Conflict alert for ancient sites

B.C. first nations ready to fight to save what’s left of heritage, expert says

Randy Shore, Vancouver SunPublished: Wednesday, March 26, 2008

VANCOUVER – Without a radical shift in thinking about first nations archaeology, B.C. is in danger of losing what is left of its ancient heritage and sparking heated conflict with natives, according to PhD candidate Michael Klassen.

Virtually all of the first nations’ 9,000-year-old footprint in southwestern B.C. has been eradicated by development, Klassen said. Most of it has been destroyed lot by lot, because each property taken alone may not register as scientifically significant.

"But when you look at it cumulatively, it is nearly all being wiped out," Klassen said.

And what is left, natives will not let go easily, he warned. Fuelled by a series of legal decisions and legislative changes in the 1990s, first nations have realized the archaeological record is
essential to their claim on any territory in B.C.

Tens of thousands of archaeological sites in Metro Vancouver, Greater Victoria and the Gulf Islands have already been destroyed by urban growth and waterfront development. An entire industry of archaeological consulting has grown up in B.C. over the past 15 years, mainly focussed on examining sites in the process of being destroyed by backhoes.

But only in the past two years has the provincial government begun to negotiate management agreements with first nations that allow them some control over development on significant heritage sites. Such an agreement is currently being negotiated for south Vancouver‘s Marpole
Midden.

"Archaeology is an important aspect in asserting title and rights," Klassen said. "The danger of not thinking ahead on the way we plan communities is more conflict…. As first nations grow in authority and experience, they are going to start using the growing legal arsenal at their disposal to fight to loss of their heritage."

It has already started. In 2003, the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group forced the provincial government to charge and convict a land developer under the Heritage Conservation Act, Klassen said.

"That’s going to happen more and more," he said.

Klassen and McMaster University PhD candidate Rudy Reimer are presenting a workshop to the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver this week detailing emerging trends in practical archaeology here in B.C.

Klassen and Reimer have worked in the field as consultants, mainly doing archaeological impact assessments when development plans come in conflict with the first nations’ historical record.

But in working with first nations, they came to realize that natives were intensely interested in their own heritage and that their way of thinking about the meaning of places and things is dramatically different from the legislative and legal framework that governs archaeology.

"They look at things on a landscape scale," Klassen said. "A big picture rather than a discrete piece of property."

Reimer, who is from the Squamish nation, says spiritual places such as rock outcroppings, caves and even the North Shore‘s distinctive Lions mountain peaks have meaning for first nations people but aren’t recognized as important because there are "no bones or arrowheads." The sacred caves at the Bear Mountain resort development on southern Vancouver Island were destroyed because the legislation is so narrow, he said.

"But even if the caves were saved, they needed the context of the surrounding area," Reimer explained. Being incorporated into a golf course would have destroyed their meaning, he said.

Klassen and Reimer see an urgent need for a different kind of thinking by people and governments.

"After a little while, I started working exclusively for first nations clients," Klassen said. "I was greatly impressed by the depth of knowledge in the communities with the elders about their history and way of life."

The importance that first nations place on their history and heritage is reflected in the number of first nations presenters at the Thursday morning workshop. Graduate students and archaeologists from first nations across B.C. are represented including the Sto:lo, Cree, St’át’imc, Heiltsuk, Similkameen and Tahltan.

British Columbians share the first nations’ enthusiasm for the province’s archaeological heritage, which includes sites around Burrard Inlet and on the Fraser River that predate ‘s pryamids by thousands of years: "We don’t have to do things differently because of the threat of court battles," Klassen said. "We can do it because we all agree it’s the right thing to do."
rshore@png.canwest.com

(c) Vancouver Sun 2008