The “Two Canoes” Seminar: A Study in Perception

By Arthur Holbrook

 

Each seminar concludes with a traditional drumming circle in an indoor or outdoor setting. Credit: Ann Jacob

Based in British Columbia, the Fair Mining Collaborative, www.fairmining.ca, is an Indigenous organization providing “technical and practical assistance around the issues and impacts of mining in British Columbia.” The organization provides a number of services to aboriginal communities including mine analysis and monitoring, reviews of exploration and mine permits, and development of tools to improve community oversight of mining operations. The organization also provides, among other things, training, coordination with scientists and other experts, development of relationships between communities and mines as well as strategies for communities dealing with mining companies that are operating on their territories.

The Fair Mining Collaborative has recently introduced a seminar called “Two Canoes” https://www.fairmining.ca/two-canoes/ that focuses on helping non-aboriginal people to understand aboriginal rights and title to land in the context of mining claims. I attended this seminar in Victoria in October 2018. In the seminar, Glenn Grande, executive director of Fair Mining Collaborative, focuses on the differences between aboriginal and non-aboriginal perceptions of the land. Those differences begin with the original “colonial” legal perception that land is to be discovered and claimed while aboriginal peoples have always seen, and will continue to see, themselves as of the land.

Mr. Grande demonstrated the differences in perception with a series of comparisons. Aboriginal society emphasizes cooperation whereas European societies emphasize competition. Other comparisons include: group vs. individual, autonomy vs. control, sharing vs. individual ownership, generosity vs. saving, orientation to the present vs. focus on the future, and many other contrasts in perception between the two cultures … or “Two Canoes”, as it were.

The first half of the seminar was a presentation by Mr. Grande on the legal status of aboriginal rights and land title in Canada.  In the province of British Columbia most of the land is unceded territory meaning that the Indigenous people did not sign it away to the government or settlers.  Canadian common law sees this land as Crown land, meaning it is owned by the government, whereas most First Peoples do not share this perception. During the seminar, participants walked through history from ancient times to some of the recent Supreme Court of Canada court decisions regarding the land.  Important dates in that history include 1846 and the Oregon Treaty. In court, B.C. First Nations are generally required to prove that an activity existed prior to the date of the Oregon Treaty to be accepted in common law as an aboriginal right. In effect, this jurisprudence freezes aboriginal rights in time, by assuming no cultural development since that date could form the basis of a right.

Another significant date is 1876, the date of the passing of the federal Indian Act which is the last race-based legislation remaining in the western world. It was only in 1954 that Indians were recognized as persons in Canadian law.

During the seminar, we learned that a number of Supreme Court of Canada cases over the last fifty years have helped to define aboriginal rights and title.  The Calder case in 1973 was the first mention of “aboriginal title” to land. It was the precursor to today’s Nisga’a Final Agreement which has seen Nisga’a land removed from the B.C. land registry, thereby recognizing aboriginal rights on traditional Nisga’a territory within the Constitution of Canada and the Canadian Charter of Rights. The Delgamuukw decision of 1998 declared that aboriginal oral history/testimony would be recognized as evidence in court proceedings. The Haida decision of 2005 provided a “duty to consult” – a common law duty required when the Crown has real or perceived knowledge that an activity may infringe on an aboriginal right.  The Tsihlqot’in decision of 2014 granted title to ancestral lands to the Tsilhqot’in people. It was the first time ever in Canada that aboriginal title to land was formally recognized.

After Mr. Grande delivered this intense history lesson, he turned the proceedings over to Elder Fred John of the Xaxli’p First Nation to offer attendees at the seminar a fascinating glimpse into the practical application of the different perceptions of the world of aboriginal and “colonist” societies. Mr. John is a teacher and healer. He described how doctors, tutored in western medicine approach healing from the outside in while native people practice healing from the inside out. He has used his healing skills to help people where western medicine has failed, often despite the resistance of doctors. As part of the seminar, Mr. John led a smudge ceremony and drumming, offering participants a more active and spiritual entrance into the aboriginal world.

I felt it was important to take the seminar because, as a member of the PPP Board, I believe it is necessary to be aware of First Nations issues. I was not disappointed. The seminar was challenging to me as a white person. It was revealing to have my traditional white notions confronted as Mr. Grande and Mr. John recounted a version of Canadian history one does not find in schools or in our media. The seminar concluded with a traditional drumming circle in a park. At first, I felt quite self-conscious as people stopped to watch us but soon found myself enjoying the occasion as Mr. Grande welcomed others to join us. I recommend the Two Canoes seminar to anyone interested in aboriginal issues.

