Latest news with #Heiltsuk
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- The Guardian
After 150 years, a prized box returns to an Indigenous nation in Canada: ‘I felt like royalty traveling with it'
When the plane took off from Vancouver's airport, bound north for the Great Bear Rainforest, Q̓íx̌itasu Elroy White felt giddy with excitement. The plane traced a route along the Pacific Ocean and British Columbia's coast mountains, still snow-capped in late May. Inside the cramped plane, White, who serves as an elected councillor and hereditary chief for the Heiltsuk nation, glanced often at the seat next to him and thought about his mission: bringing his travelling companion home for the first time in nearly 150 years. Hidden underneath a large grey flight bag and packaged carefully was an ancient cedar bentwood box. 'I felt like royalty, traveling with the box,' said White, who is trained as an archaeologist. 'And as I sat on the plane, it really hit me what I was doing on behalf of the nation: I was bringing home a belonging – not an object.' When he landed, a group of artists were waiting, eager to view first-hand an object they had only seen in books, online and – if they travelled far enough – in a museum or gallery. In late May, the prized box was honoured by the Heiltsuk in their big house during ceremonies to ratify their nation's new constitution. But the unlikely return of the box underscores the challenges facing Indigenous communities in a protracted battle to reclaim items pillaged from their lands and now displayed in museums and private collections. Bentwood boxes are crafted from a single piece of cedar wood that has been curved on three sides through steam and fastened shut on the fourth with wooden pegs. Perfected by coastal Indigenous communities over centuries, the boxes were both ceremonial and practical. The watertight containers were often used to store food and valuable goods and were invaluable on canoe voyages across sections of the Pacific. But before taking on its distinctive shape, each box begins as a strip of western red cedar wood, carefully removed from the trunk of a living giant in the woods. The technique, known as bark stripping, often leaves a large rectangular bark-strip scar visible centuries later. The oldest living culturally modified tree ever discovered in the province dates back to 1186 CE. 'Our ancestors removed planks and then gave thanks to the tree,' said White. 'They took nothing more than was needed.' The box that White had tenderly returned home was among the many that had taken unlikely journeys to lands that did not have the revered trees. Beginning in the late 1800s, federal 'Indian agents' and missionaries plundered coastal communities, often under the guise of conservation. The removal of items with deep cultural value coincided with Canada's ban on the potlatch, a gift-giving ceremony that had long underpinned relations between clans and neighbouring nations. Many of the items were sold under duress. Mortuary poles, masks and bentwood boxes were scattered all over the world, eagerly snapped up by museums and private collectors. Occasionally, a piece would surface at auction. In 2020, while searching for a piece of jewellery, Janet and Dave Deisley, a couple based in Salt Lake City, Utah, spotted a bentwood box for auction in Vancouver. The pair had spent years in Alaska, South America and British Columbia, purchasing contemporary pieces from Indigenous artists. They developed a particular love for Inuit stone carvings and prints, as well as Coast Salish masks. 'I was always interested in bentwood boxes, but never had bought one,' said Dave. The box was unique: its heavy lid was inlaid with shimmering snail shells. All the auction house could say was that the box was from the 1880s and designed by an artist from the Heiltsuk nation – a people renowned for their craftsmanship. And so the couple bought the box. But back home in Salt Lake City, the excitement around it soon faded. 'It just had this incredible beauty, but never really seemed to fit anywhere in our house. It never felt right and I couldn't figure out why,' Janet said. 'I felt bad for it. It was just sitting there on its own in this, you know, sort of formal living room in the desert.' Through personal contacts, the couple set out to do what they believed was right: return the box. But what seemed like a simple idea contained a multitude of logistical hurdles. 