survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam

Yvonne Tupper of the Saulteau First Nation, photograph by Zoë Ducklow circa 2017
A 1900 map of Treaty 8 with the Site C location roughly just above the ‘TISH’ in British Columbia – Government of Canada Department of Indian Affairs. Some of the information on the indigenous communities is incorrect.
Soil exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270092 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

an on-going site-based intervention

 

survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam

 

Protection of food resources and respective species and ecosystems, both for local indigenous communities and more generally, has often been the central motive in First Nations governments acquiescing to the treaties drawn up by colonial governments: for survival in the deepest senses. The subsequent disrespecting of such treaties continues to be central to underlying Canadian cultural and political identities. And reasserting treaty and consultative rights (Gutman 2018) has often been bound to continued efforts of indigenous governments to protect and restore those food sources and relationships for communal sustenance. So the disrespecting of treaties has had a relationship to indigenous cultural landscapes and respective ecosystems, food, and emotions: from individual experiences to collective aesthetics and broader visual cultures.

Soil exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in the preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
A site concept for “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam”

I grew up in a multiracial family with histories and relationships with four indigenous languages: Chinook that I was taught by my father, Sencoten that was spoken around me as a boy and that is the dominant Salish language in the communities in which I grew up and in which I continue to live, Halkamelen in which my father could converse and which is widely spoken across the Salish Sea, and north-western Canadian French / Métis Michif that maternal relatives spoke in northern British Columbia and that was largely avoided in lieu of standard French. From a very early age, I listened to relatives and elders talk about the disrespecting of the Douglas Treaties, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, by provincial and federal agencies, including BC Hydro. These experiences of the betrayal of treaties by the Canadian state, complaints made and confirmed by the trusted figures in our extended family and community, were formative — though less in generating anger and more confirming an intuitive lack of confidence in the Canadian state and a deep commitment to communal survival.

A symbolic graphic for survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam with the overlapping circles suggesting abundant fruit, well-packed, or an aerial view of thriving fruit trees.
Soil exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in the preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

For indigenous communities in Western Canada, historical memories persist of both mass starvation, as seen in the Prairies for First Nations and Métis communities, and a more general theft, degradation, and displacement of food resources from salmon and eulachon to the destruction of indigenous gardens, crabapple groves and hazelnut orchards. These losses have yet to be fully assessed. So food and the arts for cultivation and stewardship are as cultural as they are political — though far less easily integrated into contemporary economies of artistic production and performance.

Centre of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 8 P8270082 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
South-eastern Salt Spring Island as the neighbourhood context, with the site north of the lake in the centre of the satellite scene, for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam”

For most indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere, the disrespecting of treating obligations is ‘old news’. But we often have visceral responses to new forms of ‘macroagression’. With each new disregard for indigenous food resources, there is often rage, sarcasm, the humour of the nearly erased, a thousand levels of sense of helplessness, and the worst forms of despair. And in this mix of feelings, visual culture can be one of the few remaining languages to help us makes sense. Such has been the evolution of my feelings about the recent news of the continued construction of the Site C Dam in north-eastern British Columbia, ostensibly for the publicly owned British Columbia Hydro, even with the opposition of several First Nations governments concerned about food and cultural resources, governments, in contrast to BC Hydro, that continue to abide by Treaty 8.

The north side of Weston Lake, Salt Spring Island, as the context for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam”
The north side of Beaver Point Road, Salt Spring Island, as the context for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam”

Soon after the turn of the twentieth century, Treaty 8 was imposed on eight First Nations in British Columbia: Blueberry River, Doig River, Fort Nelson, Halfway River, McLeod Lake, Prophet River, Saulteau, and West Moberly. The communities of what is today north-eastern British Columbia were an ‘adhesion’ to the 1900 Treaty which was centred in what is today the Northwest Territories.

