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From the Chair

From the Chair

Thursday, 05 May 2011 13:38 Terry Sampson

Traditional foods brought us together

I did not really know what to expect when fellow NmTC executive member Chief Gordon Planes and I attended the Traditional Foods Summit in Seattle at the end of March. I returned home filled with a new respect for our “old foods” and amazed at the wisdom and humour of the people we met from all over North America.

One of the big things I heard is that water is the “food of all foods”. That gave me a lot to think about as I learned about the Umatilla Tribe from northeast Oregon and southeast Washington. The tribe has its own Water Code, something that we all should adopt. The code is enforced by the Umatilla’s natural resources people. They also develop policies and regulations for ground and surface water use and issue permits for water withdrawals.

Thinking about all the conversations I had down in Seattle… it seems like the Coast Salish people here in Canada have a lot more access to traditional foods than other people around North America do. We might see our sockeye disappearing or herring eggs not being as abundant as they used to be, but many of our relations in the USA don’t have any access to their traditional foods. Or, if they do, the foods are hard to find and very expensive.

The Umatilla are bringing back a lot of their traditional foods such as bison, moose, elk and Bighorn sheep that were wiped out when ranches came to their territory 150 years ago.

I learned about the value of “good fat” that can come from animal foods like the Umatilla use or the salmon and other seafoods along our coast. The brain needs these fats. Our ancestors must have known something, because these fats are found in traditional foods such as bear, salmon, eulichan oil, bird eggs and hazelnuts.

Some of the people I met in Seattle were from Louisiana. Some were from the town of Grand Bayou. I learned that it is a town without streets or cars. There is just the bayou, which is another name for a swamp or marsh around a lake or river estuary. People there use their boats to get around everywhere.

Then there were people from Montegut. Learning about the ancestry of Louisiana people is like having a history lesson. The original people were the Houmas. Other ancestors were French Acadians who were driven out of Nova Scotia more than 250 years ago.

We had a lot in common when it came to food. Their traditional main food is shrimp. Like our sockeye, it is also seen as a treasure. Many are worried about how the shrimp fishery will be affected by the Gulf oil spill.

Food brought us all together at the Summit. Whether it was the Cowlitz from Longview, Washington, or academics from Harvard or Cornell, we were brought together by a common interest in our traditional foods. Just like the Coast Salish, other peoples see no difference between food and medicines.

It made me remember things like salal, which is like an energy bar; hawthorn, which is good for “the runs”; or stinging nettles, bog laurel… All these plants used to play a big part in our lives and maybe will again.

After the trip to the Summit, I was pleased to learn that this issue of Klahowya includes several articles about food. I guess there is no better thing to talk about as we watch plants growing this spring.

Terry Sampson

 

From the Chair

Wednesday, 16 March 2011 12:35 Terry Sampson

THE HEALING CONTINUES...

There were lots of meetings to attend in Vancouver in February and early March, with one of the gatherings putting all of the other goings-on in perspective.

First of all, the very informative conference on alternative energy had both Tsleil-Waututh and T’Sou-ke Nations  holding starring roles. Then there was a significant one-day meeting between BC’s municipal and First Nations leaders, with a lot of learning on both sides.

In early March, economic development was on the agenda for two days in Vancouver with the Tsleil-Waututh being one of the hosts. And, of course, there was the First Nations Summit in North Van. You will able to read about many of these meetings in this issue of Klahowya.

But all the high-tech information, the traffic and the tall buildings were brought down to size by a gathering of a very different kind on the first three days of March. It attracted delegates from around the world and Aboriginal people from throughout Canada. Yet, it hardly made news around the Salish Sea, even in our First Nation communities.

It was the first visit of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the West Coast. The forum heard from victims of the Holocaust and other genocides as well as human rights campaigners in countries such as South Africa and Guatemala. The forum also heard similar stories of non-native Canadians such as the Japanese who lost their property and their freedom during WWII.

In the audience, in side rooms and sometimes watching at home by way of the webcast were the people who this forum was all about – the survivors of the 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children who were sent to residential schools. They are in my family and they are in yours.

As part of its work, the TRC will set up a research centre – it has been called “a national memory” – that will be a record, for all time, about what happened in those schools. The TRC wants to engage Canadians and educate them about the history of residential schools. Most importantly, hearings will be held where former students and their families can talk about their experiences.

For the next couple of months, hearings will be held in The North. Then they will go to The Maritimes and then come out to BC. These hearings are a necessary part of healing ourselves and informing our neighbours. Never forget our legacy will be the nations and economies that we are building today.

From the Chair

Tuesday, 08 February 2011 12:33 Terry Sampson

Every time I visit our community centre complex at Shell Beach, I think about that word ‘jurisdiction’.

Surrounding our community centre is our health building, a day care, a primary school and the steel framework for our new secondary school. And down at the beach is where our community launched their boats last summer for our protest over geoduck harvesting.