 

Glenn Grande is of European and Aboriginal (Cree) ancestry, presently living in Victoria, British Columbia. With a Juris Doctorate focusing on Aboriginal Law, inherent rights, and self-determination, he has designed two Fair Mine Collaborative training programs: First Rock: Mining Justice Basics and Two Canoes. He joined the PPP Board of Directors in November 2018. See his fuller biography elsewhere in this newsletter.

Arthur Holbrook has been on the PPP Board of Directors since December 2016. Now retired, Art traveled to the South Pacific as a filmmaker. He went to Papua New Guinea to film “Killer Whale and Crocodile,” the story of an exchange between the carving cultures of the Iatmul of PNG and the Coast Salish of Vancouver Island. The travel was organized by long term PPP board member Elaine Monds. Art also went to Vanuatu to film a moving “sorry ceremony” between the people of the island of Erromango and the descendants of John Williams, a missionary who was killed when he attempted to step ashore on the island. In the past, Art has worked with Inuit Communications on several films in the Arctic and for Indian and Northern Affairs on modern self-government initiatives by several First Nations.

 

 

In 1988, the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives became the first Senate approved research centre at the University of Victoria (UVic). Recognizing the importance of the Asia-Pacific region to Canada, the concept of a centre focusing on Asia-Pacific issues was given financial support by the Dorothy and David Lam Foundation, the Federal Secretary of State and the Provincial Government of British Columbia. Since its inception, the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI) https://www.uvic.ca/research/centres/capi/ has acted as a vital link between the university and the Asia-Pacific region, providing programming and research initiatives that have brought together scholars from the Asia-Pacific region with those from UVic. Three decades later, the Asia-Pacific region not only continues to be of importance to Canada, but it has grown substantially in its significance.

PPP and CAPI have a history of collaboration since 1992. This has included the exploration of Pacific knowledge through conferences, lectures, publications, policy and proposal development, and special events. Together we have raised CAPI’s and PPP’s respective profiles, benefiting each organization’s capacities and knowledge base.

Many of PPP’s Pacific Networking Conferences have been in partnership with CAPI, taking place on UVic’s campus. Past examples include: Pacific Wayfinders – Celebrating Indigenous Knowledge Leadership (2010); Peace Development in the Solomon Islands – What role for Canada? (2004); Pan Pacific Perspectives on Governance (2002).

“Pacific Peoples’ Partnership is the sole Canadian nonprofit organization working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Pacific regions,” points out PPP Executive Director, April Ingham. “We are in a unique position to partner with CAPI to meet the growing interest in Oceania on campus while cultivating a vibrant university civil society partnership. The partnership stimulates the production and exchange of knowledge pertaining to the Pacific, bringing increased awareness and understanding to the complex socio economic, political, cultural, and ecological realities of the region.”

In 2019 CAPI is offering thirteen funded internship opportunities for UVic students to work with partner organizations in India, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and South Africa. These internships represent a unique opportunity for work-integrated learning, experiential learning, the development of cross-cultural understanding and communication skills, and first-hand experience of grassroots community engagement, advocacy and activism in the global south.

Book Review: Everyday Acts of Resurgence (edited by Jeff Corntassel)

by Rachel Levee

Everyday Acts of Resurgence, published by Daykeeper Press (2018), is an impressive, accessible volume of short works exploring diverse perspectives on the ways in which the seemingly mundane and ubiquitous elements of daily life can be sites of Indigenous resistance and Indigenous cultural resurgence. The edited volume of works, collected under the three themes of “People,” “Places,” and “Practices,” brings together visual art, poetry, narrative, essays and speeches from authors, activists, artists and academics of Indigenous heritage and / or those deeply connected to Indigenous perspectives.

Approachable and intriguing, the varied works each bring their own flavour to this curated volume. What perhaps is most important about this volume is the complementarity of the pieces. While each piece does not reinforce the perspective of the other, each serves to buttress the meaning of the whole: that in the smallest moments, the smallest gestures, we can actively participate in resistance and resurgence. Of course, the opposite is true as well: a number of the pieces briefly discuss how easily our (in)actions uphold and strengthen the colonial project – but this topic is explored extensively in other volumes and is not dissected here. Rather, instead, we see how little moments can make big change.

For me, a mother of a young son, many of the pieces’ explorations of how parenthood as a space of resurgence struck a chord. It can perhaps seem trite to say that children are, of course, the future. What more likely space for resurgence? But the onus to bring about this resurgence isn’t on the little future-makers themselves, but rather on how we parent. It’s about parenting “in a good way”, as Mick Scow explains in his essay “Relentlessly Coastal: Parenting, Research and Everyday Resurgence”: “our relationships depend on the presence of love,” But this, too, is in balance with reality. Jeff Corntassel, in his piece “Renewal,” beautifully strikes a note of empathy and reality when he states that “When speaking of everydayness, we should be careful not to romanticize these actions. They are often thankless. Anyone who raises children knows that the daily realities of parenting can be exhausting and frustrating at times.”

