According to the CBC Inside Politics blog, Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a professor at the University of Calgary and a frequent guest on CBC’s Power and Politics is advocating the use of constitutional override clause to force the completion of the Northern Gateway pipeline. You can read Max Paris’s complete blog Hard advice on Northern Gateway pipeline here.
Flanagan also suggests using the same power to “settle” aboriginal land claims. On Power and Politics he said:
[T]oughness is needed right now. You’ve got to signal that you’re serious about this. No, no, I support that completely. Other advice I’d be giving if I were asked, I’d be researching the constitutional powers of the federal government…the declaratory power which will allow the federal government to declare something to be a work for the national interest. Also a possibility of a legislative settlement of aboriginal claims.
According to the blog “declaratory power” is in section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution Act of 1867. It reads thus:
Such Works as, although wholly situate within the Province, are before or after their Execution declared by the Parliament of Canada to be for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces.
The blog also quotes Bruce Ryder, a constitutional law expert and prof at Osgoode Hall, as saying: “It’s a valid legal power that Parliament possesses. To use it would raise an outcry and be intensely controversial from the point of view of constitutional convention or practices that have evolved to reflect contemporary understandings of federalism that treat the provinces and the federal government as equal.”
Ryder figures Flanagan considers B.C. a bit of a wildcard in this whole Northern Gateway Pipeline business. Using 92(10)(c) is his ham-fisted… but totally legal… way of getting around any potential problems with Victoria. It’s Tom’s version of how to crush political dissent and coerce provinces.
Even the hint of a constitutional override can only increase the skepticism and mistrust of the Joint Review Panel and the process. That skepticism and mistrust has been expressed at every single session over the first two weeks, despite the futile attempts by panel chair Sheila Leggett who tries to tell people to leave the criticism until the final argument sessions.
Northwest Coast Energy News will use selected testimony from the Joint Review hearings, where that testimony can easily turned into a web post. Testimony referring to documents, diagrams or photographs will usually not be posted if such references are required. Depending on workload, testimony may be posted sometime after it originally occurred. Posting will be on the sole editorial judgment of the editor.
I’ve been a resident of Kitimat for 53 years and the issues, as I see them, are economic diversity and challenges. One of the problems we face is urbanization. We end up with whole populations centred in large areas. This may work fine when things are going well, but it doesn’t work fine when things break down. does it work?
In the Vancouver area, people live in Delta and work in North Vancouver or go to university in UBC and live in Abbotsford. This would involve a two-hour commute both ways, totalling four hours in travel.
Then there’s the cost of travel to and from work, counting vehicles, fuel, parking and all extras that go along with it. The commute can cost $40 a day, on average. Of course, this is — there is mass transit, but the problem with mass transit is it sets up in the most economical way for obvious reasons.
But by doing this, it adds an hour to the commute on either end, so now the commute is three hours each way, so there is a trade-off, but it’s equal in the end.
For both people to work with and the same amount of cash out of pocket, the person who drives to work ends up having to work two hours a day more to pay for the commute but by the time — the way home would work out to be the same.
Of course, you could live closer to work, but that involves the same financial trade-off; if you live near your work, your residence will cost more. If you work close to where you live, your job may not pay as well.
Social diversity. Let’s pick up where the home/work example left off. If you live in a small area, without trying, a person’s quality of life increases by adding three hours to their home or leisure time. Since everyone lives within 15-minute drive to work or 30-minute bus ride away, no parking.
Crime is a major social problem in large centralized areas. If there is a crime in Vancouver, there’s thousands of possible suspects over hundreds of square miles and it could take weeks and months to solve the crime. In a small area, you have three possible suspects; one was in the hospital, one was at work, leaving you with one suspect; crime takes eight hours to solve in small areas.
Violence, for instance, if you see a fight in the street in Vancouver area, you do not know either person, so you’re isolated from it. In small areas, there’s a good chance you know both parties; this gives you a greater need to get involved and help solve the issue.
Children. When you go to Vancouver, you seldom see children playing in the street. For one, traffic is so much higher, but making friendship bonds is a problem as well. In small areas, children on the street will go to the same school, play on the same hockey team, shop at the same grocery store, go to the same church. The odds of this happening in a large area is very remote.
Thirty minutes after leaving the Vancouver Airport Terminal, your sinuses plug up. The reason is the concentration of car, truck and industrial pollution in the air. Nature has the ability to clean itself if the concentration levels are not too high, but in large centres we always suffer from bad air quality and water quality from what we have seen earlier with many commuters, most of which is with engines idling.
If I went to a local river and put a teaspoon of oil in a rural river, it would not be noticed by anyone, not by the river, not by the wildlife, but in a large centre you could have the equivalent of one million teaspoons of oil put in river waterways just from the storm sewers.
The concentration of human, chemical waste in the septic sewer systems going into the waterways in Vancouver is evidenced from these problems.
This is why there’s the discussions of dead zones at the mouths of waterways of large populated areas in the world. A horse can carry 10 tonnes on its back as long as it’s done in small amounts over long periods of time. If you put a whole 10 tonnes on a horse’s back at one time, you would kill it, and you don’t have to be a scientist to understand why.
If you’re sitting down and drink four litres of bleach, you would die, but if you diluted it one-part-per-million in water and then drank it over a lifetime, you could drink four litres of bleach and there would be no effects on your body at all because you’d probably have — you’ve not overwhelmed your body. It may have benefits by preventing harmful bacteria’s from increasing in the water.
Chances of a spill. The busiest waterway in the world is the Suez Canal.
There were 7,987 ships of all descriptions passing through it in 2010; that is 22 ships a day. The channel is 24 metres deep and 205 metres wide in 2010. The channel is a single lane and passes at — I hope I pronounce it — Ballah bypass, and in the greater Bitter Lake contains no locks and seawater flows privy through the channel.
Some supertankers are too large to traverse the channel. Others can offload part of their cargo into channel boats, reducing their draft, then transit to reload at the other end of the channel.
The Douglas Channel is 1,400 metres wide at its narrowest part. That is seven times wider than the Suez Canal. The Douglas Channel is also 200 metres deep, that is eight times deeper than the Suez Canal.
Piracy off the Coast of Somalia has been a threat in the Suez Canal since the 21st century. Piracy is not a problem in the Douglas Channel.
War zones. The Suez Canal was a target in World War I, World War II, and a few regional wars, and probably is a target in the near future. Being in a war zone is not a problem for the Douglas Channel.
Global diversity. My family and I are very blessed. We are healthy, wealthy and happy. Do I, as a person, have the right to deny other people in the world the same dreams and blessing? If this permit is denied, people in other areas of the world will have to pay more for energy for different reasons. We see the tsunami, earthquakes putting pressure on Japan and its nuclear power program.
If it is denied, I will be able to pay less for our energy. Globally, is this fair?
If I have all the food and I refuse to sell it to 100 starving people, should I be surprised when they take it from me for force? Should I have the ability to stop other people in the world from getting energy? No. But I have the ability to control how the energy is used in an economic, social, environmentally responsible way.
In conclusion, I would like to encourage the approval of the export licence at Kitimat for economic, social, environmental diversification locally and worldwide.
Northwest Coast Energy News will use selected testimony from the Joint Review hearings, where that testimony can easily turned into a web post. Testimony referring to documents, diagrams or photographs will usually not be posted if such references are required. Depending on workload, testimony may be posted sometime after it originally occurred. Posting will be on the sole editorial judgment of the editor.
By Murray Minchin
I’ve been here since I was about four years old. I’m 52-ish now so I’ve been here for 48 years. I’ve left for school, went to college. I would go travelling and then — but I always came back. Like the power of this place always drew me back.
I’ve hiked almost every mountain in the region and I’ve hiked the rivers and particularly the little tiny side creeks that run down the mountain sides here. And as you drive in there’s a little tiny creek that runs into the marina at Minette Bay.
So if you’re ever back, there’s a hint to you, there’s about 12 waterfalls on that little tiny inconsequential creek that nobody ever even thinks about. I suggest you take a walk up there because it’s incredibly beautiful. This area is loaded with places like that, that are singularly beautiful on a really small scale when you step back from the whole and you go into these little tiny spots. They’re just amazing.
I’ve sea kayaked quite a bit. My wife and I spent six months sea kayaking down the whole coast of British Columbia. We did two months in the winter, two months in the spring and fall and two months in the summer. So we did six months over the whole year.
It takes about two weeks when you’re out there for just the mess — the extra stuff in your head from our society and our way of life to just kind of drop away, and after about three weeks then you begin to open your eyes and you begin to feel comfortable in a place. Like you become essentially really comfortable in the environment.
When we got to Port Hardy we booked a motel room and walked in the motel room and we sat down on the floor and we started going through our gear and started talking.
It took about 15 minutes before we realized that there were chairs in the room and we could sit on them. Like we were just so in tune with being out in the bush and — like that really changes your perception of the world. You know, like you become a little more aware.
Now, like for me, when I walk into the forest here it’s like an embrace.