All of these things make me think about jurisdiction, whether it is our health care, education or fisheries. In the case of the first two, my Stz’uminus people demanded, and got, control over health services and education in our nation. Things aren’t perfect, but at least we are in control of our own destiny.

But fisheries is another matter. Many of our nations are in treaty negotiations and we all know what happens when we ask governments to give up power and control – jurisdiction – over anything.  They either pretend they don’t hear us or they say “It’s my way or the highway”.

When Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council leaders attended the annual Coast Salish Gathering at Swinomish last autumn, we took part in many discussions about co-management of resources. We learned that our US relations have many of the same challenges when it comes to co-management. But we all remain convinced that in order for fisheries management (or education or health) to work properly, we have to have a say.

The idea of co-management is not a new one for the Coast Salish people. We traditionally have been able to sort out issues like shared territory. I think consensus has a lot to do with it. We have never thought that co-management means that one side has power over the other. But governments just aren’t able to think that way.

In our language, there is no difference between management of resources and our sacred teachings. It means taking care of our world, of the ecosystem we live in and taking care of each other. For us, good management and co-management are about more than money and profit. But for governments and industry, it seems that there is no other way than they way they are currently operating.

From the Chair

Tuesday, 30 November 2010 15:40 Terry Sampson

Looking through some back issues of Klahowya recently made me realize just how significant 2010 was for those of us in the Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council family.

There was the excitement of the Olympics as the torch passed through our communities; blockades on highways and on the water as we fought for our rights and access to resources; the first sitting of a First Nations legislature; a new young chief… so many accomplishments and achievements by our people that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend.

Reading through the past issues of our newspaper, I was also reminded about the things that caused me to write this column during the year. Here are some of my written memories from 2010.

March – “We approved a new strategic plan that had five goals. One of them was a communications strategy that would improve the dialogue with people in our 11 member communities… Every level of our organizations will focus on better and more effective communications… Of course, good communications is a two-way street.”

May – “Now it is time to put the traditional teachings and wisdom of our ancestors to use. Big issues like energy, food, cultural and economic security will not be solved overnight. But by taking our rightful place as stewards of the land and the waters around us, we will truly be able to sustain ourselves.”

July – “The Coast Salish people have survived – have sustained themselves – for thousands of years. We had technologies that worked. And now, in the 21st Century, we are finding ourselves as the leaders in sustainable development, not to mention being some of the best teachers.”

September – “But probably the most important thing I learned was what a powerful thing it is when leaders can give their community a vision that they can buy into and what can happen when everyone says ‘Enough is enough’ ”.

November – “As we continue to discuss how co-management of resources can become a reality, one of the important ‘next steps’ is defining who we are – the Coast Salish Nations – and what is the responsibility we, as nations, have to one another.”

Sharing our Coast Salish heritage

Wednesday, 27 October 2010 15:55 Terry Sampson
Sharing our Coast Salish heritage

Gathering with our Coast Salish relatives from the USA is a powerful experience, bringing up thoughts and feelings that stay with me a long time. It occurred at the first Coast Salish Gathering I attended and happened again when Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council’s executive committee traveled to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community in LaConner, Washington in late September for the fifth annual event.

The subject of this year’s conference was Co-Management of the Salish Sea. As you can imagine, it is a very big topic about all our resources and having access to them. It was encouraging to see so many important people from government organizations on both sides of the border. That shows that there is hope that people from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in Canada and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the States are willing to sit with Coast Salish people and have real dialogue.

As usual at these gatherings, conversations I had away from the main table were often just as enlightening as the agenda discussions. It was good to talk with people from communities like Sumas and Lummi, to discover our common relatives and discuss things about our families and our nations.

The border between Canada and the USA is one of the top topics of discussions at events like this. The same was true when the Gathering was held at Whistler in 2009. I was able to share my personal thoughts on this issue with the delegates and will have more to report on this in the future.

As we continue to discuss how co management of resources can become a reality, one of the important ‘next steps’ is defining who we are – the Coast Salish Nations – and what is the responsibility we, as nations, have to one another.

I thought of that few weeks later when I was in Cowichan for an amazing conference entitled Indigenous Law in Coast Salish Traditions. There were many amazing speakers. One was Sarah Morales, a budding lawyer who I first met at our Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group meetings. Her topic was A Legal Rebirth.

This very smart young woman spoke powerfully about understanding our traditional laws. They were much different than the modern system. They were not a separate thing like ‘justice’ or ‘legislature’. Our law was in every aspect to our lives. It was the food we ate, the places we traveled to, the houses we built.

Another great speaker was Naxaxalhts’i, (Sonny) McHalsie from Stó:lō. He made the forest come alive for me in Whistler and he did it again in Quw’utsun’.

Thanks for spending some time with me. I hope you are all prepared for winter with lots of firewood and fish.

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