title, but all taxpayers who could see money flowing south cross the border.

“The primary consultative base and the accommodation must be with Okanagan syilx people,” Louie said. “And that has to be north of the 49th parallel.”

Aftermath of the Desautel decision

Tensions over Sinixt territorial rights have emerged in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2021, in what’s known as the Desautel decision. The top court ruled that CTC is a successor group to the Sinixt people, who once occupied a reserve by the province’s Arrow Lakes.

According to the Sinixt Confederacy, the Arrow Lakes people are one of 12 member tribes who form the CTC.

The Desautel ruling stated a “constellation of factors” drove many Sinixt people south of the border.

In the early 1900s, settler colonialism forced the Sinixt people to leave their Arrow Lakes homelands. An Arrow Lakes Band reserve had been established in 1902, but by that time only 21 Sinixt actually still lived on their traditional territory in “Canada.”

Louie said that the syilx Okanagan territory overlaps with the Sinixt at the location of the Arrow Lakes reserve, noting that the area has a place name for the syilx Okanagan that “deals directly with fishing.”

As time went on, some Sinixt people moved onto other First Nations’ reserves or joined their relatives to the south on the Colville Reserve.

Despite living in the U.S., many Sinixt people continued to hunt in their ancestral homelands near the Arrow Lakes until 1930. But by that time, there was only one member still enrolled in the Arrow Lakes band, who died in 1956, leading “Canada” to deem the community extinct — reverting their territory to provincial Crown land.

Today, Erickson said that many Sinixt descendants can be found in neighbouring tribes on both sides of the colonial border, such as the syilx Okanagan, Secwépemc and Ktunaxa.

Erickson himself is of syilx and Sinixt descent.

“I don’t want to erase one tribe’s history over the other. They have their distinct histories,” he said.

Both the syilx and Sinixt speak the n?s?l?xcin? (nsyilxc?n) language, but Erickson said that the two use different dialects.

“You can’t say that because you’re speaking the same language, that you’re the same tribe,” he said.

The Sinixt Confederacy even argues on its website that the “language that one speaks does not determine one’s nationality” — likening it to Canadians and Americans holding distinct nationalities despite most speaking English.

But Louie countered that the syilx and Sinixt are in fact one single people.

“One n?s?l?xcin?-speaking language, one culture, one land,” he said. “And we operate under that culture and protection of land as one. But the U.S. and Canada border now distinguishes who are citizens of which country.”

A statement from ONA said the “ever-expanding transborder claims” of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation are causing “serious alarm and harm,” because ONA already represents Sinixt interests.

In 2010, the CTC and ONA signed a Declaration of Unity which reflected “the longstanding shared cultural, kinship, territorial, economic, and political ties of the syilx people.”

“What the Sinixt confederacy are trying to say is that they’re the only successor group of the Sinixt people,” Louie said. “And that is not true.”

Desautel ‘does not involve a claim for Aboriginal title’

As outlined in the 2021 Desautel case, Richard Desautel — a CTC member living in Washington — was charged for hunting an elk in the ancestral territory of the Sinixt 11 years earlier, despite not being a resident of the country.

During the Desautel case, syilx Elders Richard Armstrong and Hazel Squakin — both of Sinixt descent — testified that the Sinixt people in fact survived, despite the government’s declaration.

The court ruled Desautel was exercising his Aboriginal right to hunt for food, a right still held by the Sinixt, according to the ruling. The decision stated that modern-day successors of the Sinixt are entitled to assert Aboriginal rights held by the Sinixt, even if they live in the “U.S.”

“It is not a requirement that there be a present-day Aboriginal community in the geographic area where the claimed right is exercised,” the decision stated.

However, the court also ruled that “the present case involves an Aboriginal right to hunt for food, social and ceremonial purposes. It does not involve a claim for Aboriginal title.”

The court also left open “the possibility that there may be others” who could claim to have hold rights as Sinixt. That conclusion led the Sinixt Confederacy to assert that it is “the only legally recognized successor group to the Sinixt.”

“It appears very clearly that the Sinixt Confederacy are trying to expand the Desautel case to something more than what the Supreme Court of Canada ruled,” Louie said.

The Confederacy has acknowledged other Sinixt descendants are today “living under colonially-imposed systems of governance on both sides of the border, including among the communities of the Okanagan Nation.”

Louie said any claims to sole successorship made by Sinixt groups are out of line with the court ruling.

“That case is a limited case dealing with the Aboriginal right to hunt elk. It doesn’t deal with anything beyond that,” he said.

“There are other successor groups, and that is us, which have blended over time fully within the integration of the Okanagan syilx people.”

The syilx Nation initially welcomed the Desautel decision, because the “Okanagan syilx people are the Sinixt,” Louie recalled.

“They’re our relatives and have been relatives since time immemorial.”

He said that it’s the syilx Okanagan Nation who are the rightful people to be consulted.

“Not the Sinixt Confederacy, who have a right to hunt elk, as expressed by the Supreme Court of Canada case,” he said.

However, Erickson said that critics who call the Desautel decision nothing more than a hunting case are “not looking in-depth enough.”

“You have to have a traditional territory to hunt in to be represented as a First Nation, which that Supreme Court case does all the way,” said Erickson. “We’re Indigenous people of Canada, and that’s the only way we can prove it.”

