The public this holiday season can help WSANEC communities in their goal to once again steward and culturally connect to their traditional lands.
The WSANEC Land Trust Society is running a holiday campaign inviting the public to participate in efforts to return unceded territories, which are Indigenous lands that were never given up to the Crown through a treaty or other agreement.
The society hopes to raise $10,000 by the end of December as donations will be used to facilitate the return of ancestral lands that today make up the Saanich Peninsula and the Gulf Islands. The campaign hopes to re-establish access to traditional foods, medicines and materials by restoring the sacred relationship between the WSANEC and their lands and waters.
“Land is really important to being able to grow as a community, to grow in our economies and to be doing it in a really sustainable way,” the WSANEC Leadership Council’s policy/negotiation manager Joni Olsen said in a news release.
The return of traditional lands is seen as crucial to the WSANEC Nation’s cultural revitalization. The release said it also supports housing security, environmental stewardship, access to traditional harvesting, the ability to engage in cultural practices and more for current and future generations of WSANEC peoples.
In August, a family donated 45.7 acres of wetland known as TIKEL (Maber Flats) to the community. The plot was originally cultivated and managed by WSANEC Peoples as a place to collect food, medicines and other materials central to their culture, economies and identity.
“For this to be the first donation of its kind in Canada, it’s extremely exciting for us,” Brian Berglund, whose family returned the land, said at the time. “We look forward to seeing WSANEC restore and reconnect with this site and hope that our donation inspires other landowners to follow suit.”
Gord Elliott, WSANEC Leadership Council co-founder and an elected Tsartlip First Nation councillor, said he’d like non-Indigenous people to know the return of land is really important to First Nations.
“You can’t take away people’s culture, land and their resources and expect them to thrive. In fact, it’s the opposite. You’ll see a lot of poverty and social issues that go along with that alienation from their traditional lands,” Elliott said.
Donations to the Land Trust Society’s campaign can be made at https://wsanec.com/w%cc%b1sanec-lands-trust/.
READ: Ceremony celebrates return of culturally significant land to WSANEC