Penelakut Tribe representatives want the provincial
government to preserve a small island in Ganges Harbour as memorial
parkland to honour the final resting place of the area’s First Nations
peoples.
A letter submitted by
members of the Penelakut First Nation to the provincial Minister of
Forests, Lands and Natural Resources on Friday, Aug. 31 urges the
province to negotiate an agreement that would see property owner Barry
Slawsky donate or sell the property so the island’s “significant
cultural values can be publicly preserved.”
Controversy arose in July
when crews preparing the site of a home on the islet were believed to
have violated conditions of a provincial Heritage Alteration Permit
issued for work on the site.
A visit by archeologists
and representatives from several of the area’s First Nation groups in
August suggested that recent land clearance activity on the island may
have “exceeded the scope of proposed excavation work” and that “no
archaeological monitoring by a qualified professional had taken place
prior to any ground-disturbing activity.”
The ensuing furor led
members of the Penelakut Tribe to have the alleged permit violation
investigated by the RCMP and call for the permit’s immediate
cancellation.
“We further assert that the
ministry’s issuance of this provincial heritage site alteration permit
is discriminatory and violates the basic human rights of our First
Nations people to allow our dead to rest in peace and to respect the
sanctity of our family graves and historical cemeteries, equal to other
citizens, cultures and religious groups in Canada,” state the Penelakut
in their letter to the forests ministry.
According to Eric McLay, a
University of Victoria Ph.D. candidate in archeology, the letter argues
that the [provincial] Archeology Branch failed in its Crown duty to
meaningfully consult the Penelakut Tribe or local First Nations on the
original alteration permit application that approved the proposed house
construction on Grace Islet.
“Recent unauthorized land
clearance activity at Grace Islet now under investigation by the RCMP,”
he said, “has utterly voided and negated the original intent of the
alteration permit; namely, that the proposed land clearance activity
would be monitored.”
McLay said many of the
issues that surround the Grace Islet situation resemble factors at play
during the 2005 prosecution of Poets Cove resort on South Pender Island
under similar Heritage Conservation Act charges
Kevin Twohig, an
archeologist with Terra Archeology Ltd. and joint-permit holder,
forwarded a request for comment to Slawsky, the Edmonton-based owner of
San Francisco Gifts Ltd., on Tuesday afternoon. A spokesperson from the
Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources contacted on Tuesday
said his office had yet to receive the Penelakut Tribe’s letter.
Grace Islet is a .74-acre
islet off the tip of Grace Point. Kayakers visiting the site in 2006
discovered a human jawbone on the property. Since that time, the
skeletons of at least two people and 15 burial cairns have been found
and catalogued.
“Recent unauthorized land
clearance activity at Grace Islet now under investigation by the RCMP,”
he said, “has utterly voided and negated the original intent of the
alteration permit; namely, that the proposed land clearance activity
would be monitored.”
McLay said many of the
issues that surround the Grace Islet situation resemble factors at play
during the 2005 prosecution of Poets Cove resort on South Pender Island
under similar Heritage Conservation Act charges
Kevin Twohig, an
archeologist with Terra Archeology Ltd. and joint-permit holder,
forwarded a request for comment to Slawsky, the Edmonton-based owner of
San Francisco Gifts Ltd., on Tuesday afternoon. A spokesperson from the
Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources contacted on Tuesday
said his office had yet to receive the Penelakut Tribe’s letter.
Grace Islet is a .74-acre
islet off the tip of Grace Point. Kayakers visiting the site in 2006
discovered a human jawbone on the property. Since that time, the
skeletons of at least two people and 15 burial cairns have been found
and catalogued.
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