There’s — it’s a palpable feeling to me that I feel completely embraced and at home in this environment.
I dropped over in the Mount Madden or into the Skeena watershed into a cirque that was surrounded by waterfalls dropping into it. So I couldn’t hear anything but the waterfalls, and as I came around the lake I heard the sound of a grizzly bear just screaming his head off and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from because the sound was echoing off the rock walls.
You know, I had to hunker down under trees and then just stop and think,
okay, like take it easy, don’t do anything too fast, take your time, make the right
choice. Experiences like that sort of show you that you — our place in the environment isn’t as strong as we think we — as it is. Like the environment has a lot more drastic effect on us than we realize.
Oh, and it was a couple of decades later I was listening to the CBC radio and I heard that sound again, and evidently it was older mature cubs fighting over a kill, cause I recognized that sound right away. But when I was out there I didn’t know, I thought it was directed towards me, possibly.
My daughter was two or three years old when I began taking her into the forest. Just past here there’s the marina, and then if you take a trail past the marina, there’s a totem pole in the forest, and you take a walk past the totem pole, you follow this trail that goes along the shoreline. So she was on my hip and we were walking through the forest.
I walked off to the side and I picked a red huckleberry off the bush and then gave it to her, and she popped it in her mouth and then, like her eyes lit up and she started jumping, you know, because she started pointing and now I had to walk through the forest to every red huckleberry bush so that she could get a taste of the red huckleberries. Now that’s part of her life and that will be part of her oral history.
On part of that trip we had a couple experiences, — on our kayak trip we had some experiences- just trying to figure a way to frame this — like yesterday at Haisla we were saying that in particular with the whales, like they’re here but in the past there was a great number of them, you know.
On our kayak trip after leaving Bishop Bay we came out on to three sleeping humpback whales, which was an amazing experience for us. But as I understand now, in the past, there would have been a lot more. And I’m really — fills me with hope to hear that they’re coming back. And it’s some disconcerting to think that that could be jeopardized in any way.
Kanoona Falls. It’s just above Butedale. Like here water is everything. we got stuck there for four days in big storms near hurricane force storms and it was raining really hard. This river was in flood; it was up into the trees on either bank and it was running completely pure, like there was no sediment in it. There It wasn’t muddy. It was just a pure river running
wild. And this is what the Kitimat River must have looked like in the past, you know, running pure in flood and no sediment.
There’s so much rain here that in mid-channel — like a channel could be two or three miles wide and there’s so much rain coming off the mountains, through the rivers and streams into the ocean that the seagulls take freshwater baths at mid-channel. It makes me wonder, scientists being who they are, engineering being who they are, the Proponent trusting their advice, has made estimations on spill response and stuff with materials and saltwater.
In the winter here you’d have to go down a foot, probably, before you find saltwater and in fact we had the sea kayak 140 kilometres south from Kitimat before salted to encrust on our decks. That’s how much freshwater is out there.
So any of the Proponent’s estimations on spill response times in saltwater, which is denser of course, should be looked at or refigured because saltwater being denser would hold the product underneath the level of the freshwater on top.
Here it rains like crazy, just suggested by the moss that you can barely see in the contrasting photograph but the forest here filters the rain so that it enters
into the rivers and the rivers run clean and the salmon and the eulachon spawn in the clean river which brings the bears; the bears carry the fish into the forest, don’t eat all of the fish and then it feeds the forest when then filters the rains for the next — for the next salmon coming up.
It snows like crazy here, like I said, you guys are really lucky that you dodged one by coming here when you did. Like four-foot snowfalls are an amazing thing to you. You know, it’s not a snowfall it’s a force of nature.
If you catch a snowflake on your tongue, one of those snowflakes on your tongue you wait for it to melt, it doesn’t and you have to chew it; like they’re twice the size of a toonie, you know, and a quarter inch thick. It’s hard to imagine but it’s a force of nature when it’s snowing like that which brings concerns about access issues, obviously.
[There are] access issues, just daily access issues anywhere, particularly on to logging roads or access roads into the wilderness, there are going to be of a great concern and even more so in emergencies when equipment and materials have to be moved anywhere.
Another problem we have here in thinking about liquid petroleum product moving through this territory is the length of out winters. The average night time low is below freezing for five months of the year and for another one of those months it’s just one degree above freezing; so things can lock up and be under ice for months at a time.
If there is any slow leak — for lack of a better term — which we haven’t been able to iron out through the information request process, you know, a spill could go for weeks without being recognized, even if the weather is good enough to get a helicopter up to fly over the area. Things could be under the ice and invisible until it gets to Kitimat and somebody notices that there is a spill happening.
This is a sapling that is growing in an estuary and it tried, I mean it tried everything it had, it had branches ripped off, the prevailing winds and it struggled but eventually it just got pushed over and died because it was in the wrong place, which I think much like this proposal and this attempt to get tar sands, bitumen from Alberta to Asia and California is — it’s just in the wrong place.
So this, to me, this is in the wrong place and this is just the first such proposal that’s reached this level of inquiry or to reach the Joint Review Panel stage, it doesn’t necessarily make it the right one and that’s really important, especially considering how much — how many forces they’re being applied to use. Well, to buy different entities to approve this project.
It’s really important to remain cognisant of the fact that this is just the first
one; it doesn’t make it the right one.
Getting back to the environmental aspect of this; this is a nurse log. You can’t see it because of the contrast of the projector. But it’s a nurse log with little tiny seedlings of more hemlock trying to grow through it. The fungus is breaking down the log. And this natural system, if it’s allowed to play out, will recover.
If we give this place a chance to recover, it will; the cumulative effects of all the industry that’s been in here and the damage it’s done over time.
It’s shocking to think in 60 years you can kill a river. And that’s what’s happened here. We’ve almost done it. Like the salmon are hanging on because of the hatchery. The eulachon are almost gone.
If we give it a chance, it can recover. The humpback whales are coming back this far into the channel. Like we saw one in front of the — I don’t know if you’ve eaten at that — the restaurant here, but last year we were here and there was one feeding right outside on the beach, just off — about 100 feet off the beach.
So if we give it a chance, it will recover. And to threaten that in any way is — morally, for me, it’s just wrong. To risk so much for so little short term gain is not part of my mindset. I can’t comprehend that.
Like this spruce on Haida Gwaii; it’s on the Hecate Strait side of Haida Gwaii. You know, it’s in from the beach a little bit but, you know, with the 120 kilometre an hour, 100-whatever an hour kilometre an hour with northerly outflow winds we have around here, even a place like this would get spray from bitumen that’s coming in at high tide.
This is a tree that’s just barely hanging on, on Cape George. It’s on the southern end of Porcher Island with Hecate Strait in the background. And it’s just an example of what things have to do here when — to try and survive when the environment is so severe.
We paddled up into here on our sea kayaking trip, we came in at high tide and we were looking up at the rocks and then back into the distance and there was still nothing growing. It was just incredible to think.
So after we set up camp, I came around here and then took this photograph because where the water is, is high tide and beach logs are normally pushed up down the line along the shoreline, you know, nice and neatly tucked against the forest by the high tides.
these are just scattered all over the rocks, and that’s because the waves there are so big in the wintertime when the southeast storms come in that, I mean, like there’s nothing living for 10 feet up and, I don’t know, 70, 80 feet back because of the continual, every year storms coming in and pushing these logs and rolling them around.
Huckleberries, beach grasses, hemlock trees, anything will — if there’s any available space for something to grow, it’s going to grow. So this just speaks to the fact that the storms here are so continual and so severe that it’s a recipe for disaster.
You get waves crashing in on — so high onto a ship that the spray is getting down into the air ducts and down into the mechanics of the ship and then you’re adrift.
It’s a different — like after you — from travelling east, once you come into the Skeena Valley and you cross over that coast Range Mountains, everything is different. All your precepts from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, don’t matter here. There are severe environmental risks here beyond anything else in Canada.
I mean, the mountains are so young. The seismicity of the area is the area is questionable because there hasn’t been that much accumulated evidence over time. So it’s just something to be aware of.
It’s a place called Cape George on Porcher Island, which is just above Kitkatla.
There is Cape George, and this is just a storm that happened to miss us, but we were stormbound there for about four days.
I ask of you that you really consider that responsibility. You know, obviously you do, but it’s important for us to know that you, that you take that responsibility really seriously because like the — in t he Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office Reference Guide, as a guide to determining whether a project is likely to cause a significant environmental effect or not, it’s quoted as saying:
The Act is clear that the project may be allowed to proceed if any likely significant adverse environmental effects can be justified in the circumstances.
So what possible circumstances are there to risk such a place and to risk so many First Nations cultures?
So what I was saying was if you give nature a chance to heal, it will heal itself, and that’s what’s happening here and that’s what the Haisla elders were telling us yesterday, that this place wants to heal itself and it can if we give it a chance.
You know, to add more risk to the cumulative damage that’s already been done here, I think, would be essentially a crime. It should be given a chance to heal.