'There isn't just a number you call and it's not something that can be done in a week,' Janet said. 'The chief said if we could get it to Vancouver, to the Coastal First Nations office, they would find a way to get it up to the community in a respectful manner.' For more than a year it sat in the office in downtown Vancouver until the Heiltsuk community worked out a plan that involved White escorting it back to the town of Bella Bella. 'The existential question is: what's a historic red cedar box, that came to life in the BC coastal community over 100 years ago, doing in a modern house in the Utah desert?' saids Janet. 'There was really no satisfactory answer for that. There was never any thought that it should end up in a museum. It had to go home.' The returned box represents a broader effort by the Heiltsuk nation to repatriate more than 1,000 items at more than three dozen institutions around the world – and countless private collections. Over the past decade, the nation has developed a digital database to accompany an extensive list of objects and ancestral remains, first developed in the 1980s. White said he has noticed a dramatic shift in how museums handle repatriation efforts, with many eager to begin discussions over the lengthy and challenging process of returning items. First Nations communities often bear the financial burden of repatriation and a new report estimates it would cost nearly C$663m (£353m) over five years to the fund repatriation for all 204 First Nations in British Columbia. The community has successfully repatriated four items since 2022, including a chief's seat carved by the acclaimed Heiltsuk artist and chief Captain Richard Carpenter (Dúqvay̓ḷá Hawallis). The ornate seat, once behind glass in the Royal British Columbia Museum, now sits in the community's big house. 'Smoke, ashes and dust are going to land on the seat because it is no longer a museum piece. It was never meant to be,' said White. 'And the box is now in the chief's room as a reminder to us of a path that was long ago when these boxes were so plentiful.' But private collections represent a 'vast unknown' with little indication of how many items remain in homes.'There's a despair knowing that items created in the territory for the chiefs and their families are now owned by somebody they were never intended for,' he said. Numerous items from that era – including a similar bentwood box – remain up for sale on auction sites. White said the 'no-strings attached' gesture by Janet and Dave Deisley has inspired others to reach out to return items, including a pair of ornate paddles gifted to a missionary family in the late 1800s. 'More items will eventually come, but the Heiltsuk nation isn't rushing anything, because we don't have a museum and our culture centre is full,' said White, reflecting a broader concern of communities repatriating items. 'We need our own museum, but it can't be a museum like where these belongings came from. It has to be designed in a way that benefits our people first – not for outside tourists or researchers – Heiltsuk first,' he said. 'Our people were still going out and practising their food and cedar bark gathering, carrying out potlatches in their own villages,' White said. 'And this box represents that moment in time before the potlatch ban.' For nearly 150 years, any Heiltsuk artist wanting to experience the art and craftsmanship of their ancestors needed to travel outside the community. 'To realise that the descendants of these artists have never seen the pieces created by their ancestors – this is wrong,' said Janet. 'It's fair to say we would never purchase another historic piece like this again.' The Heiltsuk nation gave Janet and Dave a modern bentwood box as a thank-you gift. 'The young local artist knew immediately which one he wanted to give them,' said White. 'For years, his work has been inspired by Heiltsuk boxes that were in museums. But now there's one here for him to learn from.' At the end of May, after the box had been welcomed in dance, song and feasting, prominent artists gathered with community members to study it, assessing the subtle differences in style between coastal nations. Outside, rain poured down on to the forest and the mammoth cedar trees that have sustained the Heiltsuk for generations. 'There is probably still is a tree out there, standing in our forest, that has half its wood removed so that an artist could make this box,' said White. 'And so in more than one way, after such a long journey, it has returned home.'
