An Indigenous nation in Canada hails historic constitution: ‘We're now the architects of certainty for ourselves'

The Guardian

a day ago

When outsiders arrived in the lands of the Heiltsuk people, they brought with them a rapacious appetite for the region's trees, fish and minerals. Settlers and the government soon followed, claiming ownership of the thick cedar forests, the fjords and the abundance of life. Heiltsuk elders were confused. 'If these are truly your lands,' they asked, 'where are your stories?'
For the Heiltsuk, stories explain everything from the shape of a local mountain to the distinct red fur fringes on the sea wolves stalking shores. They tell of the flesh-eating monster baxbakwa'lanuxusiwe, whose entire body was covered with snapping mouths before it was destroyed by a shaman and became a cloud of mosquitoes.
Passed down over generations, in ceremonies forbidden by Canada's government, the stories weave together the physical world, the supernatural and the liminal space that binds the two.
Such stories are also the bedrock of the Heiltsuk's newly created constitution, a document recently ratified through ceremony that asserts the nation's long-held convictions that they are the original inhabitants and rightful stewards of the region's future.
The declaration comes at a time when Canada's own sovereignty is under threat, and when the first peoples are increasingly using their political power to reclaim territories and customs from a colonial project that once sought to destroy them.
Tucked inside the north-east tip of Campbell Island, the town of Bella Bella is the largest outpost for the Heiltsuk nation, a seafaring people 40,000 strong who once populated dozens of villages within the broader archipelago along British Columbia's central Pacific coast.
They warred, traded and allied with surrounding nations, finding sustenance and wealth in the lands and waters of the rugged coastline. And over thousands of years, the Heiltsuk and their neighbours developed systems of governance that relied on hereditary chiefs to serve as political, cultural and environmental caretakers.
But decades of hostile government policies – including the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families, and a system of residential schools that attempted to kill off the culture of Indigenous peoples – upended such systems of governance. For decades until 1973, staff at the Bella Bella hospital forcibly sterilized Heiltsuk men and women, who were classified as wards of the state under federal law.
'We've had the foot on our throats … and it's been hard to make the leap across the hatred, discrimination and racism towards our people,' said λáλíyasila Frank Brown, a Heiltsuk hereditary chief. 'But the constitution marks that transition away.'
After decades of consultation with legal experts and community members, the new Heiltsuk constitution enshrines a framework in which power and decision-making authority is shared by hereditary leadership, the elected chief and council, and the nation's women's council. It governs the relationship with the land and ocean, citizenship, language and culture. While it does not have the force of law in the eyes of the provincial or federal governments, the move marks an attempt to restore a system of coherent governance destroyed by colonial powers.
What is Canada's Indian Act?
Canada's Indian Act – first passed in 1876 and a version of which is still in effect today – is a controversial piece of legislation that governs the relationship between the federal government and Indigenous peoples.
When first introduced, the law imposed strict control over the lives of Indigenous peoples. They were made to live on reserves and couldn't leave without permission from federal agents.
Under the act, children were forcibly removed from their homes and forced to live in institutions that had the aim of stripping away their culture, language and identity.
Until 1951, the Act barred Indigenous peoples from retaining legal counsel and those with 'Indian status' were seen as wards of the federal government, similar to minors.
Even though Indigenous people fought for Canada during two world wars, it wasn't until 1960 that 'status Indians' were permitted to vote in federal elections. At times, the federal government stripped people of their 'Indian status' meaning they lost rights granted to them under treaties.
The 1867 Indian Act – legislation that governs the country's relationship with Indigenous peoples – created elected band councils with the aim of stripping away authority from hereditary chiefs.
'People were confused,' said Q̓íx̌itasu Elroy White, who serves as both a hereditary chief and elected councillor. 'They weren't sure who held power and many felt the elected band members didn't have legitimacy. This new constitution changes that.'
The Heiltsuk have long seen a clear distinction between the hereditary chiefs, who oversee cultural preservation through oral history, and the bureaucratic role of councillors.