Initial 2018 site concept for “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam”
BC Hydro pole in the preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270090 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
BC Hydro pole in the preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270086 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

Dams transform regions and in this regard, British Columbia Hydro has functioned as one of the last vestiges of colonialism. The following First Nations will suffer directly from the Site C dam: Doig River, Halfway River, Prophet River and West Moberly — especially in terms of loss of food and other ecosystem-based and cultural resources. Of the First Nations effected by the Site C Dam, the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations have been most active in attempting to protect traditional land-based resources working to suspend construction. Some other First Nations have been willing to push for mitigations, most that have yet to be implemented, to the project design. A larger group of First Nations have been suffering from the earlier dams on the Peace River.

Japanese farm era fencing exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270080 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
Japanese farm era fencing exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270080 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

The recent proposal to dam the ‘Site C’ portion of the Peace River watershed, after the 1968 and 1980 dams, have generated a decade of proposals, patronizing consultations, and controversy often with efforts to pit First Nations governments against each other. For example, Pynn noted in 2013 that as well as those governments opposing the Site C Dam outright, “Three other Treaty 8 First Nations — Blueberry River, Saulteau, and McLeod Lake — have agreed to negotiate for compensation and have been offered ‘impact benefit agreements’, confirmed Dave Conway, BC Hydro community relations manager in Fort St. John.” With this ongoing rancour, Site C has been under construction since July 2015, after being approved by the B.C. Liberals with subsequent court challenges (The Canadian Press 2017). After a short suspension, construction resumed after a new provincial government completed a review in December 2015 (Shaw, 2017, Smith 2017, Alaska Highway News 2018). But with new approvals have come growing resistance much of which has played out in the media (Howell 2017) and the courts (Leotaud 2016, Alaska Highway News 2018, Kurjata 2018). While the cumulative environmental impacts may be debatable, what is clear is that at least two of the First Nations most effected by Site C have treaty protections, especially around food resources, that have been effectively ignored. Resistance, on the land and in the courts, continues (Ducklow 2017).

Soil exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270094 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
Soil exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270100 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

So as First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities have taken back their languages, lands, and resources in the last half century, the new ways that provincial agencies and crown corporations have found to circumvent sincere forms of intergovernmental diplomacy and consultation have become more turgid and pernicious. And these ‘contradictions’, to use an understatement, can be very painful and disturbing to individuals with indigenous heritages: ‘same old, same old’ violence (now sugar-coated). Art making, and in particular intervening in ‘public’ space and symbolically compensating for the loss of communal food resources, is one way to cope and move forward. And if there was a central social function of contemporary art in British Columbia in 2018, it is to create intercultural spaces to share divergent experiences and feelings in the face of state and corporate interventions that threaten the survival of vulnerable communities.

Soil exposed by BC Hydro on 2018 August 20 and revisited in preparation of the site for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8270096 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

Why a marker for Treaty 8, and its disrespecting with the the Site C Dam, so far away from the Peace River Valley? Salt Spring Island is unceded Salish territory, not specifically covered under any treaty, where currently over a score of First Nations governments are active including Cowichan Tribes, the Lyackson, Stz’uminus, Penelakut, and Halat of the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group; the various W̱SÁNEĆ councils especially the Tsawout with the only allocated Indian Reserve on the island (less than 2 kilometres south of the Marker); and the Tsawwassen. Some of these governments have never chosen to agree to the treaties offered them, notably the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group. In contrast, the W̱SÁNEĆ have suffered from colonial-era treaties forced on them through threats of imperial violence and where agreements that were dishonoured by government agencies (treaties that did not specifically extend to Salt Spring Island). More recently, the 2009 Tsawwassen First Nation Final agreement (‘the Treaty’) has been the source of ongoing discussion and skepticism — and has some kind of guaranteed relationship to territories on the Gulf Island. Perhaps more important than the unsettled status from these local agreements to the souther place of the Marker is the geopolitical fact that most of the decisions made for the British Columbia portion of Treaty 8 are made nearby, in Victoria and Vancouver, by agencies and politicians who continue to be adversarial to remote indigenous communities such as these. And the Treaty 8 First Nations in British Columbia were ‘Adhesions’, effectively after thoughts, that have given Victoria and Vancouver far more power over these northern communities than was envisioned by the indigenous leaders who signed the Treaty.