Another thing that Mr. Ellis Ross said yesterday was, you know, much like he’s making his own history, his oral history today and in his life, like you are as Panel Members making your own history as well and your ancestors are going to speak of what decision you made and the consequences of that decision.
Northwest Coast Energy News will use selected testimony from the Joint Review hearings, where that testimony can easily turned into a web post. Testimony referring to documents, diagrams or photographs will usually not be posted if such references are required. Depending on workload, testimony may be posted sometime after it originally occurred. Posting will be on the sole editorial judgment of the editor.
By April MacLeod, Walter Thorne and Dennis Horwood
We would first like to thank the Haisla Nation
hosting this hearing. We recognize we are guests on Haisla land and that we are also on Haisla territory. We would also like to thank the JRP for this opportunity to make the oral presentation.
Who is the Kitimat Valley Naturalists? We are an independent Kitimat organization. We’re open to the entire community and we are an active member of B.C. nature. Our goal as a group is to pursue outdoor nature-oriented recreation.
As a group, we have 40 years of bird and mammal records and research papers. We have been involved as stream keepers, working closely with Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And we are also considered by the birding community to be citizen scientists.
We believe we have little to gain and much to lose from an oil pipeline, terminus and tanker traffic, and the purpose of this presentation is to show what we believe we have to — we stand to lose.
The focus of this whole presentation is the Kitimat River estuary and it is one of the five largest estuaries on our northern B.C. Coast. It is ranked by Ducks Unlimited as one of B.C.’s most important estuaries. And to back that up, a technical report showed it was the top three in total biological and social values.
And so everyone is clear, scientists define an estuary as much more than just mudflats and meadows. The Kitimat River estuary in fact extends many kilometres past the inner tidal areas and well into Douglas Channel.
The estuary foreshore is a relatively flat area, and at a distance, its beauty and importance are difficult to see. Up close, however, things change.
The Kitimat River estuary is 1,230 hectares, and in perspective, that’s three times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. It is covered in sitka spruce, western hemlock and deciduous trees, interspersed with lush meadows, slews, ponds and rivulets.
Rich, organic soils, packed with nutrients, help create immense fertile meadows. These meadows and land support the growth of many native species.
In the spring and summer, it is a wildlife — wildflower and wildlife heaven. In early times, the root of the chocolate lily, seen in the insert, was used by the Haisla and early pioneers as a food source.
Shooting stars are just one of the many wildflowers found in the meadows of the estuary. Many people, like me, a local native, native natural photographer, I like to walk around the estuary purely for the floral opportunity of — floral photographic opportunities.
The same nutrients that allow flowers to flourish also support a major outdoor activity, fishing.
Fishers from B.C., Alberta and the world come here to fish. Why? Because Kitimat is really a fishing Mecca.
Kitimat’s river — the Kitimat River brood stock is amongst the best in the world. Where else on this planet can you catch a 27-pound steelhead or a 76-pound Chinook salmon. Elite fly-in fishing lodges located throughout the Douglas Channel target Kitimat River fish.
The B.C. sports fishing industry yields annual returns in the billions of dollars. Kitimat’s share in a year is in the millions.
Kitimat is a 10 out of 10 fishing destination. And if you don’t like our fish, try our prawns. Even celebrities know about this area and come here to fish. When the Vancouver Canucks arrive, they keep it very secret.
The Kitimat and Douglas Channel river systems have attracted recreational anglers for decades, starting in the 1950s, as you can see. Some have an extremely high profile: The Right Honourable Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, Kevin Costner, the actor, and Carey Price, a B.C. boy, our goalie for the Montreal Canadiens.
Hunters as well as fishers depend on the Kitimat River estuary. Birds, like fish, are attracted to estuaries. The Kitimat River estuary is a stopover during both the spring and fall migration. Trumpeter swans that nest in Alaska fly here and stay for the winter.
One of the major groups of migrants are waders, long-legged birds that generally feed in the shallow waters and mudflats. Over 20 species of this group of birds use our estuary as a fast-food outlet. They stop, stay for a day or two, then fly on to as far away as South America.
Twenty years ago, great blue herons were a rare bird at any time of the year in the Kitimat Valley. This blue-listed bird, meaning an indigenous species considered vulnerable, has made the Kitimat River estuary its winter refuge. Now these birds are regularly reported on Christmas bird counts.
Snow geese used to be a rare bird here as well. We now record them regularly during spring and fall migrations and in flocks sometimes exceeding 500 individuals. This estuary has become a vital link along their migration route.
Typically, many birds desert the estuary during the summer months, but we still have many species that rely on the estuary trees, meadows and waterways to raise their young.
One of the most mysterious birds in the world lives here. The marbled murrelet, a robin-sized seabird thrives in the Douglas Channel system. These birds feed by day in the rich channel waters, but at nightfall they fly inland to old-growth trees and locate their saucer-sized nest in complete darkness. No scientist, or anyone for that matter, knows how they do this.
The estuary and Douglas Channel have immense recreational values. Sailboats, kayaks and power craft all ply the local waterways. Alaska-bound yachts often divert into Douglas Channel. Why do they come here? They come here for solitude, pristine wilderness, private beaches that urbanites from all over Canada can only dream about.
Author John Kimantas predicts Douglas Channel will evolve into a world- class kayaking destination. He is considered to be the Pacific Coast authority on kayaking.
We are blessed with a network of Haisla cabins that all visitors are welcome to use. These two kayakers visit here every year from Alberta. They keep coming back. Why? They want that wilderness experience.
Within the shelter of Minette Bay, a major part of the estuary, local recreational events such as dragon boat racing and training take place. We have several non-commercial hot springs. Anyone can use them at any time of the year. They’re free.
Ecotourism on the estuary and throughout the Douglas Channel system is second to none. It is simply world class. Where else on the same day can you see three different looking bears on the same day? Lots of places have black bears, but we have Kermode bears and grizzlies a plenty. They love our salmon and we enjoy watching them fish.
Orcas regularly visit here in spring but can be seen at any time. Sea lions come and go with the fish and tides. Seals are always present in the channel, estuary and even the river. They add character and enjoyment for visitors and locals alike.
But nothing — absolutely nothing — beats the sight of a sounding humpback whale. If we lose our whales, we know we will have lost much more.
So in conclusion, the Kitimat Valley Naturalists believe we need to strike harmony and balance in our ecosystem here and, as such, we believe the Northern Gateway is not an acceptable risk. We simply have too much to lose.
Members of the Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel, chiefs of the Haisla Nation and spectators watch the welcoming ceremony before the start of hearings at Kitamaat Village, Jan. 10, 2012. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)
Chiefs of the Haisla Nation were the first witnesses to appear before the Northern Gateway Joint Review panel when the “community hearings” began in Kitamaat Village on Jan. 10, 2012.
The seven, Chief Counsellor Ellis Ross, Jassee chief Samuel Robinson, chiefs Rod Bolton, Ken Hall, Clifford Smith, Marilyn Furlan and Henry Amos spoke eloquently of Haisla traditional knowledge of the region, problems in the past with environmental degradation from local industry and their fears for a future if Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by Enbridge Inc. is approved.
After a welcome ceremony by the Spirit of Kitlope drummers and dancers, the first witness was Samuel Robinson, the Jassee chief of the Haisla Nation and a world renowned carver in wood, silver and gold. Robinson was the first of many First Nations leaders, first the Haisla at the Kitamaat Village hearings and later on Jan. 12 in Terrace the Kitsumkalum to speak of the collapse of the oolichan fishery.
“We have always been taught to take only what we need and to leave the harvest site in the same or better manner, condition, which — when we leave the area. This is a global concern to keep everything clean now,” Robinson said.
Henry Amos voiced his distrust for the government and the Joint Review process. “This is my own personal opinion that we are, the Haisla are already at a disadvantage…. I also know that you’re an independent body, which is good in a way, but what bothers me the most is that you’re appointed, I think from your information it was from the Minister of Environment and the National Energy Board. You’re appointed by the Federal Government and it’s the same government that is telling the world that this project should go ahead. That is my biggest concern right now, is that we are in a disadvantage.”
Chief Counsellor Ellis Ross spoke about the problems with cleaning up a relatively minor diesel spill in Kitimat harbour, “I was working for a charter boat company out of Kitimat, District of Kitimat. And a tugboat down at our dock here sunk, dumping all its diesel into the water…
“Optimal conditions; the water’s calm, you’re working off the dock, you got every gear that you can think of, you can pack it down. We still couldn’t pick that diesel up. In fact, most of it got under the dock and it took a year for it to all leech out, but we spent a couple days down there trying to do what we could, basically mopping it up.
“When we were done with the absorbent pads and booms, the first thing we found out is that, actually, nobody wanted to deal with that product. Our company had an agreement with the pulp and paper mill to burn the product in their furnace, natural gas furnace, so the higher-ups agreed to it, but when we got to the door, their workers refused us. So we were stuck outside the pulp and paper mill with these bags and bags of booms and absorbent pads.
“So they came down with a condition. You guys can burn it in our furnace, but you guys have got to pack it up there yourselves.
