Nanoose wins bid to save burial sites

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A B.C. Supreme Court Judge squashed a bid to excavate a Native burial site, saying to have granted the digging permits in the first place was "dirty pool" on behalf of the provincial government.

In a case brought to court by the Nanoose First Nation, Judge R. Hutchison ruled against Intrawest Development Corp. excavating a seven-hectare area 125 kilometres north of Victoria, quashing every digging permit issued to the company for that site. That the British Columbia government issued the archeological digging permits without first designating the site, in direct violation of the provincial Heritage Conservation Act, was indeed dirty pool, said Hutchison.

And just another reminder of discriminatory practises, suggested the Nanoose band chief.

"When non-Aboriginal burial grounds are full to capacity, they don't sell the land and build condos on them,"Chief Wayne Edwards said in a radio interview with CFWE Radio. "It's a step forward, but by all means not a total victory."

Intrawest is building condominiums around the grounds to form a waterfront village centre in the middle of a larger housing development. On June 29, workers unearthed the first of more than 500 skeletons known to be interred there. On Aug. 12, Nanoose Elders requested the company stop. But another 22 graves were removed after the province issued a stop order on the digging, said Linda Vanden Berg, archaeologist and land claim co-ordinator for the Nanoose band.

Since June, 110 skeletons have been unearthed, 37 bodies have been partially dug up, with another 300 or more known to be in the ground.

The band argued the seven-hectare site at Craig Bay should be treated with the same respect as a city cemetery, and used the Charter of Rights, under freedom of religion, for their legal argument. They also cited the provincial Heritage Conservation Act to defend the seven-hectare site from development. Although the province introduced an amended act, removing the designation clause, during the Nanoose court case, Judge Hutchison ruled in accordance to the original act.

"The province was complicit, they knew the site had to be designated, yet they still issued the permits," she said. "That means someone removed the bones illegally. Who broke the law, then?"

The province used eight pieces of charcoal, carbon-dated to be approximately 500 years old, as evidence the burial grounds are an archeological site. But the evidence could not represent 400 skeletons and was ruled inaccurate information, she said.

Elders' testimony added the site had been used as a summer camp continuously until the 1940s, and that during the 1930s at least two people had been buried there.

The excavations and court battle only serve to reinforce the fact Aboriginal burial grounds are not protected under treaty agreements or when outlining reserve lands.

"The village site should have been respected and they were not. The feds have an obligation to protect our burial sites."

Almost two-fifths of the 84-hectare Nanoose Band village site is taken up by railroad and highway right-of-ways, leaving approximately 60 usable hectares," Edwards said.

"We lose on the equality thing and we win on the quashing of the permits, and a chance to be heard by the federal government."

The Nanoose Band is mounting a nation-wide campaign to increase awareness among First Nations about burial sites and to pressure the federal government to accord such grounds protection under the Charter of Rights.