Evidence on the Adequacy of First Nations Consultation - BC Hydro ...

DRAFT REPORT: Rights and Title Interests in the Columbia Valley Transmission Project Area
particular deer, an arbitrator was appointed, who had to track it and
whose decision was. 309
Boas' reference to family hunting grounds is almost identical to a passage appearing in Dawson 310
stating that "all the Shuswaps formerly had hereditary hunting grounds, each family having its
own peculiar hunting place or places." Additionally, Dawson reports that hunters invited friends
to accompany them on hunts, and that specific rules governed the distribution of the resulting
meat and skin. He also notes that the owner of a hunting territory, on learning of a kill within his
locality by a trespasser, expected to be feasted with the poached game. 311
There were also property rights associated with a specific type of hunting apparatus. A deer
fence that was made by an individual and left in situ was, according to Teit 312 , inheritable
property that could be bequeathed to the next of kin, or if not wanted, sold "to a stranger."
Among the Shuswap, ownership was attached to the fence itself, and not to the property on
which it was used. And as Teit observed, if the fence was abandoned for a number of years,
anyone could erect a new one or snare deer in that particular place. 313
4.2.2 Shuswap Lake Division
Of interest to the Columbia Valley Transmission Project is the relationship between the
“Shuswap Lake Division”—as described by Teit in his 1909 publication and recently
reconstituted as the “ ‘Sexqeltkemc’ Lakes Division of the Secewpemc Nation”—and the
contemporary “Shuswap Indian Band” situated in the Project area at Lake Windermere.
As of July 24 th 2009, according to the report compiled by Sunny LeBourdais, Technical
Coordinator of the “Sexqeltkemc” Lakes Division, not all of the member bands had agreed to
reconstitute the Shuswap Lakes Division, as recognized and described by Teit:
The modern Lakes Division consists of the communities of Neskonlith,
Adams Lakes and Splatsin who have signed a resource sharing protocol
in their movement towards re-uniting the Sexqéltkemc. These
communities have been re-united by their common interests to further
309 Boas 1891, page 86.
310 Dawson 1892, page 14.
311 Dawson 1892, page 14.
312 Teit 1909:573; James Teit (1900). The Thompson Indians. Memoirs of the American Museum of
Natural History 2. Pp. 293-294. Ron Ignace (2008) disparages the views of Boas and Dawson concerning owned
hunting territories. It is his opinion that “caretakers” of particular resources acted on behalf of the Secwepemc nation
and not a family, the band or local community.
313 Teit 1909, page 573.
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