“So covered in diesel, soaking wet, stink, and nobody wanted to come near us, we had to do it ourselves. Nobody would touch that.”
Read the Haisla testimony in their own words. Here are links to the unfiltered voices of the chiefs from the transcripts of their testimony:
This story presents the unfiltered voices of Haisla chiefs when they testified at the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review hearings on January 10, 2011, at Kitamaat Village, based on the official transcript. There have been minor edits for clarity.
Henry Amos
Gupsalupus is my Chief name, Chief of the Eagle Clan, a name that was transferred to me from my grand-father Jeff Legay (ph) and those that remember him, was a very prominent speaker, a very knowledgeable man in our language and our culture, a man who would share his wisdom on all walks of life, including stories, songs, whatever came up, he would share with anyone who would listen.
That’s what I remember of this name that I carry for over approximately forty years, a name that I’ve treasured for the same length of time because I know who it came from.
Henry Amos Senior is my adopted name, English name. And I want to share with you a little bit about what I was taught by my parents. I want you to know who I am, who’s speaking to you.
I was taught well by my parents on how to conduct myself and hopefully I didn’t disappoint them, because I — that person I treasure use the words honesty, accountability, responsibility. And probably the strongest word that I think personally is the word “respect”. Again, that’s how I try to conduct myself to my people when I address them. Those words that I was taught, I was told you’ll never go wrong, to be open and transparent. I’ll get back to that.
Those words that I suggest to you, the Panel, to reflect on when you make a decision down the road, I know it’s a long way but I suggest to you to reference those words when you make a decision on this project that I’ve just mentioned and that’s all I can ask of you, what my parents said, you’ll never go wrong.
All day we heard my friends here make mention of the resources that we use to survive, and I’m no exception. I won’t go into details but I want it on record that Henry Amos Senior still does depend on the resources that is provided to me by Mother Nature, our land, our water.
But I want to share with you an experience that I had as a youngster gathering — one trip that I went with my parents and his parents and some of my siblings. The first deer that I ever sought for our food, for our use, as a youngster, I’ll never forget, when my father and myself, he lead — he lead me to where they were. And when I did manage to shoot one of them, it went down and I jumped for joy, that’s how happy I was — memories that I have. But what I didn’t know is that he didn’t stay down.
He took off into the bush. So my dad had to follow him. He didn’t go far. And that trip alone we gathered that deer, we had berries, crabs and salmon in that one trip. Regulations weren’t in place yet. Regulations for how much people you can carry, the hunting licenses, those weren’t in place yet. That’s one trip that I’ll never forget, a trip with my parents to gather food for our survival.
Those are the words that my parents taught me and I want it on record that I still depend on those resources.
I’d just like to say a few words on your portion of the hearing relating to your position as a Joint Review Panel.
The information that I got online, a concern of mine — I have nothing against the Panel but I’m concerned. I’m concerned about the decision making of this project; that Ms. Leggett and Mr. Bateman both work for the National Energy Board, one as a Vice-Chair and the other one as a Chair of the Regulatory Policy Committee, I believe — correct me if I’m wrong — and Mr. Matthews, First Nation from the Eastern Province of Ontario.
When I think about it — and this is my own personal opinion — that I am — we are, the Haisla are already at a disadvantage. We have no representation from the Province of British Columbia.
I realize your tasks. I also know that you’re an independent body, which is good in a way, but what bothers me the most is that you’re appointed, I think from your information it was from the Minister of Environment and the National Energy Board. You’re appointed by the Federal Government and it’s the same government that is telling the world that this project should go ahead. That is my biggest concern right now, is that we are in a disadvantage.
At this point Sheila Leggett, chair of the panel interrupted to say, Chief Amos, we’re here today to listen to your oral evidence that wouldn’t be able to be put in writing, and the example we’ve been using in the Hearing Order and the information we’ve been publishing is that it would be traditional knowledge. So I’m hoping that your comments will be along those lines because that is what we’re here to listen to today.
The project that we’re concerned about, the proposed, which is referenced — this hearing is referenced as mother of all hearings. I’ve heard that comment. All three phases of this project is right in the middle of Haisla territory. You have the pipeline — proposed pipeline. You have the Kitimat Marine Terminal, and you have the tanker — tanker traffic.
I find that the valley, Wadine, Mount Elizabeth, Kitimat Valley — I seen the beauty of the areas and all forms of life. That bothers me. The migratory birds that are there; you see swan; you see geese, ducks, beaver. You heard my — this table talk about resources for their food, but there’s another part of it that – the beauty of the creatures out there the photographers take.
I can still picture in my mind the amount of damage that was done in Mexico. Exxon Valdez. I don’t want that to happen in my territory.
I realize other communities are going to be doing the same process, the pipeline that will be criss-crossing the rivers. To me, Kitimat River is probably another one of my concerns.
I hear some First Nations agree with the project, but some of them they won’t be impacted. None of the pipelines will reach their territory. I understand that. What I don’t understand is individuals and organizations that agree with this project that could hugely impact, and I’m referring to Kitimat River.
If a spill occurs on top of the intake for City of Kitimat water system, what’s going to happen? And these people — organizations — don’t take that into consideration. And once it gets down to the mouth of the Kitimat River, there’s nowhere else for it to go but through the channel. And I know how fast, how swift the tides can go in and out.
The response time, we’re lucky today that the weather — I don’t think you’ll find a milder weather in January, but I’ve seen winter elements. I’ve seen heavy snowfall. I’ll give you a good example, one I can think of, probably in the early ‘70’s. I worked from eleven thirty to seven thirty. I left at probably ten thirty and I was out of there by seven thirty.
The snow that had packed in those eight hours, eight and a half hours, when I parked my car at the parking lot, you didn’t know whose car was there. There was so much snow it covered the whole parking lot. All you seen was a form of vehicles.
The winter elements in our territory is a big concern. Freezing rain, there’s times you won’t be able to move, and that’s on regular highways. If a spill occurs along the pipeline, how do they expect to reach if you can’t even drive on a regular highway because of winter conditions. How do they expect to get to that point where there’s a spill? I can’t understand that.
We always hear about: “Aw, we’ll clean it up.”
The pipeline that I’m referring to, the proposed twin pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat, what you mentioned to is 1170 kilometres in length, I worked probably 40 years in the industry, 32 as a welder. I see a lot of incidences. I see a lot of accidents. I’ve repaired a lot of components, machinery, equipment and some of them, incidents, accidents, were due to human error but I do know how this pipeline that’s supposed to be coming through, the twin pipeline, in a rugged terrain with B.C. — this isn’t Alberta, this isn’t the Prairies where you can see for miles.
I just heard that, along the route, there’s going to be two mountains that has to be drilled because the terrain is so rugged.
You know, the Kitimat Marine Terminal, from what I understand, there’ll be — excuse me — the Kitimat Marine Terminal, I believe, there’s going to be 14 storage tanks. How big in volume? I don’t know. Three were supposed to be for condensing and 11 for — for oil and two tanker berths. It’s probably where they’re going to load them.
And like everything else, Kitimat Marine Terminal is a concern of mine. As I’ve stated, I’ve seen accidents. I’ve seen incidences. If I knew the volume of one of them …
I just can’t imagine the devastation that will happen in and around my community, the waterways, the tanker route. Approximately 200 supertankers, not just regular ships like what we have out here; twice as big as the ships that are coming in and out currently.
They all talk about safety. You could be safe as you can. A good example is the Queen of the North that just ran aground just down the channel and fortunate to have the community of Gitga’at there to help them. Human error. And that’s a small-scale ship compared to the supertankers that are proposed to come in and out of Douglas Channel. Big concern.
I’ve been part of our elected council, my third term now, and what I’ve seen is a big improvement on how we want to protect our environment. We’re not dead set against employment. I’ve heard individuals: “Oh, we’ll get jobs.” My community has to fight tooth and nail to get any employment.
I just heard there’ll be 400 jobs along the pipeline route, another 1,000 jobs across Canada but I think the bottom line is, once this project — depending on which way it goes — will have 50 permanent jobs and, from our experience, we’re lucky to get jobs for our people.
But I want to make it perfectly clear those jobs, whatever comes with the project, no matter how much money that is put in front of me, I will never — I will always go against a project that I know can wipe out our whole resource.
As I said, we’d love to have industries come in providing they don’t affect our environment.
I stated earlier about how council has improved, Kitamaat Village Haisla Nation Council is improving and that’s including our Aboriginal Rights and Title case law. Hiring the right lawyers, the right consultants is what I see is the strongpoint for elected council and I think and I know the bottom line for us is to protect what our people want. I’d rather not have this project in our territory. Thank you.
This story presents the unfiltered voices of Haisla chiefs when they testified at the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review hearings on January 10, 2011, at Kitamaat Village, based on the official transcript. There have been minor edits for clarity.
Marilyn Furlan
My name is Marilyn Edith Furlan nee Paul. I was born in Bella Bella in 1948. I was raised in Kemano, Kitlope, Kitamaat Village, Butedale, and Port Simpson.
