Shuswap commit to unity

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The Shuswap Nation took another step toward unifying their 17 communities last month and made a public statement about it on Aug. 17.

Band representatives signed two declarations a few days earlier, committing to work together to overcome the legacy of colonialism that weakened them in the past by separating them from their land, language and traditions.

The signing occurred at the twentieth annual Secwepemc Gathering hosted by the Little Shuswap Indian Band on Aug. 13 and 14 at Squilax.

It was a reaffirmation of the "Shuswap Declaration signed 22 years ago, in which the bands agreed to "work in unity on Shuswap language, history and culture."

These days, they want to take the declaration a step further and work out a mutually beneficial form of Secwepemc governance.

Secwepemc people have documentation going back 125 years that reveals the social, legal and political details of their own form of governance. Now they want to formalize that into a system that fits their modern-day aspirations.

Judy Wilson, communications officer for the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council, outlined their plans and the movement she's observed over the past 22 years.

"There's been significant steps taken over the past two decades, and we've garnered a lot of support from the communities, from our nine member bands, to work in unity. The meetings are attended better, and also there's a real focus group of chief and council members that are directing the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. So we're getting a lot of clear direction, and our mandate when we were formed in 1980 was to advance the issues of Aboriginal rights. But we can't do that without the community members' support and involvement, because we're a political organization."

As for progress on language and culture, Wilson had examples readily at hand.

First of all, she said the tribal council supports the Secwepemc Cultural Education Society.

"They undertake the nation's archives. And they also have a museum and heritage park that's attended year-round with the tourists, but also it serves as a learning centre for our people.

"They've also done a lot of work in language development and published several titles of our Secwepemc people."

Most recently they republished The Shuswap, especially to mark the occasion of signing the declarations.

"They're historical curriculum materials that are used in the local schools, so that is important." These include elementary and high school level publications.

Language is getting a boost too, through individual band projects.

Wilson said she is involved in language immersion projects in her own band near Chase. She said a language immersion school at the Adams Lake band is "a model for our Secwepemc Nation, pretty much, in language immersion."

Adams Lake band does a lot of workshops for the other bands, she added.

Neskonlith delivers daycare and high school level language classes and is trying to get adult language immersion classes going too, she said.

A "real shortage" that still exists at the present time is language immersion teacher training.

Judy Wilson said they're working on training the teachers they need for language immersion programs "and we do have a linguistic-based teacher program at our SFU campus here," but after five years they have only a few teachers in band schools and public schools because a language obviously cannot be learned well in a short time.

"But we have some really dedicated Elders and some really dedicated educators in our community that have taken that role on."

Another initiative the Secwepemc are working on, said Wilson, is economic development. They've gained forestry licences, are engaged in forestry work and have a registered professional forester on staff.

She points out he's "one of 10, I think, registered First Nations professional foresters out of 3,000 in our province."

Sept. 27 to 30 the Secwepemc will hold an economic develop-ment conferene.

Rights and title issues are an ongoing thorn in the side, however, which is one of the primary reasons the people have elected to renew their declarations.