RECENT HISTORY
The legal action by the Gitxsan to the Supreme
Court of Canada is the most recent example in a long list of attempts
by the First Nation for recognition of its ownership, jurisdiction, self-government
and aboriginal title over 33,000 square kilometres of traditional territory
in northwestern BC.
European
visitors first set foot in Gitxsan territory
in 1823. Excerpts from journals kept by these early traders clearly showed
they recognized the Gitxsan as owners of
the territory. Incursions by European traders, miners, missionaries and
settlers increased during the next five decades but the main impact upon
the Gitxsan from the newcomers was in the
form of disease – a smallpox epidemic, for example, that began in
BC in 1862 wiped out 30% of the Gitxsan.
One of the first public acts regarding ownership was in 1872 when the chiefs from the Gitxsan community of Gitsegukla blockaded the Skeena River to all trading and supply boats to protest actions of miners on their territories. Further protests dealing with mining exploration took place in the late 1800's and, in the early part of this century, these protests expanded to cover increased activities such as road building and surveying in the Gitxsan territories. In 1908, a Gitxsan delegation met with Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier in Ottawa to discuss European incursion on their territories. In other protests during these times, Gitxsan chiefs quoted from the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as a basis for their ownership fight.
In the 1960's and 70's, increased natural resource exploitation on Gitxsan territory, the Supreme Court ruling in the Calder case and an offer to negotiate on land claims from the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau, all spurred the beginning of the Delgamuukw court action. A joint assembly of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en in 1977 resulted in a declaration outlining ownership, jurisdiction and self-government and a notification of readiness, once again, to begin negotiations with the federal government.
By 1984, land claim negotiations with Canada had gone nowhere. The Gitxsan
and their neighbours, the Wet’suwet’en, decided to jointly
pursue the matter in the courts. On October 24, the chiefs filed a statement
of claim in the BC Supreme Court against the province seeking a declaration
that they had ownership of, and jurisdiction over, their House territories.
Thirty-five Gitxsan and 13 Wet’suwet’en
hereditary chiefs names appear on the statement of claim filed that day.
Thirteen years later the case, which became known as the Delgamuukw decision, was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. Their ruling set a new precedent for proving aboriginal title, elevated oral history testimony (adaawk) to the same level as written testimony, defined consultation and outlined that compensation may be required if aboriginal rights were infringed by activities sanctioned by the federal or provincial governments.
In the meantime, treaty negotiations under the BC Treaty Process sputtered along with the main impediment being the lack of a mandate for provincial negotiators sitting at the table. The Gitxsan joined the trilateral process in 1994 only to see BC walk away from the table in 1996 to pursue legal action with the Delgamuukw case. The province came back to the table in 2001 and the Gitxsan agreed to continue trilateral treaty negotiations.
Part of the continuing frustration for the chiefs is that resource extraction and development has continued unabated in the Gitxsan territories while the aboriginal title court action and treaty negotiations are under way. The Gitxsan people are largely shut out of these mainstream economic sectors and, while millions of dollars of natural resources leave the territories, unemployment rates on-reserve are between 60-90%.
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