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12/05/2004:

"Natives' Land Battles Bring a Shift in Canada Economy"

SKIDEGATE, British Columbia - In this rainy land of scarlet dawns and big black bears, workers are busy constructing a 40,000-square-foot extension to a museum that sits in a bushy cove where gray whales come to eat herring and roll over the shell beach to scratch barnacles off their bellies.

It is an ambitious project, not least because the hundreds of traditional masks, carvings and blankets the building is meant to display for the native Haida people still belong to some of the world's most prestigious museums. Resistance to the return of artifacts is likely, but the Haida have become used to challenging the rich and powerful, and winning.

Today they are in the vanguard of what appears to be a renaissance of Indian nations in Canada that legal scholars and others say could determine ultimate control over many resources vital to Canada's future, including oil, timber and diamonds.

The Haida won a landmark case in November in Canada's Supreme Court obliging British Columbia to consult with them over land use anywhere on their traditional homelands here on the Queen Charlotte Islands. The decision is expected to have a sweeping impact on similar Indian claims across Canada.

Adapting their old warrior ways to federal and provincial courtrooms, the Haida have already managed to slow efforts to clear-cut their lands by Weyerhaeuser and other companies. They have stalled plans by Petro-Canada and other companies to drill in ancestral waters should a government moratorium be lifted along the coast.

They are not alone in their efforts. Native bands are similarly exerting increasing control over natural resources across vast stretches of northern Canada that promise to be vital economically in a future of global warming. The developments have pleased environmentalists. But some legal experts warn that the stirrings represent a danger to the unity of a nation already struggling to keep separatist leanings in Quebec under control. There has not been a full-blown public debate on the issue, partly because most Canadians agree that native people deserve better conditions.
Full Article: nytimes.com

'Native bands' with their 'warrior ways.'