'Extinct' tribe claims swath of Kootenays

In 1953, Ottawa declared that the Sinixt no longer existed - now descendants are fighting to reclaim their identity

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

August 2, 2008

VANCOUVER -- People claiming to be members of a native band declared extinct 55 years ago are trying to get their land back - but according to the federal government, they don't exist.

The Sinixt, also called the Arrow Lakes First Nation, are from British Columbia's Kootenay region. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs declared the band legally extinct in 1953, when it determined no members were still living, department spokesman Karl Freeborn said. Three years later, their reserve near the city of Burton, B.C., was transferred to the provincial government in accordance with a decades-old agreement.

"Canada at the time had, I guess, concluded the Arrow Lakes band had become extinct because there were no living members of the band," Mr. Freeborn said. "[In the government's eyes] there's no Arrow Lake Indian band. It's not recognized."

Victoria-based anthropologist Randy Bouchard has spent years researching the Sinixt. He said the group's migratory lifestyle was disrupted when the government established a small reserve for it near what is now Burton. Many band members drifted south, and, after the border was formed, became incorporated in the Colville Reservation in the United States. These band members weren't counted in the government's census, which looked at only the number of people living on-reserve.

By the late 1940s, Mr. Bouchard said, one family was left on the reserve. When its last member, Annie Joseph, died in 1953, she was the end of the Sinixt line as far as the federal government was concerned. At the time, about 300 Sinixt were living on the U.S. reservation.

"For better or for worse, that's what happened," Mr. Bouchard said. "They were deemed extinct, according to the rules of Canada, anyway. There were hundreds of them down on the Colville reservation and so they were considered an extinct group, and that was the end of it, from the Canadian government's perspective."

It wasn't the end of it for the now more than 1,000 Sinixt members living in both Canada and the United States who are trying to regain both their land and their identity as a nation.

Two separate land claims have been filed by parties claiming to represent the Sinixt. Each lays claim to the same traditional territory - a huge swath of the Kootenays that extends from Revelstoke, B.C., to south of the U.S. border. One of them was filed in December, 2003, on behalf of about 1,000 members of the Arrow Lakes Tribe in Colville Reservation in Washington; the other was filed last week by the Sinixt Nation Society on behalf of 75 members of the Sinixt nation.

Mr. Freeborn said an individual claiming to be a member of the Sinixt is also before the courts demanding the federal government rescind its declaration of extinction and allow the plaintiff to pass freely across the Canada-U.S. border.

Both suits demand recognition of the band's claim to its traditional territory as well as damages and compensation for the government's appropriation of the land.

Vancouver lawyer Stuart Rush, who is representing the Colville claimants, said the Sinixt nation was declared extinct illegally.

"The federal government had decided that because aboriginal people were not listed on their band list that there were no longer Lakes people or Sinixt people living and that was not true: There were Sinixt people, many of them descendents living in the United States, and there were also Lakes people who had intermarried and were living among the Okanagan nations in the Okanagan Valley," Mr. Rush said, adding that he's trying to get the band's status reinstated and secure its land.

"It's totally absurd and it's an anomaly that needs to be rectified," he said. "The Sinixt band and their reserve at Burton, British Columbia, is the only band that's been declared extinct in the province, ever. And it's the only band that's had their land taken away from them, and it's an outrage. It's never happened before. ... This is a wrong that needs to be remedied."

Both suits identify the Arrow Lakes Tribe as "an aboriginal people within the meaning of the Constitution Act" but neither demands the federal government reverse its designation of extinction.

"It will have that incidental effect, but the point of the litigation would be ... to have the Arrow Lakes people secured in their land, in their traditional territory in the Arrow Lakes region of British Columbia," Mr. Rush said.

Mr. Rush's case has been in abeyance since shortly after it was filed in December, 2003. He said his instructions have been to try to negotiate a settlement. He hopes to sit down for talks this fall, but he acknowledged it will be a challenge.

"The governments are going to say, 'Oh, well, these people have disappeared.' Somehow they think in their mind that a whole nation of people evaporates."

Lawyer David Aaron of Nelson, B.C., filed an almost identical claim last week on behalf of the Sinixt Nation Society, which he said speaks on behalf of the entire nation more directly than the Colville group.

Mr. Aaron said that because the claim has been filed, the government has a duty to consult the Sinixt regarding any changes in the land's use.

Vance Robert Campbell is one of the primary plaintiffs in the most recent case. He has been living with his family in Burton for 23 years, trying to have the band recognized. But he can't even be considered a Canadian citizen because he was born on the Colville Reservation in the United States.

"Now I'm an elder, and I wasn't an elder when this started. Now I have children being born on this land. Born on the battlefields, so to speak," he said. "This is my DNA buried here. ... It should be automatically understood that, yes, this is my land I inherited through my bloodline. Whatever they owned, I own, too."