Seed source (old volunteer plum trees on the public right-of-way by 182 Beaver Point Road) for preparing the initial planting of volunteer plums (from 182 Beaver Point Road) for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P825003 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

While I was ruminating on the past and impending losses in the Peace River Valley during the heat of late summer, canning plums and blackberries, a surprisingly large BC Hydro crew arrived, unannounced, on August 20, 2018. Workers cleared a large hedge of ‘Himalayan’ blackberry, Rubus armeniacus, a particularly invasive Eurasian species that provides both superb jam and prime rat habitat. The crew cleared a quadrant, roughly 10 metres by 10 metres, for a second electricity pole. The remnants of a garden fence, from the pre-1942 farmers, was exposed. This curiously symmetrical and bare spot, on largely unmanaged ‘public’ landed owned by the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, provides an ongoing space to begin to ruminate on and respond to the horrific losses of indigenous food resources for which agencies such as BC Hydro are partially responsible. The cut also highlighted the neighbourhood’s rich history on the cusp of two Salish languages, SENĆOŦEN and Hul’q’umi’num, traditional Salish horticulture and tree stewardship, land grants to Polynesian sailors in the nineteenth century, and Japanese farms that thrived until the internments and deportations beginning in 1942.

Seed source (old volunteer plum trees on the public right-of-way by 182 Beaver Point Road) for preparing the initial planting of volunteer plums (from 182 Beaver Point Road) for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8250022 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

The following are the visual responses and aesthetic interventions in this ongoing project:

photographic documentation of the exposed earth and artefacts and subsequent monitoring;

raking and digging in the exposed soil;

movement of rock and wood including eventually signage and other text;

drawings;

planting a range of local fruit tree seeds and pits, both native, such as chokecherry, and traditional Eurasian trees such as plum;

collaborative cultivation, fencing, harvesting, documentation, tasting, preserving, and crafting;

performances spanning planting, cultivation, and harvesting;

as this orchard of renewal establishes, working with time, time-series, and monitoring as visual practices;

video documentation and the creation of clips for galleries and websites;

performances including around observing the upcoming centennial of the attempted displacement and mysterious disappearance of the last residents of the W̱EN,NÁ,NEĆ village nearby, Zalt and Mary Zalt, of the Tsawout Nation; and

research and writing.

Plums from old volunteers on the public right-of-way by 182 Beaver Point Road (purple), with the green from just down that road, for preparing the initial planting for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8260046 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

Over the last five hundred years, indigenous peoples have too often been relegated to tiny pieces of earth, sometimes clawing at bare soil. And yet these diverse communities have found and fostered the food resources for our survival. This marker is just one more reminder of the inevitability of survival in the face of one more disrespected treaty.

 

Chokecherry, from Grandma Bay just to the east, for for preparing the initial planting of “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8260072 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram *** Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana, is the only fruit tree native to every province and territory in Canada. Chokecherries connect at least 10,000 of traditional ecological and medicinal knowledge. ***
Plum canning as part of preparation for the initial planting of volunteer plums for, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam,” 2018 August 26 P8260051 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

references

Alaska Highway News. 2018. First Nations file civil lawsuit against Site C project. Times-Colonist (Victoria) JANUARY 17, 2018.  

Canadian Press, The. 2017. Federal Court of Appeal dismisses First Nations’ challenge of B.C.’s Site C dam. The Vancouver Sun (January 23, 2017).

Ducklow, Zoë. 2017. Site C Threatens Treaty Rights, Way of Life, Say Some First Nations Lots of meetings on Site C, but some Treaty 8 First Nations call consultation a sham. The Tyee (26 April 2017). 

Gutman, Rachel. 2018. The stories we tell: Site-C, Treaty 8, and the duty to consult and accommodate. Appeal (23:3).

Howell, Mike. 2017. First Nations leader slams NDP’s decision on Site C project Grand Chief Stewart Phillip says move will cause ‘irreparable harm’ to NDP brand. Vancouver Courier (December 11, 2017).