Some works, like DIBIKGEEZHIGOKWE’s piece “Embers of Micro-aggression,” actively challenge and deliberately provoke through an airing of longstanding frustration. It is an essential, stunning piece in a collection that can feel somewhat conciliatory at times – not too unsettling for the settler-background readers – and lends a delicious gut punch just when the timing is right. The piece was wonderfully unsettling for me (in the figurative and literal sense). The short narrative reminds us that safe spaces to shout (or whisper) in rage – and be respected – are essential to the decolonization process.

While I lack the space in this short review to explain just what each piece meant to me, I’ll end with sharing how much Noenoe K. Silva’s essay “Recovering Place Names from Hawaiian Literatures” resonated with a growing shift in colonial / government perspective here in British Columbia. Silva’s essay discusses the revitalization and collection of Hawaiian place names as an anti-colonial project. Living in British Columbia for more than a decade, I’ve had the privilege of watching elements of the colonial slip away as highways, rivers, waterfalls, streets and parks lose the name given to them by settlers, and Indigenous names re-emerge. While it is an ongoing project, Silva’s essay is a reminder of how intrinsically the resurgence of Indigenous cultures across the globe are interrelated, and how all these efforts reinforce one another.

It is through innovative and engaging works like Everyday Acts of Resurgence that broader audiences can learn more about global Indigenous realities and how they, as Indigenous peoples, scholars, artists, or persons of any background, can actively participate in challenging the colonial project and in supporting the re-emergence of Indigenous worldviews. This book doesn’t seek to avoid reality but rather to celebrate it and show how we all can be agents of change in the everyday.

Everyday Acts of Resurgence is available online at the University of Victoria Bookstore, in person at the University of Victoria Bookstore (3800 Finnerty Rd, Victoria, BC) and online at Amazon.ca.

 

Rachel Levee, of mixed European settler and Jewish descent, is the Vice President of the Board of Peoples’ Pacific Partnership (PPP). Originally from Montreal, and a guest on Lekwungen territory for over two years, Rachel is grateful for the opportunity to engage with and learn from Indigenous and Pacific Islander world views in her work with PPP.

Jeff Corntassel is a new member of the Board of Pacific Peoples’ Partnership, and is a writer, teacher and father from the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Nation. He is currently Associate Professor and Director of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria, located on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Lekwugen and Wsanec peoples.

 

 

David Williams

David is descended from the South Pacific missionary and adventurer, John Williams (great, great grandfather) on his paternal grandfather’s side, and from Staat’imc (Lillooet) Chief Joseph on his paternal grandmother’s side (coyote clan). His roots go deep into what is now British Columbia, and also into the South Pacific Archipelago.

Working extensively to support and promote reconciliation for over 25 years, he is deeply committed to reconciliation in Canada, and is profoundly aware of the obligations imposed by settler privilege. With an honours degree in anthropology and an advanced degree in library science, David’s experience as a farmer, deep ocean seaman, fisher, hunter, engineer and advisor to conservation biologists brings a wealth of expertise to PPP.

David has been instrumental in conservation science and ethno-ecology. In 2010 he established RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs), and served as its president for five years. He has worked to advance the interests of the Tsilhqot’in community, assisting in the successful Roger Williams rights and title case, and in creating the ?Elegsi Qayus Wild Horse Preserve. His work was instrumental in preventing federal approval of the New Prosperity Mine.

 

Glenn Grande

Glenn is of European and Aboriginal (Cree) ancestry.  Grandson of Louis A. Romanet (“Kabluk of the Eskimo”) and resident of Victoria, BC, Glenn has a Juris Doctorate from the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, with a focus on Aboriginal Law, inherent rights, and self-determination. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree through Thompson Rivers University and a Bachelor of Education degree from Vancouver Island University.

Glenn is Executive Director of Fair Mining Collaborative, www.fairmining.ca, an organization that provides technical and practical assistance around the issues and impacts of mining on First Nations people and local communities in British Columbia. He has designed training programs: First Rock: Mining Justice Basics, and Two Canoes. 

When growing up in the heart of Alberta’s “coal branch” between Edmonton and Jasper, Glenn watched the land around him expropriated and literally devoured for the mining of coal, then “reclaimed”. Through this firsthand experience, he learned the lessons of mining’s destructive power, our enabling dependency, and its irrevocable blight on the land. Glenn also volunteered on the board of the Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Center and served as a soldier in the Canadian armed forces. He is a certified teacher, having taught all grade levels.

