It may come as a shock to many that a people can be declared extinct in Canada. But this is precisely what happened to the Arrow Lakes people who, rejecting this colonial name, refer to themselves as the Sinixt. In 1956, an order-in-council was passed by the government of Canada declaring the Arrow Lakes Band to be extinct under the Indian Act.
The international border between Canada and the United States partitions the traditional territory of the Sinixt, most of which lies in the southeast interior of British Columbia with only a small percentage of their land in Washington state on the American side. After first contact with European settlers in 1811, the Sinixt were gradually dispossessed of their land, pushed south of the international border and forced to seek refuge in the U.S. They were amalgamated by the U.S. government with 10 other tribes and settled on the Colville Confederated Tribes reservation. Today, the majority of the Sinixt live in the United States, where they a
Author of the article: Karl S. Hele
Publishing date: May 07, 2021 • 1 day ago • 9 minute read • Perhaps it is the time to bring a case to the courts concerning an existing Aboriginal and treaty right held by the Bawating Anishinaabeg to cross and re-cross the line drawn upon our waters, writes Karl Hele. Souvenir Album of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. (c. early 20th C.)
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On April 23, the Supreme Court of Canada (SSC) issued the R. v. Desautel decision that will upend centuries of colonial policy begun with the Doctrine of Discovery. Simply, the SCC determined that Aboriginal people, specifically the Sinixt or Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes, whose ancestors once lived on lands that fell under Canadian sovereignty, have a right to hunt, fish, and gather on their traditional territories. While this decision will affect every Indigenous nation and person living along the Canada-United States border, there are important connections
On April 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released its decision in
R. v. Desautel, 2021 SCC 17, which upheld the lower court decisions to acquit Richard Desautel of charges under the
Wildlife Act. The SCC confirmed his Aboriginal right to hunt in the Arrow Lakes area of British Columbia, even though he is a resident and citizen of the United States.
This case raised novel questions about the territorial scope of the phrase aboriginal peoples of Canada in section 35 of the
Constitution Act, 1982. The Court decided that section 35 Aboriginal rights can extend to Aboriginal peoples who are not citizens or residents of Canada, even though the modern-day successor Aboriginal group that holds those rights no longer occupies the same geographical area where the historic pre-contact collective exercised those rights.
What if the Supreme Court of Canada decided that Constitutionally protected Aboriginal rights extend to Indigenous people outside of Canada? We will now find…