In the study of the economic and labour history of the West Coast Native people of British Columbia most research has centered on activities such as fishing, farming and forestry. This thesis turns the attention from what was primarily men's work in the dominant society to the Coast Salish wool working industry where women worked with the help of their children and husbands. I examine the significant economic and cultural contribution Coast Salish woolworkers had on West Coast society, the meeting place woolworkers' sweaters provided between the Coast Salish and the newcomers and the changes which took place in the industry during the last century. This story includes many voices most of which are recorded in newspapers, correspondence and journals, and in the memories of those that lived and worked in the industry.

This research is based on the voices of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Sul-hween/Elders who participated on this project. They are of the Coast Salish people, specifically from the Hul’q’umi’num’ Treaty group area. The Sul-hween/Elders have significant concerns regarding the struggles that face the younger generations that surround them. They are concerned with the changes that are occurring in their culture and the fundamental principles of Snuw’uyulh. The Sul’hween/Elders discussed the effects of colonization and western society, what Snuw’uyulh means the importance of Snuw’uyulh and the teaching and learning style of Snuw’uyulh. The Sul-hween/Elders described the methods by which Snuw’uyulh can accompany and navigate an individual through childhood, puberty, parenting, grief and death. Snuw’uyulh is fundamental for unity, communication and family protocol.

In the study of the economic and labour history of the West Coast Native people of British Columbia most research has centered on activities such as fishing, farming and forestry. This thesis turns the attention from what was primarily men's work in the dominant society to the Coast Salish wool working industry where women worked with the help of their children and husbands. I examine the significant economic and cultural contribution Coast Salish woolworkers had on West Coast society, the meeting place woolworkers' sweaters provided between the Coast Salish and the newcomers and the changes which took place in the industry during the last century. This story includes many voices most of which are recorded in newspapers, correspondence and journals, and in the memories of those that lived and worked in the industry.

The goal of this research was to improve ocean colour chlorophyll a (Chla) retrievals in the coastal Case 2 waters of the Salish Sea by characterizing the main drivers of optical variability and using this information to parameterize empirical algorithms based on an optical classification. This was addressed with three specific objectives: (1) build a comprehensive spatio-temporal data set of in situ optical and biogeochemical parameters, (2) apply a hierarchical clustering analysis to classify above-water remote sensing reflectance (Rrs) and associated bio-optical regimes, (3) optimize and validate class-specific empirical algorithms for improved Chla retrievals. Biogeochemical and optical measurements, acquired at 145 sites, showed considerable variation; Chla (mean=1.64, range: 0.10 – 7.20 µg l-1), total suspended matter (TSM) (3.09, 0.82 – 20.69 mg l-1), and absorption by chromophoric dissolved organic matter (a_cdom (443)) (0.525, 0.007 – 3.072 m-1), thus representing the spatial and temporal variability of the Salish Sea. A comparable range was found in the measured optical properties; particulate scattering (b_p (650)) (1.316, 0.250 – 7.450 m-1), particulate backscattering (b_bp (650)) (0.022, 0.005 – 0.097 m-1), total beam attenuation coefficient (c_t (650)) (1.675, 0.371 – 9.537 m-1), and particulate absorption coefficient (a_p (650)) (0.345, 0.048 – 2.020 m-1). Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis revealed 95% of the Rrs variance was highly correlated to b_p (r = 0.90), b_bp (r = 0.82), and TSM concentration (r = 0.80), suggesting a strong influence from riverine systems in this region. Hierarchical clustering on the normalized Rrs revealed four spectral classes. Class 1 is defined by high overall Rrs magnitudes in the red, indicating more turbid waters, Class 2 showed high Rrs values in the red and well defined fluorescence and absorption features, indicated by a high Chla and TSM presence, Class 3 showed low TSM influence and more defined Chla signatures, and Class 4 is characterized by overall low Rrs values, suggesting more optically clear oceanic waters. Spectral similarities justified a simplification of this classification into two dominant water classes – (1) estuarine class (Classes 1 and 2) and (2) oceanic class (Classes 3 and 4) – representing the dominant influences seen here. In situ Chla and above-water remote sensing reflectance measurements, used to validate and parameterize the OC3M/OC3S3, two-band ratio, FLH and, modified FLH (ModFLH) empirical algorithms, showed a systematic overestimation of low Chla concentrations and underestimation of higher Chla values for all four algorithms when tuned to regional data. FLH and ModFLH algorithms performed best for these data (R2 ~ 0.40; RMSE ~ 0.32). Algorithm accuracy was significantly improved for the class-specific parametrizations with the two-band ratio showing a strong correlation to the Chla concentrations in the estuarine class (R2 ~ 0.71; RMSE ~ 0.33) and the ModFLH algorithm in the oceanic class (R2 ~ 0.70; RMSE ~ 0.26). These results demonstrated the benefit of applying an optical classification as a necessary first step into improving Chla retrievals from remotely sensed data in the contrasted coastal waters of the Salish Sea. With accurate Chla information, the health of the Salish Sea can be viably monitored at spatial and temporal scales suitable for ecosystem management. / Graduate / 0416 / stephen.uvic@gmail.com

