Vancouver Island sees Indigenous push for child welfare control – APTN News

May 14, 2025

Vancouver Island Nations have been working to assume jurisdiction over their children.

Fragments of broken pottery and glass lie scattered along the remote beaches of the Smith and Seymour Inlets on the B.C. coast, the only remains of the once-lively villages that belonged to the Gwa’sala and ‘Nakwaxda’xw Peoples.

Already ravaged by colonial diseases, the residential school system, and the over-industrialization of fishing and logging on their traditional territories, the federal government gave both nations the choice to relocate to a reserve on Vancouver Island where they were told they would receive homes, jobs and healthcare.

In 1964, hundreds of members of both nations moved to the Tsulquate Reserve – near the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island near Port Hardy – where they were met with only three unfinished homes, no running water, racist townspeople and nowhere to moor their boats. Some attempted to go back to their villages, but they had been torched by the government.

Read More: https://www.aptnnews.ca/featured/vancouver-island-sees-indigenous-push-for-child-welfare-control/