 

Dr. Jeff Corntassel 

As a member of the Tsalagi Cherokee Nation, Jeff was the first to represent the Cherokee Nation as a delegate to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples. He strives to honor his family and nation as a teacher, activist, and scholar. Jeff received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1998. He is currently an Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor in the School of Indigenous Studies and an Acting Program Director for the CIRCLE (Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement) at the University of Victoria, which is located on Lekwungen and Wsanec homelands.

Jeff has been a valued partner of PPP since 2014, and helped us to produce two conferences and many events including a 2015 Pacific Networking Conference, RedTide: International Indigenous Climate Action Summit and Youth Conference in 2018 and event components of PPP’s One Wave Gathering among other initiatives.

 

Jessica Rutherford

Jessica is a Physical Scientist at Geological Survey of Canada, Institute of Ocean Science. She has a Masters of Science (Marine Environmental Science Murdoch University, Perth, WA), a Bachelors of Environmental Science from Royal Roads University as well as an Advanced Diploma in Sports Therapies and Natural Medicine and Bachelors degree in Biological Science. She has lived and worked in Canada, Australia and the Solomon Islands.

Jessica spends much of her time at sea working in remote and resource poor areas. She supports government to develop community sustainable fishing practices, and assists nationally and internationally in hazard research and rapid assessment response. Two examples of the important work she is doing include:

1) Honours Team Project: Canadian Alternative Energy Information Package: Q&A publication for the United Nations Energy Production Committee written on behalf of Geological Survey of Canada, addressing environmental, social and economic impacts related to the research and development of gas hydrate production in the Canadian Arctic.

2) Comprehensive Project Report: Sustainability and emergency response strategies, resources management, mitigation and adaptation protocols for managing marine resources, floods, spills and environmental disasters for western Canadian coastal communities.

 

On November 15, 2018, PPP members and friends gathered at Blue Heron House on Victoria’s Royal Roads University campus for the organization’s AGM.

 

People and Passages:

Retiring Board members: PPP wishes to specially recognize Board members that retired this past AGM in November 2018. We are ever grateful for the support of Eugene Lee who served the past ten years as President and Past President; to Ruth Markowsky who gave passionately for her one-year term; and to Alison and Peter Gardner who have provided countless hours of support to PPP as Volunteers, Board members and Donors for nearly three decades!

Passing: PPP was deeply saddened by the death of PPP’s long-time champion Douglas Monds who supported our work in various ways for the last three decades. We also acknowledge the untimely death of T’Sou-ke Nation Elder Linda Bristol who provided invaluable support and guidance to our staff.

Early in 2018 our President Muavae (Mua) Va’a had the opportunity to meet with staff from the Samoa Social Welfare Fesoasoani Trust (SSWEFT) while he was visiting the country.  From this a friendship has blossomed between Pacific Peoples’ Partnership (PPP) and this important social service organization.

Based in Samoa, SSWEFT (www.facebook.com/ssweft) is a non-governmental organization established in 2015. Its main focus is on assisting offenders and members of the community not only in court cases but also in counselling, immigration matters and providing legal advice.  

Their project “THERE IS HOPE” offers counselling for offenders to increase self-esteem.  This program engages with males and females who have been sentenced by the court or are awaiting sentencing for their crimes through workshops and other services.  The main clientele is youth between the ages of 15 to 25 who are involved in crimes, plus charged and sentenced by the court. SSWEFT offers a holistic program for offenders especially youth who have experienced the harsh justice and correctional systems, so they can emerge as responsible, rehabilitated young adults who can contribute positively to the welfare of Samoa.

SSWEFT also does early intervention outreach programs to discourage youth from breaking the law in the first place. Juveniles released on parole are now offered programs to assist with education and pathways to employment. Most SSWEFT staff are volunteers and they are always looking for resources to sustain their projects and programs.

“It’s not easy to reintegrate any offender as they are looked at as outcasts but we try our best to find ways that these offenders could be accepted back into their communities,” says LeaulaTheresa Asiata, SSWEFT Chief Executive Officer. “We also work together with youth who are involved with alcohol and drugs.  Our message to these offenders is that ‘There is always Hope’ for each and every one of them.”

Early in 2018 at SSWEFT’s request, PPP sent a letter to the Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi requesting support for a delegation to attend a major international conference in which PPP was a partner, that is, RedTide in New Zealand. [See the December 2018 issue of our e-newsletter for a full report on the Red Tide Conference.]  This was especially timely as Cyclone Gita had just blown through their country leaving much destruction in its path. To our amazement, the Prime Minister provided the support required for the delegation to attend, and from this experience participants conceived of a new program for offenders whereby they become active in civic defense. Offenders will now be trained as responders to climate change that is affecting their homeland.

PPP continues to stay in touch with SSWEFT and was pleased to send a modest donation raised at the Pearls of the South Pacific luau fundraiser in Victoria to assist them with their HOPE project. We look forward to building our relationship with this dedicated team.