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
An Indigenous nation in Canada hails historic constitution: ‘We're now the architects of certainty for ourselves'
When outsiders arrived in the lands of the Heiltsuk people, they brought with them a rapacious appetite for the region's trees, fish and minerals. Settlers and the government soon followed, claiming ownership of the thick cedar forests, the fjords and the abundance of life. Heiltsuk elders were confused. 'If these are truly your lands,' they asked, 'where are your stories?' For the Heiltsuk, stories explain everything from the shape of a local mountain to the distinct red fur fringes on the sea wolves stalking shores. They tell of the flesh-eating monster baxbakwa'lanuxusiwe, whose entire body was covered with snapping mouths before it was destroyed by a shaman and became a cloud of mosquitoes. Passed down over generations, in ceremonies forbidden by Canada's government, the stories weave together the physical world, the supernatural and the liminal space that binds the two. Such stories are also the bedrock of the Heiltsuk's newly created constitution, a document recently ratified through ceremony that asserts the nation's long-held convictions that they are the original inhabitants and rightful stewards of the region's future. The declaration comes at a time when Canada's own sovereignty is under threat, and when the first peoples are increasingly using their political power to reclaim territories and customs from a colonial project that once sought to destroy them. Tucked inside the north-east tip of Campbell Island, the town of Bella Bella is the largest outpost for the Heiltsuk nation, a seafaring people 40,000 strong who once populated dozens of villages within the broader archipelago along British Columbia's central Pacific coast. They warred, traded and allied with surrounding nations, finding sustenance and wealth in the lands and waters of the rugged coastline. And over thousands of years, the Heiltsuk and their neighbours developed systems of governance that relied on hereditary chiefs to serve as political, cultural and environmental caretakers. But decades of hostile government policies – including the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families, and a system of residential schools that attempted to kill off the culture of Indigenous peoples – upended such systems of governance. For decades until 1973, staff at the Bella Bella hospital forcibly sterilized Heiltsuk men and women, who were classified as wards of the state under federal law. 'We've had the foot on our throats … and it's been hard to make the leap across the hatred, discrimination and racism towards our people,' said λáλíyasila Frank Brown, a Heiltsuk hereditary chief. 'But the constitution marks that transition away.' After decades of consultation with legal experts and community members, the new Heiltsuk constitution enshrines a framework in which power and decision-making authority is shared by hereditary leadership, the elected chief and council, and the nation's women's council. It governs the relationship with the land and ocean, citizenship, language and culture. While it does not have the force of law in the eyes of the provincial or federal governments, the move marks an attempt to restore a system of coherent governance destroyed by colonial powers. What is Canada's Indian Act? Canada's Indian Act – first passed in 1876 and a version of which is still in effect today – is a controversial piece of legislation that governs the relationship between the federal government and Indigenous peoples. When first introduced, the law imposed strict control over the lives of Indigenous peoples. They were made to live on reserves and couldn't leave without permission from federal agents. Under the act, children were forcibly removed from their homes and forced to live in institutions that had the aim of stripping away their culture, language and identity. Until 1951, the Act barred Indigenous peoples from retaining legal counsel and those with 'Indian status' were seen as wards of the federal government, similar to minors. Even though Indigenous people fought for Canada during two world wars, it wasn't until 1960 that 'status Indians' were permitted to vote in federal elections. At times, the federal government stripped people of their 'Indian status' meaning they lost rights granted to them under treaties. The 1867 Indian Act – legislation that governs the country's relationship with Indigenous peoples – created elected band councils with the aim of stripping away authority from hereditary chiefs. 'People were confused,' said Q̓íx̌itasu Elroy White, who serves as both a hereditary chief and elected councillor. 'They weren't sure who held power and many felt the elected band members didn't have legitimacy. This new constitution changes that.' The Heiltsuk have long seen a clear distinction between the hereditary chiefs, who oversee cultural preservation through oral history, and the bureaucratic role of councillors. By enshrining the power of both elected members and hereditary chiefs, the nation has established a political system ready to weather internal fractures. Elsewhere in British Columbia, hereditary chiefs of the Wetʼsuwetʼen people broke with the elected council over a natural gas pipeline, prompting a feud which spawned intense protests and police raids. The Heiltsuk, aware that outsiders hope to one day log their forests or fish their waters, want a unified voice in any proposal. 