Journal of The West Wasn’t Won archive project
Honouring the indomitable spirit of Indigenous Peoples west of the Rocky Mountains, and the path to an autonomous and self-determining future.
Archive Quarterly is printed 4 times a year in Vancouver, in the heart of Musqueam. AQ relies on information support and contributors from Tahltan to Sinixt; from Nuu-chah-nulth to Secwepemc; from Penelakut to Tsimshean; and two dozen more nations in between.
ISSN 2819 585X (print) ISSN 2819 5868 (online)
Past digital editions are free to download or view, links below, thanks to the support of donations to this archive project, AQ’s print subscribers, and founding sponsors. You can donate to the project at About on this site.
Annual Subscription
Four issues of AQ! Print subscription: $60/yr, you’ll get the latest copy mailed to your physical address, and you’ll get the shareable digital subscription by email. Digital subscription: $22/yr, you’ll get the shareable digital subscription by email.
Individual copies of past issues are available for sale in print, digital, and e-book at the link below.
At 8.5″x11″ in dimension, the journal averages 60 – 72 pages per issue, black and white, printed on coated silk paper for an archival quality publication.
Fall 2025
Saving the Stein: from Voices for the Wilderness, 1985, to World Heritage status.
Deer in the Headlights: Indigenous nations lay down the law.
Nuxalk defense of Ista, 1995: Head Chief Nuximlayc statement on the anniversary.
Lillooet Lake Road blockade: when DFO chopped the Elders’ nets, 1975.
Who defines conservation? Aboriginal Peoples Fisheries Commission discuss the Sparrow case in 1986.
World Council of Indigenous Peoples first conference in Tseshaht, Nuu-chah-nulth, in October 1975.
With Special thanks this issue for some enlightening interviews and statements:
When DFO cut the Líl’wat Elders’ fishing nets
A five-week roadblock of the Lillooet Lake Road ensued, after fisheries officers came in and destroyed the Elders’ salmon fishery in 1975.
Wénemqen of Tilálus was 16 years old at the time, and he recalls the roadside discussions, the visiting Chiefs, patrolling the road, media tactics, and jail.
54 people were arrested for “obstructing a public highway” – their own road. The bogus charges were thrown out; the jurisdiction issue remains.
Stein Valley and the Voices for the Wilderness
The Nlaka’pamux and St’at’imc nations first declared protection of the entire area in 1985.
A decade of organizing; profile-raising concert festivals; and unflinching determination at endless negotiations with government resulted in the Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park and an unspoiled wilderness.
Here, Chiefs Ruby Dunstan and Byron Spinks of Lytton share their roles, then and now, and personal connections to the Stein.
Park Board member John Haugen explains a little about the UNESCO process for World Heritage Site designation, and Vancouver-based sound ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp shares her photos and recollections of the first festival in the alpine.
The Nuxalk Defense of Ista, 1995
Head Chief Nuximlayc’s statement on the 30th Anniversary: “They had been harvesting five million cubic meters of wood – every year – in Nuxalk territory. After the EU stopped buying it, after that, the timber harvest dropped to 200,000 cubic meters. That’s why we still have trees today.”
Nuxalk leaders of the House of Smayusta invited environmentalists to stay and join the reoccupation of Ista, King Island, in September 1995. Many were detained for defying the court injunction, and, later, the court’s jurisdiction.
Fall 2025 AQ: 48 pages, 8.5×11, black and white, ISSN 2819 5868 (online)
Buy Fall AQ 2025 print edition $17.63
Subscribe to AQ digital edition $22/year
Summer 2025
Focus on the Siege at the Sundance, 1995, Secwepemc Territory
During a Canada-wide Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,
Canadian Forces are back in The Pines,
this time at Gustafsen Lake,
with 400 RCMP and eight ERT teams,
and a “Green Light to Shoot to Kill” .
CONTENTS:
Secwepemc Okanagan Confederated Declaration: This is Shuswap law.
Introduction: How the RCMP enforced federal extinguishment policy in the Cariboo.
Defenders, detractors, police and politicians: Who did what, and when.
Interviews, 1997-2025: Secwepemc Defenders: Mindy Dick, Percy Rosette, Wolverine, Toby Pena, Flora Samson, Trond Halle, Sandra Bruderer
September 11: Native 9-11 sees 70,000 police bullets fired on the camp. The late Arnie Jack’s writing on that day, in 100 Mile House.
September 12: in Supreme Court: Motion for an injunction to stay RCMP; denied.
Ramsey Clark: Former US Attorney-General speaks out.
RCMP Media: What they told the press, and what actually happened.