With the Supreme Court’s recognition of the CTC as a successor group to the Sinixt, Erickson said the next step is getting federal recognition as a First Nations in Canada.

“The court case, they only recognize that there’s — as of right now — one successor group, and that is us,” he said.

‘A direct result of colonialism’

Rosalie Yazzie, a lawyer for ONA’s Chief Executive Council who is a Sinixt descendant and a member of the syilx Okanagan Nation, said in a statement released by the ONA that “we want our syilx/Sinixt family south of the border to be acknowledged, but not to our exclusion.”

“In keeping with federal and provincial commitments to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we expect governments to understand and respect that Indigenous self-determination means that we define who we are and who represents us,” she said.

“Neither the Sinixt Confederacy nor Crown governments can sever our territory.”

The dispute over who holds legal consultation rights within “B.C.” could potentially have ramifications for other First Nations in the country. It’s also an example of the complexities at play when more than one Indigenous government or organization claims rights over the same area.

According to a 2020 briefing prepared for the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, the challenge of “shared territories” or “overlaps” between Indigenous territorial claims “is a direct result of colonialism,” and part of the “colonial enterprise of denial and extinguishment” of Indigenous people’s rights.

The document’s author — lawyer and Indigenous rights expert Roshan Danesh — wrote that colonialism divided Indigenous communities from each other by imposing “Eurocentric concepts of property and land ownership, a focus on fixed and narrow categories and types of land relation, a pre-occupation with mapping and boundary delineation.”

“Shared territory and overlap issues are a major challenge and source of tension,” he wrote, adding those issues impact not only First Nations negotiating treaties, but also those “in other contexts such as the negotiation of revenue and benefit sharing arrangements.”

‘They’re not separate and distinct’

The Sinixt Confederacy’s “Nelson” office is funded through CTC tribal money and a small amount of grants, Erickson said.

Louie said he has concerns that the Confederacy is trying to “establish themselves in Canada” by setting up a local outpost, meeting with different levels of government, and saying “they’re the rightful owners only.”

“That is the misunderstanding,” Louie added. “They’re miscommunicating.”

According to Louie, the Sinixt Confederacy’s creation by the CTC reflects a schism within the ONA, which he characterized as part of the CTC “tearing up” the Unity Declaration it signed with the syilx Okanagan, leaving their relationship “in jeopardy.”

“It’s like family breakups — something goes wrong in a family, and then people start separating,” he said. “Because we are relatives … the Sinixt are part of Okanagan syilx. They’re not separate and distinct.”

Erickson said that the rift upsets him, adding that the two groups “shouldn’t be at this point.”

“We shouldn’t be fighting each other,” he said.

“There are a lot of relations, and it’s unfortunate. We get these families starting to get upset with each other, so I’d like to work through them so we’re not at that point, but we’ll see what the future holds. I’m hopeful anyway.”

But he did say that the ball is ONA’s court if they want to work together or not.

“Instead of doing these media campaigns or smear campaigns — whatever you want to call them — to try to erase our history and erase who we are,” he said.

“We keep getting this, ‘not being welcomed home.’ It’s been sad, it’s unfortunate. But, I mean, I hope we can work better in the future.”

‘Better together than against each other’

In Monday’s joint statement released by Louie and Eby, the NDP leader agreed to side with syilx Nation in matters impacting their rights, stating that is “the best way to advance reconciliation that benefits” the nation and residents.

“With this history of co-operation and mutual benefit in mind, we have supported deep consultation with the syilx Okanagan Nation for the Big White expansion project and will continue to do so,” the statement said, in part.

“We recognize and respect the syilx Okanagan Nation’s representative role in relation to Sinixt people in Canada in syilx Okanagan Nation Territory.”

The two leaders acknowledged the Desautel court decision has brought challenges that “must be addressed” by syilx Nation and other governments alike.

But the statement added that “in some limited circumstances” the province has a “legal obligation to provide notice to Aboriginal groups located outside Canada about projects proceeding in British Columbia.” However, the statement emphasized that “First Nations located in B.C. must always be the priority” and the main focus of governments in this country.

The BC Green Party provided its own statement on Tuesday, saying they “fully support the position of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and provincial government,” adding that: “After the election, Sonia Furstenau looks forward to meeting with the chiefs to discuss how we can offer support.”

Louie welcomed Eby’s commitment.

“I think he fully grasps the seriousness of what reconciliation really is, and how it really pertains to us, that it can’t be to our exclusion,” Louie said.

“Quite frankly, within various ministries, that’s what was happening … you need to protect the interests of the Canadian First Nations.”

Erickson said that he’s not too worried about Eby showing support for the syilx Okanagan Nation.

“Once we get established as a First Nation recognized by the federal government, we’ll be included in that. We’ll reach out, I’m sure, in the future, and potentially have some conversation with them,” he said.

“Again, kind of sad. Makes me a little sad to hear some of those things, but we’ll work on those things.”

He said that he hopes that all parties can work towards a peaceful solution in the future, where they live in unity and partnership.

“I couldn’t imagine fighting forever like this — I shouldn’t say fighting, but it’s disagreements,” he said.

“I want something where we’re working together, because I think we’re better together than against each other.”

— This story was originally published by IndigiNews

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