My father is Chief Gupsgolox, Dan Paul Senior of Kitlope. My mother, Mujive Wigadof Edith Paul of the Beaver Clan. My father is in the Eagle Clan.
My traditional name is Pulth Xa-Leeth , which means it is the abalone shells imbedded on the outside of the canoe. My sisters is Pulth Ha-Neeks , which is the abalone shells imbedded on the inside of the canoe.
My name came from my great-great grandmother mama’u Annie Putlh, of Hinaxula Kitlo. She passed away in 1966. We believe she was pretty close to 114 years old when she passed away in our Kitimat hospital here in Kitimat.
I once asked mama’u, “Do you know when your birth date is?” She said all she knows is what her mother told her, that she was born when the berries were starting to get right and it was probably around June or July.
My name was given to me by my grandmother in a feast hall. Emily Amos baptized me at that feast.
I am the member of the Eagle Clan under Chief Gupsgolox, Dan Paul Senior.
I want to go back to Kitlope where my forefathers are from. Kitlope River is a water that comes right from the glacier. It is very, very blue. The borderline when you see that water, a blue water, istamas and that’s where the water meets the borderline of the Hinaxula meet at the mouth of Gardner to Haisla waters, the colour changes.
If you ever get a chance please go to visit. Your experience is a peaceful cleansing spirits when you come out of there. You wash your face in that glacier blue water and it’s to be — and you are protected while you’re there. You enter without animosity.
My grandmother, mama’u, used to tell us stories around when she was mending an eulachon net or making an eulachon net, in Kitlope when a boat started coming in where sockeye that was dried in the sun and it was very, very red, as you can see it when you’re going in, each clan had an area for their own to dry their fish as you’re coming out — along the Kitlope — Kemano.
My grandmother, mama’u Annie Pulth, she never believed in taking fire — firewood — taking trees down for firewood. Every time after a high tide she would go — we’d walk along the beaches of Kemano and we’d pick up a driftwood, put it on top of the logs, wait for it to dry out, go back and pick those logs up to burn for firewood, and also for smoking.
She taught me how to identify ghlksam, ebaum , that’s carrots and buttercup roots, in the back of our home in Kemano. You dry them or you boil them fresh. She always used to tell me that “You learn from this. You watch and you learn.” She was always so afraid of a war breaking out. She said when the maniwa come in you’ll never starve.
She didn’t believe in wasting any kind of fish. We ate everything on that fish. Goat meat, the fat off the goat, she’d take it off, take it into the smoke house and dry it. I had to taste everything. There was nothing that I couldn’t say “No, thank you”.
The seal that was outside in Kemano, the ducks, if we wanted that, we needed that, they’d hunt right out on the front of our village. We only hunted what we could eat for that time.
As a little girl we would sit around while she was making eulachon net and annoosa and tell stories about the fishing that she used to do. She used to go down to — go as far as Seattle by canoe. It used to take them two weeks to get there in Butedale. And she’d always come back with beads — necklaces from the First Nations down there for me.
We harvested the cedar bark and she would make cedar baskets out of them. As a little girl I remember her giving me little baskets. Every year as I grew up she made another basket big enough for me.
Mama’u also took me on her dugout canoe that she made herself to go and harvest some clams, some cockles. My favourite was always mussels. She would take the (inaudible), the dried fish, smoked fish and put it in a cedar box for our winter food. We’d always have that with the oil, the eulachon grease.
Mama’u was a very tiny, tiny woman but very powerful. She was the mother of all mothers. She would tell stories about — especially about the maniwa (ph) that she was so afraid of. She would tell stories about them coming in to Kemano, turning around and going back out, and then always cautioned us whenever they arrived in Butedale — that was our summer home — to stay away from there because they’ll kidnap us. We were never allowed to go down to the float. We always had to stay in our area.
I was one of the luckiest ones that was brought up by the community. Butedale and Kemano was a very small community. Men went out fishing; the women stayed home. Everybody was our mother. All of us, everybody was our mother, but mama’u was the head. Like Clifford said, she was the head.
I remember when the first helicopter she ever saw in Kemano, she ran out with a broom trying to chase that helicopter away because she’d never seen one before.
My traditional foods are now from my dad, brother, brother-in-law that fish and hunt and they share with me. Have you heard previously about the traditional foods that we have and had? Some of them we haven’t tasted in a long time, especially, for me, living in town.
Included in it is the red cod, black cod, halibut, trout, eulachon, eulachon grease, clams, cockles, sea cucumbers, mussels, sea urchins, prawns, herring, herring eggs, crabs, hunting goat, bear, moose, seal meat, ducks, geese. Most of them are prepared the same way; smoked. Halibut is dried, air dried, canned, barbecued. Best is eating it fresh.
I myself, fish in the Kitimat River for small trout, salmon, steelhead. Follow the season.
In the Hamatichi-sa Kitamaat Village — Kemano Village, pardon me — I trap squirrels. My dad taught me how to trap squirrels, skin it and stretch it, clean it, rabbits, martin, weasels. I trapped with my dad. Then I would sell it to provide income for myself, enough to buy candy or a chocolate bar whenever we walked so many kilometres — in those days it was miles — up to Kemano where Alcan had built a water — where they got their water, where they get their B.C. Hydro water.
I remember skinning my first weasel, and there’s a part in there that you have to make sure you miss, and I didn’t. And my dad stood by and laughed and laughed because when you hit that spot, it smells, but I still had to clean it myself. I used to get 25 cents a squirrel if it was really nice, five cents if it wasn’t, so I made a lot of nickels.
Nuxalk is visual learning, by watching your grandparents or your parents prepare. The most fascinating part of preparing was eulachon grease, the preparation and how long it takes to prepare for eulachon grease.
My youngest son had an opportunity to go with Chief Gupsgo lox to help make the eulachon grease.
Mama’u taught us never to waste any kind of food. I don’t ever recall seeing garbage around in Kemano, in our little village, or up in Kitlope, because that’s what we were taught.
Mama’u took me up to Kitlope to go eulachon grease making up there, and we’d go up in a — in those days they were called the little putt-putt boats. When you started it, you had to turn this wheel. Up there is a story about the man who turned to stone. And I recall her always putting a towel or a blanket over my head as we were going by the man who turned to stone.
Then one day I asked her, “Why do you do that to me?” I’m a nosy kid. I’ve been nosy since I was small and still am today. She said, “Because I didn’t want you to have nightmares because when you’re going by that man who turned to stone, it looks like he’s watching you as you’re going by.”
When you get up to where we used to camp, our house was made out of logs that was halfway and the rest was a canvas. The floors were bare. I recall mama’u when she got up in the morning and she made puyas, which was Indian tea and she always fried bread, and she’d have it on the table when we’d get up.
The syrup in those days used to come in cans, and when you dipped your bread into the — that fried bread into that, it used to stretch like molasses and you used to have to turn your bread around to cut the syrup off. The one thing I liked about the bare floors is you never had to sweep. Mama’u harvested the stinging nettles to make twine for an eulachon net and scoop nets.
As a little girl, I had very, very bad eczema on my hands and mama’u would take me at the back of the house to take shavings off of alder, soak a piece of cloth and wrap it around my hands to take the infection away.
She taught me how to harvest devil’s club to make medicine tea. Chief Gupsgolox, he still goes out to get hewood down our channel and mom prepares it for me.
Our traditional foods, the seaweed and the herring eggs and abalone are traded with a Gitga’at families, the Kitasoo and the Bella Bella family. We traded mostly with eulachon grease.
Mama’u and I harvested salmon berries, blueberries, thimble berries, wild cranberries, huckleberries, aseena — and I don’t know what it’s called in English — facetum — I think that’s called parsnip. We used to steal sugar from mom’s cupboard and dip it in there to eat. Elderberry, wild crab apples, apples and the stingy nettles.
Stinging nettles, that’s a job I didn’t like but mama’u gave me, because it stung if you didn’t pick it right.
My sister Lorna and I — I have six sisters and one brother — spoke Haisla quite fluently. When it was time to go to school, to the English-speaking school, we had to learn to speak English because that’s the only thing the teacher taught us in, but mama’u always spoke to me in Haisla.
I am the elder’s coordinator. I believe everything happens for a reason, why I ended up there at my stage in life. The Haisla language, I understand it, but I’m just learning how again to speak it. I so believe that everything happens for a reason and every reason is for a good reason. Being an elder’s coordinator and being with the elders and we’re sitting around the table and they speak Haisla, I’m starting to pick it up.
I’m also a bus driver for the three and four-year olds. It is a job that I’m so thankful for in this stage of my life and my age right now. The children, they light up your life. Early in the morning, my first pick-up is at eight o’clock and it’s still dark out. The last ones I bring home is at 4:00. In between that time I’m with the elders.
And then one day I was laying in bed and I thanked the creator for where I am today because it’s the children that light up my life and it’s my elders that put me into a peaceful sleep every night.
My grandparents, Walter and Violet Wilson, taught me a lot too. They taught me how to help whomever comes to you.
