We can鈥檛 go back in time and erase all the injustices that occurred as white settlement pushed aboriginal peoples from their ancestral lands, but some things can be set right.
Returning a piece of land adjacent to Goldstream Provincial Park to First Nations ownership corrects an error and returns the land to its rightful owners in pristine condition.
At a ceremony Friday, the land was returned by the federal and provincial governments to the five Saanich First Nations. It resolves a long-standing issue, but raises an obvious question: Why did it take so long?
Most people familiar with the four-hectare parcel along Finlayson Arm Road probably think it is part of the park, as it is used as access for the Mount Finlayson trail. But the land has never been within park boundaries 鈥� it was removed from the Goldstream Indian Reserve because of a surveying error in 1962. The error was admitted soon after it occurred, but it has taken more than 50 years to set it right. It has been returned to the Saanich tribes 鈥� Malahat, Pauquachin, Tseycum, Tsartlip and Tsawout 鈥� and will eventually again be part of the Goldstream reserve.
The Malahat First Nation started proceedings to have the land returned soon after the error was made, but gave up. The effort resumed in the late 1980s and finally came to fruition last week. This wasn鈥檛 a complicated land claim, but someone鈥檚 mistake 鈥� it shouldn鈥檛 have taken half a century to resolve.
Perhaps it wasn鈥檛 deemed important enough to be urgent. It wouldn鈥檛 be the first time non-native eyes looked over a piece of land and didn鈥檛 understand what they were seeing.
In writing about the history of Beacon Hill Park, Janis Ringuette tells of James Douglas choosing Victoria as the site for a new Hudson鈥檚 Bay Company fort because the beautiful camas meadows were better suited for farming than the rocky, forested lands near the better harbours at Sooke and Esquimalt.
鈥淏ritish newcomers wrongly assumed the open meadows they 鈥榙iscovered鈥� were 鈥榥atural鈥� and unused,鈥� writes Ringuette. 鈥淭hey viewed unfenced, unplowed and unseeded land as 鈥榳aste,鈥� available for 鈥榗ivilized鈥� use.鈥�
But the land was being used 鈥� the meadows existed because the Lekwungen, ancestors of the Songhees First Nation, had maintained the grasslands for centuries, she says. Through fire, careful harvesting and other methods, they enhanced the growth of camas, which was their staple root crop.
European occupation ended that, and although efforts have been made to restore some of the terrain to something approximating its original condition, the camas meadows the Lekwungen knew are gone forever.
The Goldstream parcel is beautiful forested land, but to the Saanich tribes, it is more than that 鈥� it has historical and spiritual significance. While it has not been decided if unrestricted public access to the land will continue, Pauquachin Chief Bruce Underwood suggests it might be used to educate the public about the land鈥檚 history. It鈥檚 a wise suggestion: Using the land to deepen understanding about the past can build a bridge to the future.
It took too long to return the land to First Nations ownership, but better late than never. The history of European-aboriginal relations is rife with errors. Some can be corrected, some can鈥檛, but we shouldn鈥檛 stop trying.
