A Love Story
By Bev Sellars
I want to tell you a love story. A love story so deep it has lasted for thousands of years and still exists today. Modern ethnology has shown that different cultures have different reasoning systems and different ways of interpreting their experiences. The way we see the world, the way we conceive reality is relative to the culture in which we have been raised.
The worldview of most newcomers/settlers to the Americas since 1492 recognized only human beings as persons and the only things deserving of moral and legal consideration. It is easier to explain by saying that a pyramid best describes their view. Humans are at the top of the triangle and everything else exists for the sake of them.
Indigenous Peoples had their own distinct beliefs that were completely contrary to the new arrivals. Indigenous peoples knew that everything was connected and that everything was alive. The Elders say “even the rocks” are alive and require the same respect as everything else. A circle describes the Indigenous way of thinking. There is no one place in the circle that is dominant because everything on Mother Earth is equal.
Archaeologists and scientists are discovering more and more evidence of what Indigenous peoples have always emphasized through their oral history; that they treated North, Central and South America as a garden whether you lived by the oceans or inland. They knew that their survival was dependent on clean water and taking only what you needed. And so with continuous care and the love of Mother Earth and all her gifts, Indigenous people lived by the natural laws of the land and water. This allowed our societies to thrive.
When you love someone or something, you do everything you can to protect them. You fight for them. You nurture them. You interact with them. Love is a set of emotions and behaviours characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust. All of this the Indigenous people felt for their lands, waters and everything in them.
At home with our family.
Our love was also unquestionable for our children and grandchildren. It is common in many Indigenous communities to think seven generations ahead to provide and protect the lands and waters for them. In many of the earliest comments by the newcomers they were amazed at how free and indulged the children were. Indigenous people felt that their most important resource, aside from the lands and waters, were the children. Orphanages, abandoned children or child labour were unheard of in traditional Indigenous communities.
A History of Fighting for All We Love
The pure love for this country has, in many cases, become a very abusive relationship. We can see the abusive scars and wounds in the waters and on the lands. This abuse results in many species of animals, birds and fish……sick or disappearing. When I was getting ready for this presentation my husband sent me a speech from Chief Dan George who died in 1981. He was a Chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, whose territory is in the southwest area of what is now known as the District of North Vancouver, B.C. He was also an actor, musician, poet and author. His quote in one of his speeches goes:
“It is hard for me to understand a culture that not only hates and fights his brothers but even attacks nature and abuses her. I see my white brothers going about blotting out nature from his cities. I see him strip the hills bare, leaving ugly wounds on the face of mountains. I see him tearing things from the bosom of Mother Earth as though she were a monster, who refused to share her treasures with him. I see him throw poison in the waters, indifferent to the life he kills there; and he chokes the air with deadly fumes.”
Because we are humans, supposedly at the top of the triangle, with our extreme intelligence we have developed things such as air conditioning or filtered water to hide the damage we are doing. Of course, those communities that are not human do not have access to any of those comforts and have to endure the global warming and pollution that humans create.
The continuous fight for our human rights and protection of our territories has never stopped. It had to go underground for a while because our leaders were being put in jail for racist laws under the Indian Act. Since 1951 when the laws changed to give Indigenous people a bit of breathing room, our leaders organized and created enough space and freedom to analyze and integrate concepts of loss and colonialism on our terms. Indigenous people have taken opportunities through the courts, through protests and through negotiation to carve a new relationship between themselves and the newcomers. We still have a long way to go but we are making progress.
Today, many Indigenous people still honour the cultural responsibility to care for lands and waters in many ways. That includes promoting Indigenous Guardian programs and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas. We want a valid say in our territories. For too long we have been silenced or ignored. The clash of cultures regarding lands and waters is the biggest threat we all have. The love versus the abuse is obvious and it is going to affect us all. I will give you an example.
The Heartbreak of Environmental Disaster
On August 4, 2014, a section of the Mount Polley copper mine tailing pond collapsed, releasing 25 million cubic metres of mine tailings and wastewater into pristine Quesnel Lake. Parts of the crystal clear lake filled with thick, grey mining sludge. For Indigenous peoples in our communities and downstream who rely on healthy waters for food and cultural practices, the tailings breach was devastating. We held an emergency meeting for our communities the next day.
Our Elders, one by one, got up to talk about their love of the land, the waters and all the unique medicines and plants that the area around Quesnel Lake offers. The lake itself provides migration, rearing and spawning habitat for several salmon and non-salmon species.
The Elders all cried as they talked. To them a death had happened in the family because they know it is all connected.
The collapse of a tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia is one of the worst environmental disasters in this country’s history.
The physical plan that a mine sits on does not isolate their footprint. Their footprint stretches throughout the lands and waters. And when you combine that with all the other mines and every other resource extraction company, the abuse guarantees that the future for just two or three generations ahead is scary.
Governments and resource extraction companies don’t love this land, they don’t love the waters, and they don’t love all that it has to offer. They love money and they will get it regardless of what the real cost is for us and for future generations.
Racist laws managed to allow the destructive ways of dealing with the land and waters to become prominent. Indigenous peoples had their traditional teachings interrupted by residential schools that operated for almost 100 years. And some Indigenous peoples have been brainwashed into accepting the monetary way of life over the teachings of their ancestors.
The Polley Mine did reopen using the same Tailings Pond that breached. There has been one small fine that the mine will fight, no charges and contrary to the recommendations of the Mount Polley Report issued, they are carrying on business as usual. At the end of the day, our grandchildren are left with this mess and contamination. The company will eventually move on. Politicians will comfortably retire. The Indigenous peoples will remain.
They is a saying that only 2 things in life are certain, death and taxes. I say that there are 3 things and the third is that Indigenous peoples will always be in their territories. We don’t have a homeland to go to; this is our homeland and our holy lands have always been on this continent. We will always be here fighting for our territories and fighting to protect the resources that all our relations, whether they be 4-legged, winged or finned, depend upon.
The Indigenous land defenders you see on the news every now and again love their land, love their waters and love their children and grandchildren yet they are made out as criminals.
We are not saying that there cannot be resource extraction. We are saying that the human-made laws as they exist are NOT the solution because they are based on making money. The natural laws of Mother Earth need to be strengthened for the benefit of the whole human race.
“When you love someone or something, you do everything you can to protect them.”
Time to Reconcile with Mother Earth
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its Final Report and published 94 “Calls to Action”. For the sake of all our grandchildren I hope we can make a positive difference. The most important call to Action needs to be our reconciliation with Mother Earth. We cannot continue to pollute the ground water, threaten the wildlife and destroy the habitat of fish, the economy that used to be a guarantee of our survival.
Unfortunately, our territories now resemble European countries in 1492 with overharvesting and poisoning of the waters. We need to get out of this abusive relationship and each one of us has a responsibility to do so. Our waters and lands need a divorce from the abusers. Thankfully, there are a growing number of non-Indigenous who now know the true love of the land and are joining the fight for everyone’s survival.
We will continue to fight for all our grandchildren, even the grandchildren of those who are polluting. All children, born and unborn, have a right to a healthy environment.
