As a young girl, Seliliye (Belinda Claxton) and her family regularly came to Salt Spring and other Gulf Islands to hunt, fish and harvest wild plants for food and medicine. Back then, she says they could come and go as they pleased throughout their seasonal traditional territories of the SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout) First Nation.

“I remember as a child coming to the islands and my dad would say we’re going to go to Salt Spring–we’re gonna harvest clams over here, we’re gonna get crabs over here, then halibut over there. We had such a wide choice of where to go,” she recalls. “We were a free people.”

But Seliliye, who turns 73 this summer, says as the white population in the Gulf Islands increased, they no longer felt free. “No matter where we would camp, whether it was Saturna or Salt Spring, someone was always there to tell us we couldn’t be there. As time went on, it got worse and worse. It was very difficult.” For example, they no longer had access to some of the tree bark essential to her family’s recipe for 10-bark medicine (good “for whatever ails you”) only found on places that had become enforced as private property.

As a little girl, SȾÁUTW̱ elder Seliliye (Belinda Claxton), supported here by elected chief Abraham Pelkey, she and her family “were a free people” who came to Salt Spring regularly to hunt, fish and harvest traditional plants. Now, after so many years of talking about Land Back, she can’t believe it’s becoming a reality | Photo: Christopher Roy | Wildworks

One place Seliliye and her family were free to visit was the 50-acre SȾÁUTW̱ reserve near Fulford Harbour, established in 1876 and still the only First Nations reserve on Salt Spring. However, because the reserve lacks road access and services, there isn’t a place for she and other SȾÁUTW̱ elders to stay overnight.

Fortunately, that is expected to soon no longer be the case. On Tuesday, a beach party on the reserve celebrated the launch of a local Land Back campaign aiming to repay the SȾÁUTW̱ for their acquisition earlier this year of a key 2.17-acre parcel of land. Located at the end of Menhinick Drive and adjacent to the reserve as well as the 400-acre Reginald Hill Nature Reserve, Lot A is zoned residential and has access to services. This means the SȾÁUTW̱ will able to build a dwelling that will allow elders and others to stay over on their land.

The purchase price of the lot from the Beach family, which had held the land since the early 1960s and supports the notion of Land Back, was $600,000. Thanks to initial donations by two of the campaign’s organizers Ashley Hilliard and Brian Craig, a $50,000 contribution from the Salt Spring Island Foundation announced Tuesday and $4,000 raised at the event, a total of $221,000 has been raised for a fund established with the Foundation to accept donations for the SȾÁUTW̱'s purchase of Lot A. This represents 37 percent of the total needed, and the Foundation’s executive director Shannon Cowan says the goal is to get that up to at least 50 percent by the June 20-22 Indigenous Peoples weekend.

Shannon Cowan, executive director of the Salt Spring Island Foundation, and Gwen Underwood, former land manager for the SȾÁUTW̱ First Nation. The Foundation has set up a fund to accept donations for the SȾÁUTW̱'s purchase of Lot A, and on Tuesday Shannon announced that the Foundation is making a $50,000 contribution to the fund | Photo: David Minkow

As part of the arrangement, the SȾÁUTW̱ agree to allow, via a registered trail easement, public access to the informal trail that goes through the lot and connects with Reginald Hill.

“​​It’s really good to come together to celebrate this Land Back strategy,” SȾÁUTW̱ elected chief Abraham Pelkey told those gathered on Tuesday. “Our people were always hard-working people who never wanted to be just given things. What better to work for it and have that pride to say that we worked together with you all here and others on Salt Spring Island to get these lands back for our people, for the better utilization for us as people so our history and oral traditions and our culture can live–because without land, we don’t have that.”

Campaign lead Briony Penn says she looks forward to SȾÁUTW̱ elders being able to stay and relax on SSI. The campaign on Salt Spring is the result of years of relationship building, which she says is at the heart of the Land Back movement that aims to return unceded lands to local First Nations as a way to restore Indigenous land sovereignty compromised by colonialism.

Briony lives on land near the reserve that her family has owned for more than a century. She knows that her great-grandparents had a good relationship with the Joseph family who lived on the SȾÁUTW̱ reserve for many years (until their mysterious disappearance in 1923). But despite this history, things such as residential schools and the infamous Sixties Scoop fractured overall relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people here and elsewhere, she says.

Abraham Pelkey, elected chief of the SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout) First Nation, and campaign lead Briony Penn celebrate the launch this week of a Land Back campaign to repay the SȾÁUTW̱ for their recent purchase of a key piece of land adjacent to the reserve | Photo: Christopher Roy | Wildworks

With the intention “to right some wrongs,” Briony in 1991 started building relationships with many of the SȾÁUTW̱ elders in attendance at Tuesday’s Land Back campaign launch as well as with those from other First Nations. It’s always impressed her how willing these elders have been to share their history and work together. “When people that have suffered so much embrace the concept that we are connected and we can still work together, it’s transformational,” Briony says.

“Welcoming First Nations is like welcoming a solution to our problems. We should just slow down and listen. Part of it is to understand what used to be here, and part of it is to understand how this was stewarded and they managed to feed themselves and have a very sustainable way of life,” she says. “These communities are survivors and we will be increasingly turning to them to understand how to survive in difficult situations.”

Briony co-founded the Land Conservancy of BC in 1997, and she says back then the organization established policies to support the burgeoning Land Back movement. She says it was slow going at the start, and the various First Nations needed to set up land trusts to be able to accept parcels of land, something the SȾÁUTW̱ First Nation has done. The local lands trusts have told her that they will sort out their territorial interests, something Briony says “will really facilitate matters.”

The Joseph family lived at the SȾÁUTW̱ reserve near Fulford Harbour until 1923. This 1910 photo features members of the Joseph family with a Bridgman ancestor of local Land Back campaigner Briony Penn. "This isn’t the first time the families have sat together," she said at Tuesday's event | Photo: courtesy of Briony Penn

At Tuesday’s event, it was clear from the SȾÁUTW̱ elders that they really appreciate the close relationships they’ve developed with Briony and others. According to Seliliye, because now is the time of year when the sap is starting to run, it is the perfect time to harvest the ingredients for her prized 10-bark medicine. These days, she goes onto Briony’s land to get some of the ingredients, such as crab apple bark, thanks to their strong bond.

Even so, it's still a pleasant surprise to Seliliye that all the talks over the years about Land Back are actually leading to tangible outcomes. “I never thought it would blossom into something like this,” she says.

Speaking of blossoms, Seliliye says she was taught by her mother about how native plants and animals serve as indicators. For example, she says when wild roses blossom it is an indicator that it's time to harvest cedar, which SȾÁUTW̱ women are increasingly using to make traditional hats and baskets.

Seliliye says her mother instilled in her the importance of having a relationship with the birds and animals and having respect for all life. Calling on everyone to plant native species, she says, “Let’s make these lands thrive with butterflies and birds and fish once again by respecting what’s around you.”

A couple of fundraising events for the local Land Back campaign are in the works, and should be announced soon, Briony says. For more information about the campaign and how to donate: https://ssifoundation.ca/tsawout-land-back-campaign/