The Saanich Inlet is part of the traditional territories of the Saanich, Malahat, and Cowichan First Nations. These peoples are recognized as distinct groups largely on the basis of dialectic differences and all speak the Coast Salish language. Most Saanich people speak Sencoten, a dialect of Straits Salish, while the Cowichan speak Hul’qumi’num’, a dialect of Halkomelem, a Central Coast Salish language. People of Malahat speak either (or both) of these dialects.
It is important to realize that these linguistic distinctions reflect a classification system imposed on First Nations peoples by ethnologists, anthropologists and others and much is made of these distinctions in the anthropological and archival literature. Although the Saanich, Malahat and Cowichan peoples recognize these linguistic differences, elders interviewed preferred to emphasize the cultural similarities between their communities, pointing to close kinship ties which crosscut linguistic and geographical boundaries. In fact, the elders suggested that to make cultural distinctions on the basis of language alone was unwise and unnecessary in the context of this study.
Accordingly, throughout the study we refer to “the first people” of Cowichan, Malahat and Saanich as the “People of the Saanich Inlet” to recognize their close ties with one another and their relationship to the land and the water of the Saanich Inlet. We also emphasize that the Saanich Inlet represents only a portion of the traditional territory of the Cowichan, Malahat and Saanich peoples, a territory which covers much of southeastern Vancouver Island, portions of the lower mainland along the Fraser River, as well as the Gulf Islands, the San Juan Islands, and the waters of the Strait of Georgia, Haro Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
This mountain, /Yaas/, is who we are. This is our /tcelengan/ -- our “teaching”, this mountain.
Tom Sampson, July 30, 1996
Whenever members of a community speak about their landscape -- whether they name it or classify it, evaluate it, or tell stories about it -- they represent that landscape in ways that are compatible with the shared understanding of how, in the fullest sense, they know themselves to occupy it. This system of shared understanding, expressed in the language of a people, guides how the physical environment can (and should) be known, how its occupants can (and should) be found to act, and how the doings of both can (and should) be discerned to affect each other (Basso 1987:100-101). Language -- thus culture -- and the landscape are inextricably linked.
For the First Nations people of the Saanich Inlet, this relationship between culture and the landscape is reflected best in the concept of /tcelengan/ . In the Sencoten language, this word refers to the “teachings of the places where you come from” (Tom Sampson, July 30, 1996). It is a system of oral traditions by which people come to identify themselves with culturally significant places. These traditions mark more than places on the landscape; they also provide the spiritual teachings which guide members of the community in their interactions with one another and with the resources of the environment.
Thus, when elders refer to /Yaas/, the Malahat Mountain, as the “teachings” of their community, they acknowledge the fact that this “place” is an integral component of who they are as a people. The landscape of the Malahat Mountain -- the plants, the animals, the streams and pools, and the spirits -- provides for both their physical and spiritual well-being. It is a sacred landscape; a landscape utilized and respected.
This relationship is a powerful and ancient one. The oral traditions of the Saanich Inlet people speak of /Yaas/ as the home of the Thunderbird and other legendary beings, and the mountain figures prominently in their origin as a people. As elder Edward Thomas (July 29, 1996), explained:
The Malahat Mountain is one of the mountains that didn’t go down in the flood. Mt. Newton didn’t go down. There are names for mountains up and down the coast -- that’s where the Indian people went, that’s why there are people up and down the coast. When the flood went down, the Creator left bushes, all medicines.
Church steeples reach up high to the Lord. It’s the same with the mountains. When you want to be closer to the Creator, go up there. Mountains have always been sacred and that’s where the medicines are -- rocks, leaves, everything from the mountains are medicine.
Today, the landscape of /Yaas/ continues to play an essential role in the lives of the Saanich Inlet peoples. It provides plants and animals for food, for materials, for medicines and for spiritual purposes. The waters of the mountain continue to be used for ceremonies and for spiritual renewal. In turn, the plants, animals, rocks and streams of the Malahat are recognized as components of the larger ecological community linking the land and its people with the sea and its resources.
In sum, teachings of the First Nations of the Saanich Inlet speak of the land, the water and the people as equal members of a complex system, an integrated entity connected through cultural traditions. The landscape, therefore, is essential to the continuity of traditional Aboriginal culture and, like traditional cultures, is threatened by the pace of development in the Saanich Inlet.