My uncle Taylor, when we were eight, nine years old, papa’u Walter used to tell us to go and help Uncle John, old John Hall, cutting wood with the old blades, with the hacksaw, big long thing, and we’d go and help them pack their wood up. Always help one another. Don’t have to be asked. Get up and help. “Wigella clab” — we help one another. I have instilled that in my children, help one another, my grandchildren.
When I talk about Kitlope and my dad, the Chief Gupsgolox, mama’u, Clifford, Kenny Hall, I feel so, so blessed that I — that they’re still here with me. I talk to Kenny Hall a lot about Kitlope, reminisce, nusa. Up there in Kitlope is where we come from, right in there. Gosh, it’s been a long time since I’ve been there.
The Gupsgolox pole was taken from Mis’kusa, which belongs to my dad, Chief Gupsgolox. It sat in Misk’usa. In 2006 we went to Sweden to pick up that pole. It is now sitting below my dad’s house waiting to go back home in March when eulachon season is on. Hopefully there will be eulachons this year were it lay back to rest.
When we come back from Butedale — that was our summer home — my dad was a fisherman, and I’d come up here and live with my grandparents, as you’re kind of coming up the channel there, you could see the yellow of buttercups, the blue of the forget-me-nots as you were coming in. You don’t see that any more.
A river, Minette Bay, the grass was brown. When Eurocan left, as a bus driver, I started noticing that the green grass, the eel grass was coming back. I started noticing the seals coming in, the fish coming in. Just to witness the seal when they’d get a fish in its mouth and it would come up from the water and shake its head and just play around with that fish and throw it around.
The geese, the ducks that are coming back. The eel grass starting to turn green, a beautiful green, some of our birds, I notice, are starting to come back, pigeons. We used to see that all the time and I just noticed some pigeons the other day.
It was last year, I got a call from my boss, said, “Marilyn, hurry up and get those kids over here, you’ve got to see this”. I said, “I can’t”. I said, “It’s 50 kilometres an hour on this road, I’ll get caught for sure”.
When the porpoises come in and the witnesses said it sounded like a big, big noise coming into our channel. Turned around close to Alcan, went back out. The killer whales come in. The flowers are now starting to come back.
I so believe that everything happens for a reason. So I can teach my grandchildren, be observant, respect our lands. Even taking your garbage out of the bush is pollution, take your garbage out with you. Don’t throw a piece of paper on the floor, don’t throw a piece of paper on the road because that’s pollution. The family crest on my blanket is the moon and the star. What I have on my blanket tells the story of the man who turned stone, T’ismista, that’s up in Kitlope. I have on there the killer whale fin, it’s from my grandmother’s side; I have an eagle on there from my dad’s side; I have a beaver on there from my mom’s side.
I would like to add a frog on mine. I noticed on dad’s regalia that he has a frog. I asked him, “Why do you have a frog on there?” The Chief — the Gupsgolox pole, when it was taken from Misk’usa, the base was a frog. When they cut it off, they left the frog behind. That’s what’s missing on my blanket, is a frog, because I never knew there was a frog on the bottom.
I have a daughter and two sons, four grandchildren. My daughter, Indian name is Stauogh, from her great-grandmother with Boone, the late Violet Wilson. Her children, 11 and 13, also have an Indian name, which was from their baba’u, Dan Paul, Senior Chief Gupsgolox. My daughters — my granddaughter, Sienna, got her name from Nanny Lorna Bolton mugee with Boone. My other granddaughter is Msaxw, which means Rainbow.
They get their traditional food from moojith (ph) with Boone, Lorna Bolton. Lorna prepares and gives them the smoked fish, smoked eulachons and they love their dried halibut and the seaweed. Her husband Jay is non-First Nations, he also loves this food.
If there’s ever an oil spill they will have nothing. They’ll have nothing to put on their dinner plate.
The last time my two children — my two oldest children harvested any eulachons in our river right by Kitimat River bridge was in 1972. We scooped it up with fish nets and put it in an ice cream pail and brought it home and cooked it fresh. That was the very last time we ever went into the Kitimat River for eulachons.
I have seen a lot of our resources depleted, some of them are coming back. I am very worried about the Northern Gateway Pipeline, how the spill would impact our territory. I don’t want to accept such a risk to our territory, to our lands and to our resources, neither would my mama’u, my baba’u, Walter Wilson, and all my other mama’u’s. Johnny Bolton who sits up there is my great-great grandfather. I feel them here, all of them, in here.
My youngest son is not married yet so I have to think of his children, my future grandchildren. It is going to be their uncles that will teach them this, about our resources and how important it is, when I’m gone, when my parents are gone.
I don’t want the resources which we use to teach our children of our culture to be destroyed. I honour mama’u, baba’u, our ancestors that are gone that are counting on us to keep our lands and resources free from any oil spill.
Thank you.
This story presents the unfiltered voices of Haisla chiefs when they testified at the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review hearings on January 10, 2011, at Kitamaat Village, based on the official transcript. There have been minor edits for clarity.
Clifford Smith
Thank you. Before I speak, I make reference to my brothers and sisters seated behind me. I know in your spirit that you stand beside me, speaking in opposition of the proposed pipeline. I thank you for your strength. My back is not turned toward you deliberately. I know you stand with me.
I acknowledge the Heiltsuk Nation and the Kitasoo/Xaixais for their strength. I would miss their arrival yesterday into our territory and I remember my grandmother speaking: when we have visitors, the power of their arrival …
I interpret that for those that don’t understand our language: “We heard their voices, their drum voices and their voices. I take that upon myself has given me strength.
Thank you to the Heiltsuk Nation….
And I know that that strength also comes with the other neighbouring nations of our territory. Thank you for that strength and I will indeed attend your hearings to return that strength that you so generously gave me; I return it to you by attending your hearings.
Thank you for standing beside me. Thank you.
I also make reference to our youth who brought our chief to see in the power of their voice and the strength of their drums. Let’s take that strength and stand together and say “No” to Enbridge.
My given name is Gaioustis which once belonged to my late Uncle Charlie Wilson. I received that name, Gaioustis, on my grandmother’s tombstone face and I have honoured that name since I received it.
I need to mention my grandmother, Annie Paw who is the head of our family and the family owns and presently owns an eulachon camp up in Kemano, Gardner Canal. I need to mention that, the importance of the eulachon to us as the Haisla. My grandmother has since passed on and the head of our camp became my late father Edmund Smith and my mum.
It’s just a little over a year ago, my mother passed away and, at that time, my brother Crosbie was the head of our camp. It’s this past September we buried our eldest of family, Crosbie, in September.
I along with my brother, Glen, have now become the head of the camp. I need to make mention of that camp. The importance of our resources that our Mother Earth has so generously given and I make mention of the neig
hbouring nations, how we link together as family; not only in a Nation’s sense but by blood.
I have family in River’s Inlet. I have family in Heiltsuk. I have family in Kitasoo/Xaixais; I have family in (inaudible). I have family in Gitga’at, I have family in Metlakatla, the upper reaches of the Coast, Port Simpson, Kinkola, Grainwall, Canyon City Ians, Hazelton Kitfunga, all the neighbouring nations.
I need to mention those nations because we are linked together — the resources from our sea, our land and sea — through the barter system. I make reference to them as my brothers and sisters for they are indeed brothers and sisters. We enjoy the resources from our sea. Until today, we enjoyed the resources of the sea.
If there’s any oil spill, whether it be from the pipeline or the ship that will transport the crude oil, if there’s any form of spill, all that we enjoy from land and sea will be destroyed.
Let us put our strength together and stand as one and say “No” to Enbridge.
The salmon from our oceans is vitally important to our diet. I’ve been travelling our waters for six and a half decades from the time I was able to travel. Our source of travel was the canoe.
I make reference to my life because it is a statement that needs to be mentioned for that’s when our teachings begin. As a small child, the teachings begin. The knowledge that I have today has been compiled all those years, six and a half decades.
I still travel these waters. I’m a retired commercial fisherman; I still travel these waters. I very much enjoy harvesting and providing for my family, my immediate family, my extended family, my friends. They all benefit from the harvest that I do.
The clams, the cockles, the mussels, the crab, the urchins and cucumber, halibut, cod, all I enjoy, that — all that I enjoy will be wiped away if there ever is an oil spill. It’s a scary fact if the pipeline is to be built. All that I and my people enjoy will be gone. Let us stand together and say no to Enbridge.
I still hunt today and most the deer, the beaver, the fowl — the water fowl — all this I enjoy on our doorstep.
I make reference to what I — a statement that I heard the other day, that we as Haisla people stand in front of a double-barrelled shotgun, indeed we are standing in front of a double-barrelled shotgun. The pipeline — the proposed pipeline will come up through our back door and its ships will come in and transport the crude oil; we are indeed facing a double-barrelled shotgun. The impact — if there’s an impact of any spoil we’ll be in disaster.
The Exxon Valdez, which took place years ago, the damage is still visible today. Last year we witnessed through the news media Gulf of Mexico, they are still suffering today.
