Squamish Nation hope to be recognized as part of Stanley Park

The Squamish Nation led a tree planting ceremony in collaboration with the Vancouver Park Board to regrow and preserve Stanley Park. (Courtesy: Squamish Nation)

The Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) is calling for better education on Stanley Park’s Indigenous history after a First Nations group threw their connection into question during a logging protest earlier this month.

A “sacred fire” lit March 15 was kept ablaze for over a month at Brockton Park’s totem poles by a woman who identified, according to protest group Save Stanley Park, as a “matriarch” of the land. The woman claimed to be a descendent of “Portuguese Joe”, an early B.C. settler with Musqueam lineage, and was in protest of the Vancouver Park Board’s ongoing project to remove hundreds of trees affected by the looper moth disease.

Squamish Nation elected councillor Wilson Williams says the claims are still yet to be verified, and his own community is left reeling at the group’s failure to address the history of the Squamish people that dates back thousands of years within the park.

“We have that connection there to our stories and legends. It hits the heart when people try to claim false history or claim a renewed history,” he says.

“We have hereditary chiefs that have a deep connection, that come from the land there and have raised their families there. We just want to make sure that this history is properly portrayed.”

Williams says he has reached out to the protest group to attempt to “open the communication lines” and “share factual information”, but that a response is still yet to be received.

The Squamish Nation’s connection to the lands now known as Stanley Park dates to when it was a site of several separate villages more commonly known as X̱wáýx̱way, meaning “Place of the Mask.”

“People in my family lived off the land pre-contact and in the mid 1800s. In 1844 there were 18 long houses there, and we had villages throughout Stanley Park,” says Williams.

“When colonization happened, we opened our arms for people to stay and be a guest in our villages there,” he adds, touching on how potlatches were held under the park’s forest canopy until the final great potlatch of 1874, just prior to the forced removal of the Squamish people in 1887.

With such rich history held within its dense forest, Williams says the nation is working to protect the park and, unlike the recent protesters, supports the work taking place to remove the dead and dying diseased trees. The nation is collaborating with the Vancouver Park Board to be mindful of the sensitive, cultural areas that require particular care and preservation.

“Let’s continue to protect the forest that’s there,” he says.

Earlier this month Williams led a tree-planting ceremony where 1,500 seedlings, with the help of Squamish Nation staff and children, were sowed into Stanley Park’s forest floor.

The event, complete with drumming and singing, garnered attention from tourists and passersby who were interested in planting and learning more about the park’s rich Indigenous history.

“I think that the Park Board can open up their doors to more ceremonies and more in collaboration with the Squamish Nation to share that history, and share that connection our people have,” said Williams.

“Having that open heart and mind, people will come and want to learn, and I think there’s potential there. The world hasn’t heard this story, unless they have read some of our history books and legends or have heard some of that oral history from our elders,” he said.

A Park Board spokesperson said all the local nations have provided “important expertise” and have been “valued partners” in the ongoing hemlock looper moth removal project. Park board staff and elected officials were “honoured” to join the Squamish Nation’s members for the ceremonial replanting event, the spokesperson added.

“The Park Board will continue to work collaboratively with the Musqueam, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations to support and centre Indigenous knowledge and voices in ongoing and future projects in Stanley Park,” said the spokesperson.

Throughout the project, park staff have also collaborated with the nations on distributing the felled lumber for cultural use, with six loads of firewood being delivered to local First Nations for longhouse and ceremonial use, and 63 loads of wood hauled to a scaling yard and set aside for the local First Nations, all during the project’s first phase.

Future projects will include opportunities for ceremonial planting, interpretive signage, and potential co-developed land management projects that “honour the local Nations’ role as “caretakers of these lands since time immemorial,” said the board.

According to the spokesperson, the protesters departed Stanley Park last week.