This study integrates settlement and community archaeology in investigating pre-colonial Stó:lō-Coast Salish community organization between 2,550-100 years before present (cal B.P.). Archaeological housepits provide a basic unit of analysis and proxy for households through which community organization manifests in relationships of form and arrangement among housepit settlements in the lower Fraser River Watershed of southwestern British Columbia. This study focuses on spatial and temporal data from 11 housepit settlements (114 housepits) in the upriver portion of the broader study area (mainland Gulf of Georgia Region). These settlements were mapped and tested as part of the Fraser Valley Archaeology Project (2003-2006). The findings of this study suggest a trajectory of continuity and change in community organization among the Stó:lō-Coast Salish over the 2,500 years preceding European colonization. Shifts between heterarchical and hierarchical forms of social organization, and corporate to network modes of relations represent societal transformations that become expressed by about 550 cal B.P. Transformations of social structure and community organization are manifest as increasing variation in housepit sizes and settlement patterns, and the development of central arrangements in both intra- and inter-settlement patterns. In the Late Period (ca. 550-100 cal. B.P.), the largest and most complex settlements in the region, including the largest housepits, develop on islands and at central places or hubs in the region’s communication system along the Fraser River. These complex sets of household relations within and between settlements represent an expansive form of community organization. Tracing this progression provides insight into the process of change among Stó:lō pithouse communities. Societal change develops as a shift expressed first at a broad-based collective level between settlements, and then at a more discreet individual level between households. This process speaks to the development of communities formed within a complex political-economic system widely practiced throughout the region. This pattern survived the smallpox epidemic of the late 18th century and was maintained by the Stó:lō up to the Colonial Era. Administration of British assimilation policies (e.g., Indian Legislation) instituted after 1858 effectively disrupted but failed to completely replace deeply rooted expressions of Stó:lō community that developed during preceding millennia. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation is concerned with the analysis of a late portion of the Crescent Beach shell midden (DgRr 1 ) situated on Boundary Bay in the southern Fraser River Delta of British Columbia. The basic objectives of this study are the recovery and analysis of shell midden layers and their constituents to obtain information on Coast Salish subsistence activities, and to initiate a better understanding of shell midden formation. The cultural history of the Strait of Georgia region is viewed as a 5,000 year long Tradition of Coast Salish Cultures. To place the archaeological materials from Crescent Beach in their proper cultural ecological perspective, the environmental, ethnographic and archaeological setting of the site and surrounding region is examined. The historic ecological communities of Boundary Bay are reconstructed and the abundance and availability of species of economic value determined. Ethnographic Coast Salish Culture and economic strategies are examined and possible settlement patterns reconstructed for Boundary Bay. To assist in identifying subsistence activities at Crescent Beach a shell midden model is presented outlining the systemic and archaeological transformation processes responsible for the site's development. In light of this model and the above environmental and ethnographic data the most probable seasons of site occupation are suggested. Archaeological data were recovered by the hand trowel excavation of a block of shell midden layers and the matrix, provenienced within a 0.25 m2 unit, was waterscreened through a 1.45 mm mesh screen. In total some 24 m3 of shell midden weighing 28.8 t were excavated. Recove of midden constituents was