In the early 1900’s,
it was a commonly held belief among settler communities that land was wasted unless it was converted to European-style agriculture. As a result, British Columbia Premier Richard McBride opened up places like northern Hunter Island to settlers by commissioning the survey of many lots. The Heiltsuk have been fighting for recognition of our age-old system of rights and title since the early 1900’s.
"When you read the history books of Bella Bella, and you read in certain places, a lot of the language... makes it sound like we're not here anymore. That we're, that we were a people here, that we used to live here. That message is that we still are here and that we still have a very rigid hierarchy of how we operate in amongst our people... we're not just squatters here. We actually have our own rigid form of government. We actually have our own rigid form of culture – how our names are passed down, our connections to our land."
- Dúqva̓ísḷa William Housty
"When I first went away to school I used to go through the history books of all the monarchies of Europe and how they did intermarriages, that's the same way we worked. It was no different; it was to do the same thing. To establish connections, to secure the territory, but it's all been twisted around now. The treaty system uses a, how do they put it, that it's their territory. It wasn't their territories. There was lots attached to it, but they don't understand that."
- Yím̓ás Qvíɫtákv Earl Newman
"The McKenna McBride commission, for instance, said that Bob Anderson says that ‘this is our land, we own it and we'll love it. And we rather have something to say about it.’ I can remember when I was a young boy; we really didn't have very much to say about it. We didn't have any input to what was happening on our lands. But now that we are more involved with the stewardship of our lands we're pretty excited about that. And you know I can only imagine what our grandfathers are saying what they must have felt when they had the lands to themselves."
- Yím̓ás Wígviɫba Wákas Harvey Humchitt