BC’s Premier and Attorney-General: Quotes of incitement to hatred, while stonewalling access to legal procedure.
Judges: From Williams Lake to Canada’s Supreme Court, they condemned the people to trial by siege.
This is My Defense, OJ Pitawanakwat 1997
After: What happened when the 18 people surrounded at Gustafsen Lake walked out?
Concealment: George Wool reveals evidence that the Ministry of the Attorney General, BC, concealed from the public and the court.
92 pages – 8.5 x 11 – black and white – ISSN 2819 5868 – Electromagnetic Print
Buy AQ Summer 2025 – print – $17.63
Spring 2025
Nisga’a Final Agreement:
25th Anniversary Retrospective,
With a survey of events from 1884 to 1999.
Rejection of Funds, April 1975
Bill C-31, 1985, and Non-Status Indians
First Ministers Conference on the Constitution, April 2, 1985
“The Buffalo Jump of the 1980s”
CONTENTS:
Nisga’a Final Agreement:
25th Anniversary Retrospective,
With a survey of events from 1884 to 1999.
Rejection of Funds, April 1975
The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, and all Indian Bands in BC, refused federal payments and program funding – rejecting government control.
Bill C-31, 1985, and Non-Status Indians
Changes to the Indian Act allowed Reinstatement for the first time.
First Ministers Conference on the Constitution, April 2, 1985
Canada’s constitution, 1982, was passed with a British condition: the rights of Aboriginal Peoples must be elaborated.
“The Buffalo Jump of the 1980s”
Thus titled, the draft Cabinet Report recommended slashing financial support for Indigenous political organizations.
56 pages – 8.5×11 – black and white – ISBN: 978-1-7387902-9-6 – Electromagnetic Print
Get AQ Spring – print – $17.63
Winter 2025
Sacred Places v. Ski Resorts
Skwelkwek’welt, Sútikalh, Qat’muk, and other favourite spiritual resorts have been protected from development by reoccupations, litigation, and widespread mobilization. The Spirit Homes have been protected at a cost of mass arrests, real and threatened violence, global travel, and community solidarity from the grassroots to the Chief and Council.
CONTENTS:
The Petition of January 3, 1995, for an independent and impartial Standing Committee.
Defense of Meares Island: in March 1985, a provincial logging license in the heart of Nuu-chah-nulth territory was the subject of a court injunction.
The 1825 Anglo-Russian Treaty of St. Petersburgh, Concerning the Northwest Coast of America.
More: Sto:lo Chiefs snub the Queen’s Birthday Party in New Westminster, 1875; the Nielsen Report, 1985; the secret Christmas Potlatch 1921 in Kwakwala territory.
44 pages – 8.5×11, black and white – ISBN 978-1-7387902-7-2 – Electromagnetic Print
Fall 2024
“Modern day” Extinguishment Policy
Tracking the transformation of the Native title and rights identified in the 1973 Calder case, into the Native Claims Policy that mobilizes negotiations to achieve “extinguishment by consent.” Through changing definitions and increasing funding, the Policy has not responded to advances made in courts and harsh international criticism.
CONTENTS:
Hunting Aboriginal Rights
Inventing “uncertainty”: Canada’s Supreme Court consistently side-stepped the question of Aboriginal rights to hunt, refusing to hear legal questions put before them, and turning the constitutional question into matters of compliance with the BC Wildlife Act.
Legacy Cases reviewed; Excerpts from decisions in the years-long trials of Francis Haines, Tsilhqot’in, “Old” Jimmie Dennis of Tahltan, and Arthur Dick of Secwepemc.
Inquiries: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls – An overview and timeline of reports by the Organization of American States’ IACHR; British Columbia’s Inquiry; Canada’s National Inquiry; and the report by Human Rights Watch. International inquiries at the UN treaty body level continue with concerns about the disproportionate disappearance and murder of Indigenous women – and the lack of investigation.
“Modern day” Extinguishment Policy
Tracking the transformation of the Native title and rights identified in the 1973 Calder case, into the Native Claims Policy that mobilizes negotiations to achieve “extinguishment by consent.” Through changing definitions and increasing funding, the Policy has not responded to advances made in courts and harsh international criticism.
20 years since “Consultation” and “accommodation”
Two cases of consultation and accommodation were decided together in the Supreme Court of Canada in November of 2004: Haida and Taku. With timelines leading to that litigation.
Reflections on change over the last two decades, with President Gaagwiis of Haida.
That Day in Court: comments from Victor Guerin about the 1984 case named for his father, Chief of Musqueam, and the first definitions of the duty to consult.