I have three children, three grandchildren and one more grandchildren on the way; it is them that will suffer without the resources that we so much enjoy today if there ever is an oil spill. Therefore, I say no to the reality of Enbridge, no, please no.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I thank you for listening.
This story presents the unfiltered voices of Haisla chiefs when they testified at the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review hearings on January 10, 2011, at Kitamaat Village, based on the official transcript. There have been minor edits for clarity.
Ken Hall
Thank you. My name is Ken Hall. I’m from Kemano, the Kitlope area. My father was there and my mother was from Kitamaat. And I was born in Kitamaat and raised partially in Kitamaat and Butedale where my father worked.
As I grew up in Butedale and coming in here in between seasons, as I
grew up with my brothers and sisters, I was taught many of the things that we need to do in order to be a good member of the Haisla Nation. And I was told never to look down on other people that are walking around, even if you’re a chief or not, and be nice to one another.
This has always been expressed to us as I was growing up. I was adopted by my late father as a young man into the Eagle Tribe. I grew up in this tribe and he adopted me, and that was unexpected from my side of the view, and I was wondering why that happened. But he never expressed anything to the people as to why he had done that until later on.
In our system, as you heard my Chief speak about it, that we were taught and had to be well-knowledged by our traditional system and be respectful and show good leadership. So with that, my name is Tequicah , a Chief for the Eagle Tribe in the Kitlope, Kemano area. And this name that I carry is the steward of the Saint Mathews Bay which is a big bass area up in Gardner Canal towards Kitlope.
And this has always been the system that each chief has a place where they can hunt or fish or trap. Not only my family can do that, but anybody can go in there in this community. And in doing so, they acknowledge us.
But nevertheless, I learned a lot through my relatives, cousins, uncles, grandpa, all the traditional things that they spoke of. And how to be able to survive in our territory was the main thing that they taught us, how to be a provider, how to have respect for animals and things like that.
We don’t just shoot them for spite. We take them for our needs of our family. In doing so, we acknowledge each animal as we kill it for what we learned is that they have a great spirit too. And we tell them and we say, “Nollo, nollo” to them. That’s a way of praising them and apologizing to them for what we’ve done to them. “We didn’t do any harm to you. We’ve done this because our families are in need.”
And the main thing that was taught to me was to be conservative in every way. As you’ve heard the others speak before me that you can’t take too much of what you gather, whether you’re hunting, fishing or picking berries; always get enough that you can preserve or conserve it or leave the rest for others that are in need.
My father’s name was Simon Hall. He was from Kemano, Kitlope area and my mother’s name was Amelia Duncan, then Hall, was born in Kitamaat Village. My father was a Chief of the Eagle Clan also and he taught me many things about hunting and shooting and fishing in my time as I was growing up.
And without anything said to me or warning of what’s going to happen, he adopted me to the Eagle Clan, but later on told me, as he went into another phase — he installed what is called in line of a chief, Henaaksiala. He gave it to me and he told the people then that I was, in his view, good enough to be one that can represent or talk to my family, brothers and sisters in my own family.
I was called one time as I worked for the council. I operated a passenger boat. I came in from Kitlope and while we were preparing camp, I was reading a story that we had. I got back from Kitlope about 10:30 in the morning. I got into the house and my wife told me “There’s a lady that wants to talk to talk to you from high school.”
So she showed me that number and I phoned her right away, and she asked me “Can you come over and make another presentation to the high school teachers? There’s about 40 here that’s anxious to hear you speak the stories of your life and legends and what have you been taught. They’d like to learn that.”
The main thing about that was respect. The very first thing that was taught to me was respect. My father and grandfather often told me, “If you don’t have any respect for yourself, nobody will respect you.”
Anyway, when I arrived in the high school, there was 40 kids — high school kids — in the room waiting for me and they welcomed me. And I told Sharon, the people who was organizing everything, that I wasn’t prepared for anything such as this today. So what I’m going to do, it might prompt me up with something that I know. I’ll have a question period there for a few minutes.
Right away, four hands went up. And I started going one at a time to them, asking them what they wanted to say. And the fourth one was a young girl. I asked her what she wanted to say, if she had any concern, and she said, “What I want to know is how long was Alcan here before you people moved in?”
I sort of chuckled and I told her we’ve been here for thousands of years before Alcan ever seen this place. And she couldn’t believe it. She figured that Alcan let us in here.
But we’ve got stories from way, way back as the area being burned, what you see up there in the valley, as you heard my chief speak, that the trees where small from way back.
But anyway, I spoke of many things of my past experience to them. And I grew up in a place called Butedale. It’s about 70 miles from here. There’s a cannery, reduction plant and a cold storage, where my father was employed as a captain on a boat, his boat.
He had his own sailboat, and I went on it with him as a young boy, just riding around with him and watching the people. He had seven people who was on with him, helping him retrieve the net when he sets it, working all day. Their day starts at 4 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes they go to bed at 12:00 at night. This is what I learned from my father.
He often told us many things about when you are hunting, fishing, or whatever you’re doing, you need to be really on the line of moving right now, not later. Otherwise, you’ll never get anything.
But anyway, after saying that I fished salmon with my father, and as a young man, I grew up with him on a fishing boat. For 18 years I was a crew member with him, both halibut, herring and salmon. And it’s a lot of work, but I enjoyed learning all of the — but when coming home, when we come home in between fishing season, we go to the river, either Kitimat River, Kemano or Kitasoo to fish eulachons.
These are the things that they taught me, how to gather all the food that we need to serve to my family for all year, to preserve it. My wife knows how to preserve just about anything that we get. Now the freezer has come; we freeze a lot of them.
When we fished eulachons, it was always “Be careful. Don’t be careless. Don’t dump anything in the water. You’ve got to make sure this river is pure at all times, never contaminated with garbage or anything. Always make sure that the eulachons will come back for the next generation to come, salmon, what have you, water hog.”
And they used to go gather the roots and everything along the flats, my mother, my grandmother. That was a real staple for everybody, all of the things that we gathered. It was so nice to see it on the table when it was fresh, when we’d first kill it and they’d praise us and thank — are very thankful to us.
When I came home from fishing, I was approached if I could run for a council member by four guys in the village. When I did get in, which I failed the first time — I did get in and I stayed in there for over 20 years and I was the Chief Councillor from 1999 to 2001 for Kitamaat Village. And that’s a lot of work. Most of the time is spent on trying to keep our territory as clean as possible, because we had everything coming from all directions, wanting to use it.
I used to hunt and fish around Kitlope and Kemano area, as well as Douglas Channel area, and getting to know some other people along the line from different villages and we worked together on it at all times.
I still fish for our own use right now, even though I’m retired. Just like Rod said, we need to go out and teach our younger people, which I do. I’m proud to say that my nephews and my granddaughter are there to help us when we do bring some things in. Some of it they have learned from their grandmother, all of the things that were handed down to us from our forefathers.
When possible, I fish for eulachons, but I haven’t done that for the last several years due to the fact that they don’t repair in our rivers anymore. And it’s sad to know a source gone from your table, but it’s happy to know that other First Nations are there to care for you, to work together to give us eulachons when they get their eulachons.
My wife has been buying eulachon grease from other places. And I don’t know what we’d do without it. We certainly can’t use crude oil anyway.
I’m totally dependent on seafood too. In my days of growing up, we had everything from clams, cockles, crabs, shrimps and mussels, as well as halibut, red cod and different types of cods that we’d catch out there, which is slowly diminishing again. As a matter of fact, it is — it will be gone in time if we don’t stop it.
This is where our frustration comes in, with supposedly our government looking after us, promising to look after us, but which never did happen.
I heard some stories from when I was young, and I was taught to follow our Nuyem, which is the law of the Haisla Nation as well as all the First Nations that are listening today. They gather this and they keep it and pass it on to one another, one of the younger ones and all that, the next-door Nations that comes from. They make sure they learn it.
They don’t just tell it once; they keep repeating it after another. And that’s what happened to me to make sure that I keep away from danger, causing any harm to anybody, not injuring anybody, in fact, learning how to get along together.
When I became a Chief, my father lectured me. “Now that you carry a big name, from Hamatichi-sa, I don’t know if the Haisla will recognize it, and I want to mention it to late Tommy Robinson in a meeting what my dad told me and right away he rejected that idea that — he said you guys are strong, we strongly recognize you as a chief of the Kitasoo people.
Kitasoo people, as a matter of fact, amalgamated with the Haisla back in — I think it was 1948 when they signed the agreement after years of — a few years of negotiations. Kitasoo was a big place at one time but due to influenza and — that was smallpox I think, done away with a lot of them, right down to about 68 by the time they were accepted there.
But we are the survivors, same thing with the Haisla’s; there’s a lot of them that went on that due to that sickness that was brought over. I don’t know where it came from but people were falling all over the place as they were talking. When a sickness got into them they just drop, that’s how fast they were dying.
One thing that I appreciate though is that we get medications for that now. They say that same sickness is the one that killed our people a long time ago, what
we’re putting up with today.