By enshrining the power of both elected members and hereditary chiefs, the nation has established a political system ready to weather internal fractures. Elsewhere in British Columbia, hereditary chiefs of the Wetʼsuwetʼen people broke with the elected council over a natural gas pipeline, prompting a feud which spawned intense protests and police raids. The Heiltsuk, aware that outsiders hope to one day log their forests or fish their waters, want a unified voice in any proposal.
'We're now the architects of certainty for ourselves and for other governments operating within our unceded territories,' said Brown, noting that like most nations in the province of British Columbia, the Heiltsuk never signed away their lands in treaties, nor did they surrender them in battle.
It was women who kept Heiltsuk culture alive during sustained efforts by the federal government and the province to crush Indigenous identity. In 1885 Canada passed a law banning the potlatch, a ritualized ceremony that underpins the legal, political, economic and social networks binding the communities with neighbouring nations. A mandatory jail sentence was imposed on anyone breaking the law, which was only repealed in 1951.
Frances Brown was nine years old when elders began teaching her the songs and stories of her people. 'At the time I didn't understand, but I know now they were grooming me to be a strong Heiltsuk woman. They were working to keep our songs and our stories alive through me.'
Brown, now 66, serves on the W̓úm̓aqs du M̓ṇúyaqs – the women's council – that advises elected councillors and hereditary chiefs.
'We [women] have always been brought up to believe and know that we are the backbone of our community. We are the advisers to the chiefs,' she said. 'Through the constitution, they're formally returning our rightful place in our traditional governance system.'
Brown, whose mother is one of the few remaining fluent speakers of the Híɫzaqv language, has also spent the last two decades fighting to ensure the language, woven into the constitution, is protected.
'Híɫzaqv connects us to our creation stories. It connects us to our land, our seas, our way of life and laws of our ancestors that were practiced prior to colonization,' said Brown. 'We never gave up on that as a people. And today, we're renewing and reclaiming our ancestral laws.'
The constitution has been ratified at a time when Canada's own sovereignty has come under pressure. Donald Trump has brazenly threatened to annex the country, and separatists in the Prairie provinces – motivated by long-held grievances towards eastern political elites – have angered Indigenous groups by ignoring the treaties that give legitimacy to the region that now wants to secede.
Against that backdrop, members of the Heiltsuk Nation have not sought recognition from any external governments, including the Crown. While other Indigenous nations were invited to the ratification feast in late May, Canada's provincial and federal governments were not.
'We know who our leadership is and what we stand for,' said Marilynn Slett, the community's elected chief. 'That's what led us to where we are today.'
To the beat of the singers' drums, children performed dances, gifted to the Heiltsuk by the Haida nation, on the sandy floor of the Gvakva'aus Hailzaqv, or House of the Heiltsuk. The two nations, which renewed their alliance through a peace treaty potlatch in 2015, are both leading a push for greater sovereignty over their lands.
In 1996, the Heiltsuk won a landmark supreme court case when the justices found the nation had a pre-existing right to harvest herring eggs commercially.
And last year, after decades of negotiation, the province of British Columbia said more than half a million hectares of Crown land would be returned to the Haida nation. Canada's federal government followed suit earlier this year. Both cases marked the first time either level of government had willingly recognized an Indigenous nation's inherent right to the land they occupied before colonization.
But the Heiltsuk's decision to develop and implement their own constitution has also resulted in friction with neighbouring nations. In a February letter, members of the Nuxalk, Kitasoo Xai'xais and Wuikinuxv nations said they 'strongly disagree[d]' with the territorial claims made in the Heiltsuk constitution and called on the Heiltsuk to correct the 'inaccurate and historically false' territorial claims.
Slett said they had invited concerned nations to visit and discuss the issue using traditional protocols.
For a younger, and often highly educated generation, the fight for a constitution reflects a broader shift in how they conceive of their community's identity and place within the Canadian project.
'The previous generation wanted to tear down colonial systems. We want to rebuild our own,' said Saul Brown, a 32-year-old lawyer and councillor. A key figure in the drafting of the constitution, Brown anticipates there will be challenges when Heiltsuk law runs counter to Crown law, but he said those fights were secondary to a broader aim of his people.
'It's not just this hatred or righteous anger at these historical and contemporary wrongs. It's the love for our own people. We're not turning our back from state recognition. We're just saying we don't need it. We need to recognize our law first.'