accomplished through a multiple tier sampling system. Radiocarbon estimates of 1350 to 480 B.P., place the 31 layers recovered from Crescent Beach in the Developed Coast Salish Culture. Seasonality dating of shellfish growth patterns and analysis of layer constituents indicate the site was a shellfish and herring harvesting camp occupied in February and March. Layers recovered from Crescent Beach reflect shellfish and herring processing (steaming, sorting, refuse discard, and meat preservation) as well as the immediate consumption of other foods. Artifacts indicate the manufacture, mostly in bone and antler, of tools used in fishing, woodworking and hide processing, the latter two activities conducted at the site. Procurement of shellfish, crab and most fish species probably took place along the 3 km stretch of beach south of the site where present ecological communities contain identical resources as found in the site. Petroglyphs and a fort-lookout site also attest to the use of this area. Shellfish were the most common faunal remain, followed by a much lesser quantity of fish, waterfowl and some large mammals. In addition to the Crescent Beach site, the Deep Bay site (DiSe 7) and Shoal Bay site (DcRt 1) may also be seasonal shellfish and herring harvesting camps, and it is suggested that Whalen II (DfRs 3) and the Locarno Beach site (DhRt 6) may have had similar uses. This evidence and the fact additional seasonal sites dating to the Locarno Beach Culture have been identified indicates the Proto-Coast Salish had a specialized economic system by 3,500 B.P. and possibly earlier. Indications of social ranking are also evident by this time. The approach followed in this study indicates accurate information on economic strategies may be obtained from shell middens. Where research is interested primarily in seasonality, settlement pattern and subsistence the controlled excavation of small blocks of shell midden layers, fine mesh water screening, and analysis of small numbers of shell samples will be adequate. This has important implications for the study and resource management of the shell middens of the Strait of Georgia region. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Featuring an ethnohistory of two Coast Salish communities — the Suquamish Tribe in Washington State and the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation in British Columbia — this dissertation is a transborder study of Indigenous shellfish harvesting and foreshore rights in the Salish Sea across the twentieth century. It explores the history of the interface between land and sea within the context of treaty rights to resources and Indigenous nations’ sovereignty over marine habitats. This study also turns the ethnographic lens on the settler population. Using tools offered by recent scholarship on settler colonialism, it helps explain why the general public has resisted treaty and Aboriginal rights to fisheries and other resources. This dissertation also reveals Coast Salish nations’ responses to settler encroachment of their foreshores and state disruption of their management of the marine environment throughout the twentieth century and offers two community studies to illustrate how local Indigenous communities have re-shaped relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers on the Salish Sea. The first study examines Suquamish’s right to shellfish under the Point Elliott Treaty and affirmed by the 1994 Rafeedie decision, as well as the interrelated 1980s tidelands case for ownership of the beaches attached to the Port Madison Reservation. The second examines W̱SÁNEĆ people’s defense of Saanichton Bay from a marina development, when the SȾÁ,UTW̱ (Tsawout) community wielded its Douglas Treaty rights in Claxton v. Saanichton Marina, 1987. Utilising Karl Jacoby’s concept of a “moral ecology,” this study argues that by ignoring Indigenous Knowledge regarding marine resource management, and by creating an overly complex regulatory scheme guided by principles of capitalism, settler officials on both sides of the border missed opportunities to avoid some of the greatest challenges to marine health and resource survival in the Salish Sea. / Graduate / 2023-04-12