'We're now the architects of certainty for ourselves and for other governments operating within our unceded territories,' said Brown, noting that like most nations in the province of British Columbia, the Heiltsuk never signed away their lands in treaties, nor did they surrender them in battle. It was women who kept Heiltsuk culture alive during sustained efforts by the federal government and the province to crush Indigenous identity. In 1885 Canada passed a law banning the potlatch, a ritualized ceremony that underpins the legal, political, economic and social networks binding the communities with neighbouring nations. A mandatory jail sentence was imposed on anyone breaking the law, which was only repealed in 1951. Frances Brown was nine years old when elders began teaching her the songs and stories of her people. 'At the time I didn't understand, but I know now they were grooming me to be a strong Heiltsuk woman. They were working to keep our songs and our stories alive through me.' Brown, now 66, serves on the W̓úm̓aqs du M̓ṇúyaqs – the women's council – that advises elected councillors and hereditary chiefs. 'We [women] have always been brought up to believe and know that we are the backbone of our community. We are the advisers to the chiefs,' she said. 'Through the constitution, they're formally returning our rightful place in our traditional governance system.' Brown, whose mother is one of the few remaining fluent speakers of the Híɫzaqv language, has also spent the last two decades fighting to ensure the language, woven into the constitution, is protected. 'Híɫzaqv connects us to our creation stories. It connects us to our land, our seas, our way of life and laws of our ancestors that were practiced prior to colonization,' said Brown. 'We never gave up on that as a people. And today, we're renewing and reclaiming our ancestral laws.' The constitution has been ratified at a time when Canada's own sovereignty has come under pressure. Donald Trump has brazenly threatened to annex the country, and separatists in the Prairie provinces – motivated by long-held grievances towards eastern political elites – have angered Indigenous groups by ignoring the treaties that give legitimacy to the region that now wants to secede. Against that backdrop, members of the Heiltsuk Nation have not sought recognition from any external governments, including the Crown. While other Indigenous nations were invited to the ratification feast in late May, Canada's provincial and federal governments were not. 'We know who our leadership is and what we stand for,' said Marilynn Slett, the community's elected chief. 'That's what led us to where we are today.' To the beat of the singers' drums, children performed dances, gifted to the Heiltsuk by the Haida nation, on the sandy floor of the Gvakva'aus Hailzaqv, or House of the Heiltsuk. The two nations, which renewed their alliance through a peace treaty potlatch in 2015, are both leading a push for greater sovereignty over their lands. In 1996, the Heiltsuk won a landmark supreme court case when the justices found the nation had a pre-existing right to harvest herring eggs commercially. And last year, after decades of negotiation, the province of British Columbia said more than half a million hectares of Crown land would be returned to the Haida nation. Canada's federal government followed suit earlier this year. Both cases marked the first time either level of government had willingly recognized an Indigenous nation's inherent right to the land they occupied before colonization. But the Heiltsuk's decision to develop and implement their own constitution has also resulted in friction with neighbouring nations. In a February letter, members of the Nuxalk, Kitasoo Xai'xais and Wuikinuxv nations said they 'strongly disagree[d]' with the territorial claims made in the Heiltsuk constitution and called on the Heiltsuk to correct the 'inaccurate and historically false' territorial claims. Slett said they had invited concerned nations to visit and discuss the issue using traditional protocols. For a younger, and often highly educated generation, the fight for a constitution reflects a broader shift in how they conceive of their community's identity and place within the Canadian project. 'The previous generation wanted to tear down colonial systems. We want to rebuild our own,' said Saul Brown, a 32-year-old lawyer and councillor. A key figure in the drafting of the constitution, Brown anticipates there will be challenges when Heiltsuk law runs counter to Crown law, but he said those fights were secondary to a broader aim of his people. 'It's not just this hatred or righteous anger at these historical and contemporary wrongs. It's the love for our own people. We're not turning our back from state recognition. We're just saying we don't need it. We need to recognize our law first.'