Department of Justice, memo: Re. Crown Consultation with Aboriginal Groups
Implementation of the procedural right to be consulted, since 2004, has been “characterized by bad faith, bias, incompetence, unprofessionalism, and errors of fact, law and jurisdiction so numerous” that litigation has proliferated.
Sovereignty Peoples Information Network explained why they wouldn’t want a treaty with Canada anyway, in their response to the United Nations’ survey of treaties and constructive arrangements between states and Indigenous Peoples in 1994.
Hudson’s Bay Company Governor Simpson arrives in the west, 1824. The Company’s plan was always more than trade, and brought the first Christian Missionaries to carry it out.
56 pages – 8.5 x 11 – Black and white – ISBN 978¬1¬7387902¬6¬5 – Electromagnetic Print
Get Fall AQ 2024 – print edition – $17.63
Summer 2024
Investigating the armed Highway Toll at Bonaparte, Secwepemc, in 1974, through 8 decades of housing crisis on-reserve.
New interviews; timeline of housing crisis; media reports from 1974; more.
CONTENTS:
Bonaparte Highway Toll, 1974 – A new investigation of the summer blockade of Highway 12, at Two Springs, Secwepemc. With new interviews and a compilation of reports from the time, the coverage leads into a wider background for a detailed Timeline of the on-reserve housing crisis.
Ten years since Title – Reviewing the Declaration of Aboriginal title in “Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC” – with interviews, a book review of “Lha Yudit’ih ~ We Always Find A Way,” by Lorraine Weir and Chief Roger William; maps of the title area; a Timeline of the case; and a narration of the title case’s progress through the courts, from Lha Yudit’ih.
Celebrating fifty years of Native Women’s Associations across Canada! Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell joins us to discuss her legendary case to regain Indian Status after sexist provisions in the Indian Act withdrew it.
Grandmothers Healing Journey, with photos of the Fraser River canoe trip; and excerpts from the Indian Act as its amendments impacted women and children’s right to Indian Status.
First Class – Indigenous-focused graduation requirement – One year into BC’s Indigenous education mandate for secondary students, a class profile with one course made in Sto:lo that thrived.
More: 20 years since the Kelowna Accord; the first ever report of the Department of Indian Affairs (Minister of the Interior) in 1874; and a look at the “biggest demonstration in BC history” – Indigenous march on Victoria Legislature, June 25, 1974.
44 pages – 8.5×11 – black and white – ISBN 978¬1¬7387902¬4¬1 – Electromagnetic Print
Get Summer AQ – print edition – $17.63
Spring 2024
White and Bob, 1964
The Nanaimo hunting case, 1964,
that brought treaty and title into BC courts;
CONTENTS:
The 1964 treaty, title, and rights hunting case – White and Bob (Snuneymuxw/Nanaimo), with news from the time; an interview of that day in court with Kitty Sparrow; an excerpt from the Respondents Factum; the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision without a hearing; and circumstances at Fort Victoria from “The Smallpox War Against the Haida,” by Dr. Tom Swanky.
1874 BC Lands Act and the Attorney General of Canada’s disallowance of the Province’s unconstitutional assumption of jurisdiction to legislate and dispose of lands in unceded Indian territories.
Petition of the Douglas Tribes, 1874 – Chiefs of a hundred communities report Governor James Douglas’ broken promises of lands to be reserved for them against white settlement; conditions of life; and demands for judicial settlement.
Allied Tribes protest the Indian Reserve Commission of BC, 1924, by Petition to Ottawa to reject the Commission’s final report. Having cut off 80% of good arable land from the remaining, small Indian Reserves which survived Joseph Trutch’s arbitrary reductions, the McKenna-McBride Commission of 1912-14 added rocky barren lands to parcels that amounted to less than one percent per-person of lands that were given away to settlers by pre-emption.
“The Fourth World ~ An Indian Reality,” by George Manuel and Michael Posluns. A review of the 1974 book that exposes the four signal threats to Indigenous Peoples: the Priest, the Game Warden, the Doctor, and the Indian Agent. Sharing stunning reports of sharp dealing in federal and provincial schemes, while Native Community Development Officers (of which Grand Chief Manuel was one) promoted political responses.
More: BC’s 2024 attempted amendments to its Lands Act; what Canada’s UNDRIP Act actually says; the Potlatch Laws of 1884. 1949 re-print from The Native Voice, re Status Indian right to vote in provincial elections
40 pages – 8.5×11 – Black and white – ISBN: 978¬1¬7387902¬3¬4 – Electromagnetic Print
The West Wasn't Won 