Hundreds gathered in Skidegate on Saturday to celebrate the Council of the Haida Nation’s first 50 years.
Before talking about how Haida title was recognized by the B.C. government this spring, or about the several CHN-led agreements recently signed to protect Haida Gwaii land and waters, a few speakers at the George Brown Rec Centre looked back at what came before.
Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, a lawyer who has represented the Haida Nation for 29 years, recalled how Haida leaders responded when the B.C. government denied Haida title in 1910.
“We are honestly sure that no government has ever held a meeting with our chiefs or representatives in order to buy our land,” they wrote.
From 1927 to 1951, Williams-Davidson said a change to the federal Indian Act made it impossible for Indigenous peoples to organize anything like the CHN.
Called Section 141, it stepped up similar prohibitions that had started with the 1884 potlatch ban.
Not only were Haida organizations prevented from hiring a lawyer, she said they couldn’t even hold funds to rent a hall, advertise, even buy postage stamps.
“There is still a need to shine light on this dark part of our history,” she said, adding that a project is now underway to better understand the impact such prohibitions had at the time.
Frank Collison, Stithlda, recalled how in 1969, Haida and other coastal First Nations leaders resisted a new policy floated in a federal white paper that would have completely removed Indigenous status.
Before meeting federal counterparts in Prince Rupert to discuss it, Collison said leaders from Skidegate and Old Massett agreed to speak with one voice.
In 1974, the single voice become the Council of the Haida Nation.
“We sat down together and said we’re going to go to Rupert and meet with these people. But we’re not going to be there as a band council,” Collison said.
“We’re going to be there as a Haida Nation.”