A commentary by a professor emeritus (History) at the University of Victoria.
First Nations are increasing pressure on governments to shut down construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline and Site C dam as they gear up to protect their communities.
“We urge you to tell Coastal GasLink to stay home. The threat is too great to Northern communities, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, whose access to healthcare and necessary resources for containing COVID-19 are already limited,” the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs stated in an open letter to the provincial government.
UBCIC has also demanded a halt of construction at the Site C Dam, since “B.C. Hydro has confirmed that 16 of its construction workers at the Site C Dam site are under self-isolation with flu-like symptoms.”
The First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) last week demanded the federal government declare a state of emergency “before the pandemic sweeps through Canada’s most vulnerable communities, including First Nations.”
Why such a sense of urgency? Legacies of colonialism and previous pandemics have let scars that run deep among First Nations.
Dispossession has meant that many First Nation communities are now centred on “reserves,” in some cases isolated and under-resourced, with few hospitals and health-care facilities able to cope with a pandemic.
Ty-Histanis, a community of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation near Tofino, has limited access to their community, as have most other Nuu-chah-Nulth First Nations.
According to Tsawout Chief Nicholas Claxton, they have also closed their reserve, just off Highway 17 near Saanichton, as well as the band office while keeping essential services going.
Marilyn Slett, chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, announced that the nation was discouraging non-residents from traveling to Heiltsuk territory. “Bella Bella is highly vulnerable to a COVID-19 outbreak,” she said in a message broadcast last week.
Slett assured community members living off-reserve, “you have always been and will always be Heiltsuk no matter where you reside.”
The Musqueam nation has established an Emergency Response Team and issued a special notice: “Respectfully, we ask all non-residents to not attempt to access Musqueam Indian Reserve No. 2. Members of the public will be turned away.”
Slett pointed out, “Many community members suffer from health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and respiratory problems, particularly Elders.” Many of these problems reflect legacies of colonialism.
The late W’SANEC elder Dave Elliot recalled: “When I was a young man and TB was still running like wildfire, our people were dying so often it seemed like every week we were taking somebody up to the cemetery to bury them.
“In the morning when you’d get up the first thing when you opened the door you would hear somebody crying or wailing away. Amid this crying and mourning you would hear saws and hammers going.
“We used to make our own caskets. They would get up early in the morning and start making the coffin. This is the sound I would wake up to, this is the first sound I would hear in the morning when I opened the door.”
Indigenous people were seven to eight times more likely to die from tuberculosis than non-Indigenous people in the province, according to University of B.C. researcher Mary-Ellen Kelm.
Regional Chief Terry Teegee (Assembly of First Nations) emphasized, “Historically, First Nations communities have been devastated by pandemics and we must take decisive action now before we see our community and family members fall ill.”
During the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, First Nations in B.C. suffered at least 1,139 deaths from influenza, a rate eight times greater than non-Indigenous people, according to Kelm.
The late Mary Eglund (Lil’wut) recalled: “We got it. We just stayed right in bed; every girl that was in the convent was in bed. I was so sick then. I tried to fight it, you know, and the nun kept saying, ‘You’d better go to bed,’ she’d say. So finally, I went to bed and she came up stairs and took my temperature. Every once in a while the nun would come by and she’d say, ‘Are you still alive?’ ”
Just as humans today have no immunity to the novel coronavirus, First Nations had no immunity to diseases such as smallpox and measles brought to the Coast by Europeans in the 19th century. This, among other factors, led to severe population decline among First Nations in the province, from an estimated 100,000 in the early 1800s to about 25,000 a century later.
During the 1862-63 smallpox epidemic in Victoria, the Lekwungen (Songhees) escaped the disease by quarantining themselves at their village on Discovery Island. Some had received immunization. But a large number of Indigenous peoples visiting from the north received no immunization — instead colonial officials drove them out of Victoria, spreading the disease spread to communities up and down the Island and on the coast, leading to thousands of deaths.
Settlers trying to get to the Cariboo gold fields through Tsilhqot’in territory spread the disease there.
“Many estimates suggest that half the population of the Tsilhqot’in were killed in this epidemic,” states historian John Lutz in his award-winning book Makúk.
These legacies mean that many First Nations are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. The First Nations Health Authority, an Indigenous-controlled public body that replaced the federal government’s Pacific Region Health Branch is playing a key role.
Its director, Dr. Evan Adams, has urged governments to provide more resource to protect communities while also calling on First Nations to carefully assess and change ceremonies as needed.
“We need to fly in a new way,” he told Angela Sterritt in an interview last week.