In the Gulf Islands and Salish Sea Regions of British Columbia the Parks Canada Agency (PCA) currently operates Gulf Islands National Park Reserve (GINPR) and is in the development phase for the proposed Southern Strait of Georgia National Marine Conservation Area Reserve (SSGNMCAR). Protected areas such as these are meant to protect the ecological and cultural heritage of the region on behalf of all Canadians. As the government runs and expands their protected areas in the region it is important to look at their relationship with Indigenous communities in particular, as the PCA mandate requires the agency to work in “partnership” with Indigenous communities (Parks Canada 2017). The region is home to nearly 20 First Nations groups including the three W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations of the W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council (WLC). The WLC is an Indigenous government that has publicly stated their perception of a strained relationship with the PCA beginning before the formal establishment of GINPR in 2003. Through historical analysis; interviews with employees from the PCA and members of the W̱SÁNEĆ community; and a review of several aspects of site management and establishment in the region – this thesis explores the changing relationship between the PCA and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations. Through this thesis I collect and discuss recommendations from W̱SÁNEĆ community members, and develop several myself, for the PCA to consider developing to improve the partnership between the two bodies. Potentially a partnership could lead towards formalized and lasting co-operative decision-making practice in the region’s cultural and natural heritage management. / Graduate

Duwamish people are “the People of the Inside,” “the Salmon People”—Coast Salish people who occupied a large territory inside the Olympic Mountains and the Cascade range. Ninety Longhouses were situated where Seattle and several neighbouring cities now stand. Today, over six hundred Duwamish are urban Indigenous people without legal recognition as an American Indian tribe, still battling for rights promised by the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855. Portrayals of Duwamish history since the time of colonization are often incomplete or incorrect. A tribe member myself, I set out to record and present family stories concerning the period 1850 to the present from participants from six Duwamish families. I gathered histories told in the words of the people whose family experiences they are. It is history from a Duwamish perspective, in Duwamish voices. Collected family stories are recorded in the appendices to my dissertation. In my ethnographic study, I inquire as to what strengths have carried Duwamish people through their experiences since colonization. The stories reveal beliefs and practices which have supported the Duwamish people, and hopes for the future. Data was gathered using multiple methods, including fieldwork—visiting a master weaver; attending tribal meetings; and visiting historic sites—reading existing documents by Duwamish authors and by settlers, and interviewing, including looking at photos to elicit information. Five themes emerged from the data: Finding a True History; What Made Them Strong; Intermarriage; Working for the People; and Working with the Youth. These themes together constitute what I term the Indigenous Star of Resilience (see Figure One in Chapter Six). For me, this study has truly been swit ulis uyayus—“work that the Creator has wrapped around me” (Vi Hilbert, quoted in Yoder, 2004); work that is a gift. / Graduate / 0727 / 0452 / 0740 / juliemorgana@yahoo.ca

This thesis draws on a community-engaged digital-mapping project with the Vancouver Island Coast Salish community of the Stz’uminus First Nation. In this paper, I discuss the ways in which conventional cartographic representations of Indigenous peoples are laden with methodological and visual assumptions that position Indigenous peoples’ perspectives, stories, and experiences within test-, proof-, and boundary-driven legal and Eurocentric contexts. In contrast, I frame this project’s methodology and digital mapping tools as an effort to map a depth of place, the emotional, spiritual, experiential, and kin-based cultural context that is routinely glossed over in conventional mapping practices. I argue elders’ place-based stories, when recorded on video and embedded in a digital map, produce a space for the “unmappable,” that which cannot, or will not, be expressed within the constructs of a static two-dimensional map. This thesis also describes a refusal to steep maps too deeply in cultural context for a public audience. I detail the conversations that emerged in response to a set of deeply spiritual, cultural, and personal stories to mark how the presence of Coast Salish law, customs, power structures, varying intra-community perspectives, and refusal came to bear on the production of “blank space” (interpreted colonially and legally as terra nullius) in this project’s cartographic representation. Finally, I conclude that Coast Salish sharing customs are embedded within networks of Coast Salish customary legal traditions, which fundamentally affects tensions that arise between storytelling and digital mapping technologies, between academic and community accountabilities, and between collective and individual consent. / Graduate / 2019-10-13