The old people had power. Today, we can’t teach our children to be powerful because all the places the ancestors went for learning and power are now private property.
Edward Thomas, September 18, 1996
It is not surprising, given the strength of the relationship between the Saanich Inlet people and /Yaas/, that there is considerable concern amongst the First Nations communities regarding the proposed Bamberton development and the cumulative effects this project will have on the landscape and First Nations culture.
As the above quote illustrates, the continued desecration of /Yaas/ through logging activities, highway and road construction, housing developments and the former Bamberton Cement Plant, has contributed to a deep sense of loss, and often bitterness amongst community members who have witnessed the erosion of traditional ways as a result of this encroachment. As one elder noted,
Our people never benefited from the destruction of our sacred mountain. The people who used to live up there -- the giants on the mountain -- now none of them are there. We’ve destroyed them all.
Samuel Sam, January 18, 1997
Elders also spoke of the impact of development on the waters and marine resources of the Saanich Inlet, a “landscape” also critical to survival of First Nations peoples and traditional culture.
Foods that come down from the mountain also feed the creatures in the sea and these are now impacted by development and introduced chemicals. The land has to be left in its natural state to preserve the water.
Tom Sampson, July 29, 1996
Development of the sacred mountain results in more than simply the loss of the physical landscape. It represents the loss of the culture which is connected to that landscape, a way of life linked to the plants, the animals, the waters and the spirits. It is a loss of those teachings which are essential to the cultural identify of the Saanich Inlet people. This point was made quite eloquently by Tsartlip elder Samuel Sam (January 28, 1997):
About 50 years ago, the elders told them to be careful. My grandfather was 105 years old when he died. He paddled up Goldstream even when he was 100. Things were plentiful then, fish. But, they’ve destroyed the spiritual ways of the Indian people. We're losing reverence for nature because where we used to go has been destroyed, where old people used to go to get spirit songs for winter dances. So now, young people don't have the same spirit, the same strength as the old people, because nature is destroyed.
There is reverence in the woods, sacredness -- every shrub and tree, because it’s a part of life. Now we can't find medicines and have to depend on doctors. Doesn't cure like Indian medicine. Devil's club, it’s now very rare, but it and other medicines used to be plentiful around the inlet. Now we have to go up island. In the old days, we couldn't take anything without ritual, without thanking the Creator for the item, thanking when we pick it. Things were not just destroyed.
Killer whales used to go up [the Inlet]. You’d hear them at certain times and the old people would know the chum salmon was coming. Murrs by the thousands, now not one. Blue blacks, now there are none, there used to be thousands. Now we don't see flounders or herring spawning. The old people used to get excited and holler "herring" in our language and get ready and lay down branches and the roe would be about 6 inches thick and really white. Now there's hardly any and it’s yellowy. Cod fish -- the old people used to love it.
The land is destroyed. What's left for young people? Whatever we can do to salvage what's left, anything, that’s what we should do. The old people told us to watch out, 60 to 70 years ago.
In short, the people of the Saanich Inlet view the proposed Bamberton project as another in a lengthy list of developments that have eroded -- and will continue to erode -- their traditional territory and their traditional way of life.
If we’re not careful, this [landscape] will all be just a memory.
Chief Verne Jacks, January 28, 1997
The foregoing discussion of the cultural landscape of the First Nations people of Saanich Inlet is not meant as an exhaustive treatment of the subject. Rather, it seeks to provide a conceptual framework for the First Nations Cultural Heritage Study which follows. It is an attempt to “translate” First Nations’ perspective on culture and the environment into “western” terms, recognizing that a First Nations’ perspective is fundamentally different in its treatment of human/nature interactions. This framework, we believe, is essential to understanding the depth and complexity of First Nation links with /Yaas/, the Malahat region, and indeed the entire Saanich Inlet.
Building on this framework, then, the remainder of the report outlines the objectives, methods, results and recommendations of the First Nations Cultural Heritage Study. It begins with a discussion of the People of the Saanich Inlet, followed by a review of their traditional land and resource use and the specifics of these activities as they relate to the study area. Then, we review the archaeological evidence of past land and resource use in the Saanich Inlet.
Following the presentation of the results of the community consultation, we outline the plans for the proposed Bamberton Town development to set the stage for the discussion of the impacts of this development on First Nations culture and land use. We conclude by outlining opportunities for mitigation and conflict resolution, and include a series of recommendations to that end.
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Last Updated: 8/31/98