Global News
07-06-2025
- General
- Global News
Lost for over a century, Heiltsuk Nation celebrates return of bentwood box
The Heiltsuk First Nation is celebrating the return of a precious piece of history, lost to their people for more than a century. The nation held a special reunification ceremony for the bentwood box last Friday that coincided with a feast to mark the ratification of their written constitution. 'I was very emotional,' said Christine Smith Martin, CEO of Coastal First Nations, who helped facilitate the return of the box from an American family to the Heiltsuk Nation. 2:03 Heiltsuk Nation ratifies new written constitution through celebratory feast 'We really want to tell art collectors or whoever may have boxes similar to this, the right thing to do is to bring it home, to make sure those boxes make it home if they can because its an important piece for us, there' s a lot of teachings on that box, there's a lot of things artists might not have seen yet.'' Story continues below advertisement Bentwood boxes were specialized, watertight containers fabricated from a single piece of cedar wood that has been steamed and curved, then fastened shut with wooden pegs. Elroy white, an archeologist, hereditary chief and elected councillor with the Heiltsuk, said they were used to carry trade goods up and down the coast, as well as for the storage of important items like instruments or regalia. They were also used to store and prepare food. He said the Heiltsuk became well known for their skill in crafting the boxes in the 1860s, after their population was decimated by smallpox and came together in a single community. Ethnographers who visited the community documented them and spread the word, and soon collectors and academics from around the world began seeking them out. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'That was their premise, that they were going to preserve this cultural way of these First Nations, they were called Indians back then,' he said. 'They were either sold or they were coerced from the owners.' The provenance of this particular box is unknown, Elwood said, save that it passed through collections and galleries before being purchased in Vancouver in 2020. He believes it was made some time in the 1880s, but said that when items pass through galleries their back history is typically not shared, and information like the artist who made them is lost. Story continues below advertisement That's when Janet and Dave Deisley, a couple from Salt Lake City, Utah, purchased it at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery on Granville Street. 2:11 Heiltsuk Nation celebrates 'powerful, emotional' return of historic chief's seat 'After Dave bought the box we had we had it in our home for a couple of years,' Janet Deisley told Global News. But the item never felt right in the couple's collection, and they decided to return it — free of charge — reaching out to Coastal First Nations for help in connecting it to the Heiltsuk. 'The community in which those artifacts were created is where they belong from a spiritual sense,' Dave Diesley said. 'I would imagine they felt what we felt when we had it in our office for that short time. You can feel. It's like a piece of an ancestor wanting to come home … you look at it and you see that history in there,' Martin said. Story continues below advertisement 'I would imagine they felt that yearning, because it's not just a box, there are spirits that are attached to it, there are ancestors that are attached to that.' Coastal First Nations accepted the box, but it stayed in their office for some time as they worked to arrange an appropriate return. White came to Vancouver to authenticate the box and work on the best way and time to get it home safely. 'I knew it would have no back history, but the important part was …. it was still important to the Heiltsuk,' he said. 'Elroy came down and did some ceremony in our office, and we had a talk to the box and let them know they are going home now. It's been a long journey as you can imagine, since the 1800s, since this box has been away from their territory.' 2:11 Heiltsuk Nation hold constitution ratification ceremony Last week, the box was honoured in the Heiltsuk big house in Bella Bella as a part of the constitution ceremonies, and members had the opportunity to get up close and see a piece of their lost history. Story continues below advertisement 'It was so heartfelt to see that, seeing the artists looking at it and sort of pointing out different things,' Martin said. For White, it is just one step in the ongoing process to repatriate Heiltsuk culture that was taken from the community and now resides in museums, galleries and private collections around the world. The nation has spent decades building a database of items and has identified 34 institutions around the world that house more than 1,000 Heiltsuk items. They've repatriated four items since 2022, including a historic chief's seat that was returned to the community last summer. It's work that White intends to continue, and that Martin hopes will have more success. 'I hope that we have many more of these boxes,' she said.
