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...processes in their history. The United States wrestles fitfully with the prospect of reparations for slavery. Japan struggles with the question of compensation for Korean "comfort women," enslaved as prostitutes during World War II, and for Allied prisoners of war. The Swiss try to deal with their tainted financial relations with Nazi Germany. In Australia, calls for reconciliation between the European majority and the Aborigines have become a national mantra, and New Zealand has made similar gestures through a comprehensive land and rights resolution process tied to the Treaty of Waitangi (1840).
Canadians, too, face the challenge of living with their past and finding ways to redress the errors of the past. In recent years, major struggles have erupted over veterans' rights, employment equity in the federal civil service, and the mistreatment of Chinese, Japanese, and Ukrainian-Canadians. The major focus of Canada's efforts at reconciliation, however, remains on the Indigenous peoples of the country. Across Canada, Aboriginal groups have sought legal, political, and economic means of securing compensation for past injustices and of ensuring themselves an appropriate and influential place in the nation's future. This struggle has been underway for decades and promises to continue well into the future. In few parts of the country are the issues of reconciliation and Indigenous struggles for a place within the regional order more critical or better articulated than in northern British Columbia.
In the previous paragraph we used the phrase "errors of the past." The choice of words in this very delicate and contentious issue is important, for the description of the past in this case can certainly influence the outcomes of the present and future. Suppose we had used "crimes" or "sins" instead of "errors," as others have done. An error is something from which one can absolve oneself with an apology, but a crime suggests punishment and redress, and a sin requires confession and expiation. We are conscious that the issue presents a minefield of nomenclature, and that there are many points of view on how to describe it.
Aboriginal people represent a substantial percentage of the 350,000 people of northern British Columbia (defined as encompassing the regional mandate of the University of Northern British Columbia, stretching from 100 Mile House (51[degrees]39'N.,121[degrees]17'W.) to the Yukon border and from the Alberta boundary to the Queen Charlotte Islands), ranging from a low number in the northeast to nearly a third in the Prince Rupert region. There are approximately fourteen cultural groups in the region (see map, above), residing on reserves and in villages, towns and cities throughout northern British Columbia and in the province's southern centres. (2) There is tremendous cultural diversity between these societies, which range from the hierarchical and highly ordered Nisga'a of the Nass Valley to the more decentralized and widely dispersed Kaska of the far north of the province. The Indigenous peoples and communities represent the full range of the Aboriginal experience in British Columbia, from positive and hopeful to extremely negative. Some of the most successful self-government initiatives in the country are in this region, but it also contains more than one dysfunctional and traumatized community. There are families and settlements that have integrated well into the market and resource economies of the province and others that remain welfare dependant, with virtually no means of subsistence except government transfer payments. Several of the region's major cities have established strong, workable relationships between Indigenous peoples and newcomers; others labour under a legacy of turmoil and racial disharmony. There is, more than anything, intense regional debate about Aboriginal rights, particularly relating to resource use and land claims, and there is nothing yet approaching a consensus on the proper and future role of Indigenous communities in the North. In northern British Columbia, the challenges of reconciliation are not vague, theoretical concepts--as northerners often claim they are to those they accuse of being the latte-sipping yuppies of the Lower Mainland, whose economic welfare is not directly affected by them. They are, instead, real issues, of pressing concern, seen by almost all observers as critical to the long-term prosperity of the region.
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Reversing Patterns of Development
Northern British Columbia, like most resource-dependent regions, has long been a classic victim of boom and bust economics. During the widely spaced periods of prosperity, particularly the British Columbia gold rushes of the 1850s and 1860s, the railway construction era of the early twentieth century, when the Grand Trunk Pacific was built from Edmonton through Prince George to the coast at Prince Rupert, the construction of the Alaska Highway and ancillary facilities in 1942-44, and the post-World War II resource boom (based on timber, hydroelectric development, secondary processing and mining), newcomers flooded into the region, towns grew rapidly, only to fade subsequently when the resources ran out. Some disappeared entirely--the town of Cassiar (3) is a recent example. These development periods emerged in large measure from external pressures. The priorities of southern markets, international demand, and southern British Columbian initiatives spurred (and eventually ended) eras of expansion. Some outsiders came in, generally to make a fast dollar, and most left the region with the money they earned. Others, such as many residents of Cassiar, put down roots, appreciated the beauty of their surroundings, and were bitterly unhappy when they were forced to leave. Profits from the resource activities rarely stayed in the North, adding to the transient nature of the investments and developments.
The polarity of northern developments appears to be shifting somewhat, although external influences remain strongly in evidence. International markets for mineral products determine the pace of mineral exploration and mine openings and closings. External forces over which northerners have no control--most notoriously the recent American duties on softwood lumber--can crush the northern economy. Southern environmental concerns weigh equally, if not more highly, with governments adjudicating major development plans than do northern desires for job-creating megaprojects; the recent ban on mining in the Tatshenshini watershed is an example. (4) Provincial interest in job creation or, as in the first two years of the Gordon Campbell Liberal government (2001-2003), government downsizing, often has had a profound impact on the region. Within a general context that still...
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