SṈIDȻEȽ: Indigenous Resistance, Memory, and W̱SÁNEĆ Resurgence
- Ayesha Anderson
- May 19
- 5 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Place carries memory, ancestors, governance, and relationships that continue across generations. Within W̱SÁNEĆ territory, sacred places such as SṈIDȻEȽ are not simply locations on a map, but living sites of history, ceremony, resistance, and Indigenous presence. Colonialism has reshaped these lands physically, politically, and spiritually, yet W̱SÁNEĆ peoples continue to resist colonial encroachment and maintain relationships to these sacred places.
The encroachment of colonialism exists within the lands themselves. The territory of the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples has been divided, occupied, industrialized, and polluted through settler colonial expansion. I wanted to share the story of SṈIDȻEȽ (pronounced sneed-kwith), meaning “Place of the Blue Grouse,” colonially known as Tod Inlet. SṈIDȻEȽ is located in the Brentwood area of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
SṈIDȻEȽ in Creator’s story was the place the first human was created. This place is the place of our ancestors. The bones of our ancestors lay to rest on these lands. This was also the place of our winter village of our people. In 1904 our people were travelling back home to the winter village SṈIDȻEȽ. The land was taken over by Robert Butchart’s Cement Factory, which has left a legacy of destruction. Today these effects remain the land and water is polluted. The blue grouse that once lived here are now extinct and the land is now a public park as of the mid-1990s. The rest of the land is still falsely owned by the Butchart family and is known as the Butchart Gardens. The Butchart family took over this land falsely claiming it was abandoned.
The W̱SÁNEĆ communities came to ask for the land back as our ancestors' bones remain on this land and this land is sacred. The Butchart Gardens makes $60.5 million per year and they will not even give some of that money to the W̱SÁNEĆ communities for whose land they profit off of (Owler, 2021). After the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples came to ask for these sacred lands back; the Butchart Gardens put up a fence with barbed wire fences and warning signs of vicious dogs.
The W̱SÁNEĆ peoples continues to resist colonial encroachment and resists against these colonial constructs. My responsibility as part of this resistance is to raise awareness of these sacred lands and to boycott the Butchart Gardens. This resistance and awareness starts with us and we can all do something every day to make positive change happen. In the words on my grandfather, “ITUSTO!” (Anderson, 2026). ITUSTO means that we will rise again. ITUSTO!
Indigenous resistance to economic globalization is indispensable because neoliberal policies affect the traditional territories of Indigenous peoples. The increasing pressure of the market has led to the plundering of land that has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Continued colonial policies, industrial exploitation and climate change have turned places we used to harvest food, medicine, drinking water and other forms of life into wastelands.
With the government actively participating in the construction of large oil wells on their land. Resistance is also forming in British Columbia, Canada, with Wet'suwet'en, a small Indigenous nation whose ancestral land is in British Columbia at the centre of this movement.
The Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs oppose the construction of a multi-billion-dollar natural gas pipeline called Coastal GasLink that would pass through the heart of traditional Wet'suwet'en territory (Brean, 2020). In British Columbia, a thriving matriarch Cihltsehkhyu of the Gil_seyhu - Big Frog clan of Wet'suwet'en, defended their territory from the invasion of fossil fuel companies since 2010, when they built a smelter on the way to three planned pipelines (Brean, 2020). For decades my own people, the Kwakiutl people and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples of Vancouver Island, have been fighting against the construction of pipelines like Keystone 1, Dakota Access and Keystone XL on our ancestral lands (Lakhani, 2021). The W̱SÁNEĆ and Kwakiutl communities stand in solidarity with other nations as part of resisting colonial constructs that continue to harm the land, nature, wildlife, and in turn lead to our own extinction.
The Declaration of the United Nations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) reaffirms the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination and self-government on their traditional land as a means of survival, reparation for land grabs, forced assimilation and economic deprivation (FPIC) and free and informed consent to development projects impacting their land and resources (Xanthaki, 2009).
The establishment and daily maintenance of the colonies depended on the domination of Indigenous peoples, the illegal sequestration and occupation of our territories, colonial laws and policies, police brutality, excessive imprisonment, economic marginalization, gender violence, the fear of children being taken away, the oppression of the systems of government and spiritual practices suppressed, and a way of life of our ancestors that remained deeply rooted in our lands (Ivison , 2015). Treaties were intended to ensure that the Indigenous way of life would continue despite the presence of settlers, which meant that the elements that sustain life on land would remain protected and our people would continue to live according to their ancestral way of life (Ivison , 2015).
The refusal of the Canadian governments to recognise the rights of Indigenous peoples is a violation of fundamental human rights recognised by the United Nations (MacDonald, 2021). Even though often the Duty to Consult under section 35 of the Canadian Charter our communities are not respected, the Supreme Court of Canada has an obligation to be impartial and rule that the government of Canada must consult and account for the interests of Indigenous communities (CBC Radio Canada, 2004). The government has worked to paint the protesters in a negative light, with their attempts of rendering the Red Power movement - Indigenous resistance - meaningless and acting as external agitators to discredit broader issues (Lindeman, 2020). Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has described himself as a pro-indigenous candidate in a shift in Canadian politics, but has largely shied away from direct federal intervention in conflict resolution and failed to deliver campaign promises (Noakes, 2020).
This leaves us coming back to the Medicine Circle and what we can do to create change for the better. My own community has worked to remove the invasive species of the SṈIDȻEȽ land. There is pollution left and our community has put in a lot of work to restore this land to a healthier state. We have been here since time immemorial and our presence on the land continues to this day. How do we become balanced as people in the face of these injustices? We take action in helping restore the land and continue to take care of these lands as best as we can. We are deeply connected to these sacred lands they are part of a story that colonizers have tried to erase.
References
Anderson, A. (2026, May 19). Master Carver and Elder Jackson Robertson Wisdom Shared. personal.
Brean, J. (2020, February 20). How a local Wet'suwet'en pipeline protest grew into a major crisis for the Trudeau government. nationalpost. https://nationalpost.com/news/how-a-local-wetsuweten-protest-grew-into-a-major-crisis-for-the-trudeau-government.
CBC/Radio Canada. (2004, November 19). Governments must consult First Nations, says top court | CBC News. CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/governments-must-consult-first-nations-says-top-court-1.471821.
Ivison, D. (2015). Indigenous Peoples, Injustice, and Global Politics. Domination and Global Political Justice, 218–236. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315757506-16
Lakhani, N. (2021, January 21). 'No more broken treaties': indigenous leaders urge Biden to shut down Dakota Access pipeline. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/21/dakota-access-pipeline-joe-biden-indigenous-environment.
Lindeman, T. (2020, February 28). 'Revolution is alive': Canada protests spawn climate and Indigenous rights movement. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/28/canada-pipeline-protests-climate-indigenous-rights.
MacDonald, D. (2021, June 8). Why Canada Won't Recognize its Genocide Against Indigenous Peoples. The National Interest. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/why-canada-won%E2%80%99t-recognize-its-genocide-against-indigenous-peoples-187136.
Noakes, T. C. (2020, December 17). 2020 Was the Year of Indigenous Activism in Canada. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/2020-indigenous-activism-canada-trudeau/.
Owler. (2021). The Butchart Gardens. Owler. https://www.owler.com/company/butchartgardens.
Xanthaki, A. (2009). Do indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination? Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards, 131–195. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511494468.005
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