My nephews, who I work together and taught as a young man are the ones that are responsible for bringing us food now in my house, as I’m 74 now but I enjoy going out there yet. When the time is right I go out with them. And a lot of them in this community, young people are doing the same thing for their parents — being taught by their parents and grandparents how to fish, hunt and whatever their requirements are.
I heard many stories from a lady that died at a very old age, from Kemano, regarding how our people work together in the area. And I thought of — I talked to the person that came amongst us and became a new medium, he kept telling my people before my time — before our time that the animals and the fish and what have you, the birds looked like human beings when I talk to them.
She was the one that knew what happened with the eulachon in that river a long time ago. And she was the one that told the people to look for that eulachon that
was lost and they belonged to the leaders of the eulachon, the chief of the eulachons.
When they found it they made her told that the eulachon came up the river and they — next day that thing was just loaded with eulachons. This is why we make sure we learn and keep what they taught us, how to treat ourselves or treat the animals that we get; never say anything bad about the animals when you do shoot them, otherwise they’ll get you back. That’s what we were told.
Even the fish too. When we get an animal, when we get up to it we say “Nola, nola, nola”( ph). That’s thanking the spirit — his spirit for allowing us to take the animal to feed our family. We tell him we don’t — we’re not doing this for spite, we’re seriously taking it to feed our family so they can be healthy and we thank you for it.
These are the things we are told to follow at all times and I wish it could be told to everybody regarding our territory, what’s going on. As we mentioned earlier, and the other Chief mentioned, that everything is slowly going down, getting less and less every time we go out to try and gather. You have everything on the — out there that — gathering the things and they’re not commercially getting — they’re just playing around with them.
I know everyone tells me to be careful with the land and resources and make sure that it’s clean. I need to repeat that, that’s what’s aiming at the Haisla Nation regarding our territory, our land.
I spent eight years in the council, along with other councillors, fighting to save a territory that was aimed by a logger — a logging outfit. It took us eight years to fight for it. We made it but it was a long hard work. The part I couldn’t understand about it, when we did get it preserved we weren’t given any money to help patrol it, yet we’re part of that area, and that’s Kitlope.
It took us eight years to fight for it in a council and as well as a community, not just a council, everybody in the community supported the council and they stood side-by-side right through. And most of the time I was away from home joining meetings. I was happy when they signed the agreement but I was really tired. I’m glad that I was part of it to see that happen for the future of my grandchildren and great grandchildren is what I’m talking about.
Again, you mention grandchildren, I’m here to speak in my share of our territory which is pipeline coming down our territory and also big ships navigating Douglas Channel. I clearly state in my community that the Haisla’s are facing a double-barrel gun — shotgun — if you bring those oil in by land, as well as navigating Douglas Channel. One spill from both of them will wipe out everything that we have, what we mentioned here; you’ll have no more.
Why I mentioned all that stuff that we gather, as you all know, during the hungry ‘30’s they call it, I often heard my Elders — we didn’t even know that the world was hungry, we were so rich in resources in our territory, we were never hungry, we were always eating, yet, other parts of the world were hungry because of the depression.
Again it saddens me to know that we’ll be joining that if anything happens to our territory here regarding that oil and the pipeline.
It brings into mind of what we told if you’re careless, you’re not going to get anything anymore. It’s not going to be us that’s going to suffer; like what I said it’s going to be our grandchildren. And the people that done the damage will just put their hands in their pockets and walk away, like Eurocan done to us. They polluted our river and they said enough is enough and they just walked away, never looking back.
It just terrifies me to know that we’re even facing about destruction with what’s coming before us, the Haisla Nation.
It’s very important that — I’m glad some of the young people are showing up here and they’re listening, I believe, by internet, as to what’s going on here and I strongly urge that, that they listen and take notes of what’s going on here, it’s their future why we’re here, you see the panel here, it’s their future while we’re sitting in front of you here, to let you know our concern.
As I told you before, the Haislas were taught how to conserve and preserve everything they get. I operated a boat for a rediscovery camp, which was a very powerful thing to do in teaching our young people our traditional system, not only for Haislas, but other First Nations as well as other countries, Sweden, Norway and I can’t remember the others, anyway, but — from Thailand. They all came down the States. Young people came.
They spent a whole month in the catch hole with us, some of them half a month because we taught them everything about how to dry fish, how to can fish and things like that. Pick berries; how to preserve it, how to use it, and the things that we used to eat.
Grease wasn’t the only thing that we ate with fish, but it came — it was good with everything that we had on a table at that time because we never used to get butter or anything like that, lard. It was used for making bread. It was used for boiling fish, everything. It was a good flavour for anything that you wanted to put it in.
Now we’re pretty scarce on that part due to eulachons are not here. And why I mention that, it’s going to be terrible, terrifying if everything disappears on us in our territory.
My father had a sailboat, as I mentioned, as a young boy. I’d like to go back to that and be out there. He used — he got a contract when Alcan first came to tow barge loads of groceries from freights from Butedale to Kemano, which wasn’t accessed by those big freighters. There was no docks there, just the skull grid.
And one weekend — one Friday afternoon, I was in time for him to come out of school and I asked if I could go along with him. It was a real beautiful morning when we got into Kemano Bay with our barge. As soon as you got in, they started to unload it. And my father was standing there and he was scratching his head, took his cap off and started scratching his head. And he said in our language this is what he seen then, this is what he was talking about.
And I asked him, “What are you talking about, Dad?” He said, “Your grandfather,” he said, “he had a premonition after encountering a Sasqua.” He had a spirit that went into him and he was able to foresee the future. He said he told the people — he called the people in Kemano and told them there’s going to be a big monster coming up on Kemano Bay and it’s going to go right up along that river. It’s going to go — he named that mountain. It’s going to go there and it’s going to bore a hole through there.
That was about 50 years after he died, then, it happened; almost 50 years, anyway. And that’s what dad was talking about when he said — this is what he was talking about then.
And it’s so true that there’s a lot of difference from that day on.
Everything started going down, which we thought was a better thing for us. It actually goes against our ability to gather the things we needed for our house.
I operated a tugboat. I worked for Redtow for three and a half years. I got laid off due to the fact that there was a cutback, five years and under, and I was 15 months short of my five years, so I voluntarily — they wanted to get me on as a deckhand, but I just told them I’m going home. That was when everything started going down after Eurocan started. I was working there all the time; they were bringing the material for Eurocan.
And right away, I noticed when the pulp mill started that it had a detrimental effect on the river, for they never dumped their effluent until night, and it was a horrible sight. It was higher than the deck of a tugboat, if you know how a tugboat looks like. The foam that was there coming down the river was higher than the tugboat I was operating on the back deck, and it smelled awful. My crew couldn’t stay on deck very long due to the bad smell of that effluent.
And when we complained about it, Eurocan told us — the President came to a public meeting at the old hall and told us, “Don’t worry about it. It’s not going to harm you any. There’s no poison in it.”
It’s sad to say, but a lot of my people that continued — that listened to him kept on eating that fish and they — most of them died with stomach cancer and different types of sickness came around just because that guy said it was safe to drink it.
Our Chief Councillor at that time challenged him, “I’ll go upriver with you, bring a cup. You drink one cup; I’ll drink one cup, too.” He wouldn’t make a move. We tried to beg him to go up there.
And I told my mother, “I don’t think you should eat that. It smells awful.” And my father spoke up, “Didn’t you hear that man spoke in the hall? He said it’s safe.” But I — we wouldn’t touch it anyway.
It was terrible, and it’s a bad experience way to learn how bad that thing is.
And just imagine what my grandchildren will go through if this happens, what’s coming before us.
I was one that witnessed the — like what I said, the impact of Alcan and Eurocan to our territory. It’s been devastating, really, to the fact that when Alcan first came around I was just a young boy. I remember that public meeting that they went to up in the oval hall.
That public meeting, one of the councillors got up and asked the Indian agency, “What are you doing over there? You’re sitting with an Alcan representative. You’re supposed to be sitting with us.” The councillor could not care less. They weren’t allowed to have a lawyer to represent them. In fact, Alcan proposed that they have their smelter set right here, right where we’re sitting, but it was too small for their liking, so they moved, which was a good thing in a small part. They moved over there where they’re at right now, where Rod’s trap line is.
Again, the question is, why weren’t we allowed to have a lawyer represent us? Just because we weren’t educated enough or something? I don’t know.
But anyway, in doing so, I was really sad, like what I said, at what’s going on, so as the other communities that are with me here today, the Bella Bella people. They’re here today to be with us. Kitasoo/Xaixais are here. Kitkaa are here, along with other First Nations. They’re here to support the Haislas in standing with them side by side. They want to stand in solidarity to show their support towards the Haisla Nations.
According to the CBC Inside Politics blog, Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a professor at the University of Calgary and a frequent guest on CBC’s Power and Politics is advocating the use of constitutional override clause to force the completion of the Northern Gateway pipeline. You can read Max Paris’s complete blog Hard advice on Northern Gateway pipeline here.
