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Canadian hunting rights confirmed for Colville Tribes’ member

Rick Desautel, a wildlife damage control officers on the Colville Reservation, hauls a beaver trap to the water's edge Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at Twin Lakes on the Colville Reservation. He is transporting groups of beavers from the lake area to streams where damage from grazing cattle can be mitigated by the beavers, which move in and build dams and return the natural features of a stream. The trap Desautel uses for live trapping closes like a clamshell, holding the beavers until he returns. JESSE TINSLEY jesset@spokesman.com (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
By Becky Kramer beckyk@spokesman.com(509) 459-5466

A British Columbia court has recognized the right of a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes to hunt on aboriginal land in Canada.

Monday’s ruling cleared charges against Rick Desautel, who was cited in 2010 for elk hunting near Castlegar, British Columbia, as a nonresident without a license.

After shooting the elk, Desautel notified local wildlife officials. He’s a member of the Colville Tribe’s Lakes Band, also known as the Sinixt, whose ancestral lands stretched north to the Arrow Lakes region of Canada.

“This is very much a test case,” said Mark Underhill, Desautel’s attorney. “It was about whether the Sinixt, or the Lakes people, had a right to hunt on their traditional territory up here in Canada.”

Justice Lisa Mrozinksi’s ruling in Britsh Columbia’s Provincial Court affirms that right for members of Colville Tribe with Sinixt ancestry, and for other Sinixt members living in Canada, Underhill said.

“The overwhelming historical evidence is that the Sinixt continue to exist today as a group,” Mrozinksi wrote.

The British Columbia government argued that nonresident Indians lost their right to hunt in British Columbia through an 1896 law.

At the trial in Nelson, British Columbia, expert witnesses testified about the seasonal movements of the Sinixt people, who hunted, fished and gathered roots for thousands of years on both sides of what became an international border.

In the late 1800s, many Sinixt settled south of the U.S.-Canadian border. The Canadian government declared the Arrow Lakes Band extinct in 1956, paving the way for the construction of large, hydroelectric dams on the British Columbia portion of the Columbia River.

The Colville Tribes continues to contest the “extinct” designation.

Monday’s ruling “closes a dark chapter in the history of the Sinixt,” said Michael Marchand, chairman of the Colville Tribes, in a news release. “We are very pleased that our history and identity … have finally been recognized by the Canadian courts.”