Kurjata, Andrew. 2018. West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations file court claim to Dam construction violates 1899 treaty and is unconstitutional, notice of civil claim says. CBC News (January 16, 2018).

Leotaud, Valentina Ruiz. 2016. Treaty 8 chiefs condemn Site C dam project. National Observer (April 5th 2016).

Pynn, Larry. 2013. First Nations split over BC Hydro’s Site C dam megaproject. The Vancouver Sun (December 8, 2013).

Shaw, Rob. 2017. NDP government sends Site C dam for independent review. The Vancouver Sun (August 2, 2017).

Smith, Charlie. 2017. B.C. NDP politicians justify Site C decision in personal messages to constituents. Georgia Straight (December 13th, 2017).

A quick drawing of a chokecherry as were studied ripe just two a half months ago — the kind of ongoing visual exploration and representation of fruit as part of the ongoing fruit tree stewardship of and cultivation on this site as part of, “survival: Marker for Treaty 8 & the Site C Dam” *** Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana, is the only fruit tree native to every province and territory in Canada. Chokecherries connect at least 10,000 of traditional ecological and medicinal knowledge. ***

A very old grove of Pacific crabapple, Malus fusca, south-eastern corner of the Tsawout lands, Central Saanich

 

2018 September 24 ripe Pacific crabapples at base of the north side of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240133 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

This grove of Pacific crabapple, KÁ,EWIŁĆ [SENĆOŦEN with the ‘K’ and the ‘W’ underlined], Malus fusca, is on the top of a dune ridge near the southern boundary of one of the Indian Reserves established in Saanich by the fledgling, Crown Colony of Vancouver Island. Some of these trees, especially their roots, are centuries old — and perhaps older. This landscape supports exceptional densities and genetic diversity of Pacific crabapple: a well-documented orchard that was truncated and degraded mid-nineteenth century. Tsawout elders are known to have stewarded and harvested some of these trees as late as the 1990s.

2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240108 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240090 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

The February 7, 1852 treaty over Central and South Saanich was signed by ten W̱SÁNEĆ leaders under threat of imperial violence (naval assaults that were soon to be inflicted on communities to the north). These W̱SÁNEĆ leaders were focused on maintaining their villages and food resources and may well have not been informed nor understood the severity and permanence of the giveaway of land and resources.

2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240096 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

“The conditions of our understanding of this sale is this, that our village sites and enclosed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our children, and for those who may follow after us and the land shall be properly surveyed hereafter. It is understood, however, that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the entire property of the white people for ever; it is also understood that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on our fisheries as formerly.”

2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240092 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

 

2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240087 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

The actual meaning and continued validity of this treaty hinges on the phrase, ‘our understanding’, which was more likely that of the colonial government and not of the W̱SÁNEĆ. And this scientist and public artist grew up, from a very young age, knowing about the inequities, betrayal, and travesties associated with this particular treaty. In our house: I had to hear about this particular treaty regularly (and in three languages!) from the time that I was a toddler. My use and distrust of the English language is bound organically with words like these.

2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240088 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram

As for the trees, they remain an exceptional cultural, ecological and genetic resource that has received little serious attention for research. Malus fusca is the only species of the five North American species of apple that hybridizes with, and is in the primary gene pool of cultivated apple, with a range along the North Pacific from California to Alaska to East Asia. The ridge, while vulnerable ecologically, offers superb opportunities for careful performances in cooperation with the Tsawout Nation. Unfortunately, the whole area is exceptional vulnerable to sea level rise with this ridge separated from Haro Strait by only a low expanse of low dune that soon will be beach. And Haro Strait is seeing increasing numbers of massive oil tankers prone to accidents and spills because of narrow channels, rocks, and islets.

2018 September 24 the low-lying dunes and beach below the dune ridge with the grove of exceptionally old Pacific crabapple trees south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240106 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
2018 September 24 old dune Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240093 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
2018 September 24 ripe fruit the dune ridge grove of Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240099 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram
2018 September 24 ripe fruit the dune ridge grove of Pacific crabapple south of Belly-Rising, Tsawout Indian Reserve P9240105 photograph by Gordon Brent Brochu-Ingram