Global News
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Global News
Heiltsuk Nation to enact new constitution with ratification feast
First Nations leaders and delegates from around British Columbia are slated to attend a ratification feast on Friday that will officially bring the Heiltsuk Nation's written constitution into effect. Marilyn Slett, the nation's elected chief, called it a 'monumental day' that comes after two decades of development and consultation. 'It's hard to put into words how big it is. It's definitely a day of celebration and reflection on everything that brought us to the day,' Slett said of the feast, which is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. The Heiltsuk Nation approved the adoption of a written constitution for the First Nation on British Columbia's central coast in February. That followed six months of engagement with more than 2,000 Heiltsuk members in Bella Bella, Nanaimo and Vancouver. The nation said 67 per cent of the 725 people who voted on the referendum were in favour of the constitution. Story continues below advertisement The constitution will help provide clarity for its own members and those it chooses to do business with, Slett said, which will clear up questions around decision-making in Heiltsuk territory that have previously been left to the courts. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Slett explained that the constitution will develop 'core laws' for the nation, which will cover issues such as land management and language. 1:48 Historic Heiltsuk Nation constitution vote underway The nation said in February that 'questions of paramountcy' with respect to other sets of laws would need to be worked out. Slett said the adoption of a written constitution is an act of 'reclaiming' the nation's role in its own governance. 'It's a pathway for our community to move beyond the Indian Act and move forward and grow and reach our full capacity that our ancestors always dreamed of,' Slett said in an interview ahead of the event. Story continues below advertisement British Columbia's Indigenous Relations Minister Christine Boyle said in a statement that the province 'recognizes the hard work the Heiltsuk Nation community has put into a constitutional ratification.' The minister said the province will continue to work with the nation to make tangible steps toward reconciliation. 'Our shared work has set a foundation for a good path forward and we look forward to continuing this work together,' Boyle said. The ratification event will feature speeches from leaders as well as ceremonial dances, Slett said. It will be held at the nations Big House in Bella Bella, which serves as a gathering place for cultural and ceremonial activities. The nation says in a post to its website that the structure was built with funding from the federal government as a 'commitment to reconciliation.' The nation will also be hosting a three-day celebration to mark its anniversary starting Saturday. Boyle's office has confirmed she will be in attendance. Slett said Boyle is scheduled to meet with leaders as well as partake in the celebrations, which she believes is important for reconciliation. 'It's important for the minister to visit our community when we're doing this important work, and to understand our community and develop that relationship,' Slett said. Story continues below advertisement
National Observer
30-05-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Heiltsuk Nation ratification feast brings written constitution into force
First Nations leaders and delegates from around British Columbia are slated to attend a ratification feast on Friday that will officially bring the Heiltsuk Nation 's written constitution into effect. Marilyn Slett, the nation's elected chief, called it a "monumental day" that comes after two decades of development and consultation. "It's hard to put into words how big it is. It's definitely a day of celebration and reflection on everything that brought us to the day," Slett said of the feast, which is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. The Heiltsuk Nation approved the adoption of a written constitution for the First Nation on British Columbia's central coast in February. That followed six months of engagement with more than 2,000 Heiltsuk members in Bella Bella, Nanaimo and Vancouver. The nation said 67 per cent of the 725 people who voted on the referendum were in favour of the constitution. The constitution will help provide clarity for its own members and those it chooses to do business with, Slett said, which will clear up questions around decision-making in Heiltsuk territory that have previously been left to the courts. Slett explained that the constitution will develop "core laws" for the nation, which will cover issues such as land management and language. The nation said in February that "questions of paramountcy" with respect to other sets of laws would need to be worked out. Slett said the adoption of a written constitution is an act of "reclaiming" the nation's role in its own governance. "It's a pathway for our community to move beyond the Indian Act and move forward and grow and reach our full capacity that our ancestors always dreamed of," Slett said in an interview ahead of the event. British Columbia's Indigenous Relations Minister Christine Boyle said in a statement that the province "recognizes the hard work the Heiltsuk Nation community has put into a constitutional ratification." The minister said the province will continue to work with the nation to make tangible steps toward reconciliation. "Our shared work has set a foundation for a good path forward and we look forward to continuing this work together," Boyle said. The ratification event will feature speeches from leaders as well as ceremonial dances, Slett said. It will be held at the nations Big House in Bella Bella, which serves as a gathering place for cultural and ceremonial activities. The nation says in a post to its website that the structure was built with funding from the federal government as a "commitment to reconciliation." The nation will also be hosting a three-day celebration to mark its anniversary starting Saturday. Boyle's office has confirmed she will be in attendance. Slett said Boyle is scheduled to meet with leaders as well as partake in the celebrations, which she believes is important for reconciliation. "It's important for the minister to visit our community when we're doing this important work, and to understand our community and develop that relationship," Slett said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2025.
