Source: A Love Story — Indigenous Leadership Initiative
By Bev Sellars
I want to tell you a love story. A love story so deep it has lasted for thousands of years and still exists today. Modern ethnology has shown that different cultures have different reasoning systems and different ways of interpreting their experiences. The way we see the world, the way we conceive reality is relative to the culture in which we have been raised.
The worldview of most newcomers/settlers to the Americas since 1492 recognized only human beings as persons and the only things deserving of moral and legal consideration. It is easier to explain by saying that a pyramid best describes their view. Humans are at the top of the triangle and everything else exists for the sake of them.
On August 4, 2014, a section of the Mount Polley copper mine tailing pond collapsed, releasing 25 million cubic metres of mine tailings and wastewater into pristine Quesnel Lake. Parts of the crystal clear lake filled with thick, grey mining sludge. For Indigenous peoples in our communities and downstream who rely on healthy waters for food and cultural practices, the tailings breach was devastating. We held an emergency meeting for our communities the next day.
Our Elders, one by one, got up to talk about their love of the land, the waters and all the unique medicines and plants that the area around Quesnel Lake offers. The lake itself provides migration, rearing and spawning habitat for several salmon and non-salmon species.
The Elders all cried as they talked. To them a death had happened in the family because they know it is all connected.
The physical plan that a mine sits on does not isolate their footprint. Their footprint stretches throughout the lands and waters. And when you combine that with all the other mines and every other resource extraction company, the abuse guarantees that the future for just two or three generations ahead is scary.
Governments and resource extraction companies don’t love this land, they don’t love the waters, and they don’t love all that it has to offer. They love money and they will get it regardless of what the real cost is for us and for future generations.
Racist laws managed to allow the destructive ways of dealing with the land and waters to become prominent. Indigenous peoples had their traditional teachings interrupted by residential schools that operated for almost 100 years. And some Indigenous peoples have been brainwashed into accepting the monetary way of life over the teachings of their ancestors.
The Polley Mine did reopen using the same Tailings Pond that breached. There has been one small fine that the mine will fight, no charges and contrary to the recommendations of the Mount Polley Report issued, they are carrying on business as usual. At the end of the day, our grandchildren are left with this mess and contamination. The company will eventually move on. Politicians will comfortably retire. The Indigenous peoples will remain.
They is a saying that only 2 things in life are certain, death and taxes. I say that there are 3 things and the third is that Indigenous peoples will always be in their territories. We don’t have a homeland to go to; this is our homeland and our holy lands have always been on this continent. We will always be here fighting for our territories and fighting to protect the resources that all our relations, whether they be 4-legged, winged or finned, depend upon.
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