How Gitanyow Law Could Save Salmon in Northwest BC

In foaming whitewater at the base of a low waterfall on the Meziadin River in northwestern B.C., sockeye enact a ritual that has endured for millennia: with tails flailing, fish leap every few seconds, completing one more step in the long return journey toward their spawning creeks.

As they have also done since time immemorial, fishers from the Gitanyow First Nation — alongside one young grizzly — are there on the shore pulling sockeye from the river.

The Lax An Zok fish camp, which consists of a handful of simple cabins and several wooden platforms constructed for dip-netting, is situated just below the falls and a nearby fish ladder. It’s mid-July and the sockeye are abundant. Each time Matthew Daniels, a teen Gitanyow angler who’s been fishing these waters since he was 10, drags his net through the turbulent water, he scoops up at least two wriggling salmon.

Daniels, who’s a member of the Lax Gibuu, known in English as the Wolf Clan, says with a smile, “It’s kind of slow right now.” On a good day, a Gitanyow fisher can pull 400 or 500 sockeye from this river, he says.

Just five kilometres in length, the Meziadin River connects the deep, clear waters of Meziadin Lake with the Nass River, the third most productive habitat for wild sockeye in the province.

The Gitanyow, a relatively small First Nation of about 800 people, have recently taken a potentially groundbreaking approach to sovereignty over the Meziadin and their greater territory — known as the lax’yip in their dialect of Gitxsan Simalgyax.

The First Nation’s Chiefs have filed suit seeking Aboriginal title to their entire 6,200-square-kilometre lax’yip. The B.C. Supreme Court trial is scheduled for March.

A favourable ruling would officially acknowledge Gitanyow ownership — and the right to make land-use decisions over their entire territory. Though the Tŝilhqotʼin First Nation was granted partial title to its land in a 2014 Supreme Court ruling, and the Haida Nation earlier last year successfully negotiated with the federal government to gain title over all of Haida Gwaii, no First Nation has yet secured complete title to its land by a court ruling. The Gitanyow hope to change that.

“We want what is ours — we want to be independent, and we want to sustain ourselves. That's been our approach since the early 1900s,” says Gitanyow executive director Joel Starlund. “You recognize our title, you recognize our governance, you recognize who we are, and we’ll find a pathway together to decide how we're going to share the resources. British Columbia and Canada haven't had an appetite for that. And so we've had to go down the legal route.”

The Gitanyow have asserted sovereignty over their lands several times over the past few years.

In 2021, after years of unproductive negotiations with the federal and provincial governments over land protections, the eight Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs declared a 500-square-kilometre reserve encompassing Meziadin Lake and its watershed an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, or IPCA.

First promoted in a 2017 report issued by the Indigenous Circle of Experts, an advisory board of Indigenous leaders and members of federal, provincial and local governments, IPCAs are Indigenous-led protected land and waters. While there are technically only three official IPCAs recognized by the federal government, Canada has provided more than $1.2 billion in funds to 59 different IPCA projects.

What remains in dispute is how much authority First Nations have to enforce IPCAs.

In July 2024, the Gitanyow also declared that all mining claims on their traditional lax’yip must receive approval from the Gitanyow Chiefs before moving forward.

The Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, however, asserts that the Crown and the province retain jurisdiction. Ministry spokesperson Lee Toop says that even though the ministry honours its obligations to consult with First Nations, “the province will continue to recognize leases, licences and permits currently in place for mineral exploration and other tenures in accordance with existing legislation, regulations, as well as applicable land-use objectives.”

“We were at the table with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and British Columbia for 2 1/2 years,” says Tara Marsden, sustainability director for the Gitanyow. “They strung us along. So, we told them why it was important to us and pushed ahead.”

In response, Toop acknowledged that the negotiation process had “taken longer than we would have hoped.” Following last fall’s provincial election, Toop said, the ministry is ready to engage again with the Gitanyow.

Jennifer Young, a spokesperson for DFO, said the federal organization looked forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the Gitanyow to “support conservation and protection of the Meziadin watershed.”

The Gitanyow have never ceded land by treaty and refuse to participate in Canada’s band election system. Earlier this year the nation signed an agreement with the federal government formally recognizing its unique form of self-government.

At the fish camp, Marsden, whose Gitxsan name is Naxginkw, takes a moment to gut and clean several of the sockeye. On the opposite shore of the Meziadin River, a juvenile grizzly leaps into the water and seizes a salmon.

It’s the first grizzly they’ve seen at the camp this season, says Elder and Chief Greg Rush Sr., who’s also known as Wii Litsxw. In the Gitanyow system, which is matrilineal, each Chief takes the name of the house group — or wilp — they represent. The Gitanyow territory is divided into eight wilp, which each belong to one of two clans: the Lax Gibuu, or Wolf Clan, and the Lax Ganeda, or Frog Clan.

Rush, who is Chief of the wilp territory that encompasses the fish camp, grants permission to members of other Gitanyow wilp who want to fish here. In the decades he’s fished at Lax An Zok, Rush says, he’s seen the size of sockeye dwindle, going from five kilograms on average 30 years ago to 2.5 kilograms today.

Despite a strong return in the current season, Rush says, the numbers of sockeye and chinook have declined over the years as temperatures in the Meziadin region have warmed because of climate change. The Gitanyow Fisheries Authority does meticulous counts of returning salmon at facilities in both the Nass and Skeena River drainages in its territory.

“Twenty-one-degree water is lethal to sockeye,” Rush says. “It was 20 degrees during the heat wave in early July. The fish were staying down in the Nass, where it’s colder.”

Meanwhile, Rush says agents with DFO came to the camp recently and asked the Gitanyow to move their platforms downstream to comply with regulations that require all fishing be at least 23 metres from any fish ladder. Rush says they complied and built another platform — but he admits they rarely use it because the rocks on the shore are slippery there.

DFO spokesperson Young did not respond directly to questions about the platforms, saying “DFO is working closely with Gitanyow fishers to address concerns related to the enforcement of fisheries regulations on the Meziadin River.”

Rush and the fishers continue dip-netting for sockeye where they always have. “Their rules don’t mean a thing,” he says.

Tracking how well sockeye populations are supported by Meziadin Lake

Meziadin Lake, whose Gitxsan name, T’ax Mats’iiaadin, has origins in the Athabaskan language and means “pearly waters,” is at the heart of Gitanyow territory and is the epicentre of the region's sockeye population.

Running northwest to southeast, the lake reaches depths of more than 100 metres at its west end, where it’s fed by cold, turbid meltwater from Strohn and Surprise creeks, which have glacial origins. Farther east, the lake is shallower and warmer and fed by Hanna and Tintina creeks, which depend on spring snowmelt, not glaciers, for their flow.

At a picnic shelter overlooking the green-black waters of Meziadin Lake, Marsden talks about how climate change has altered what was once a regular and dependable life cycle of sockeye.

Although sockeye have rebounded in the past several years, she says the overall picture is worrisome.

“In the past year, we saw about 450,000 sockeye return,” Marsden says. She notes that’s well short of historical numbers of 600,000 or 700,000 but up from numbers as low as 100,000 in poor years such as 2018.

The current resurgence can be attributed to a number of factors, including a La Niña cycle that brought cooler ocean temperatures off the B.C. coast, and a federal closure of about 60 per cent of B.C.’s commercial salmon harvest in 2021.

Marsden gestures to a buoy set up in the lake as part of an effort by the Gitanyow to monitor temperature, oxygen and chlorophyll levels. The study, which she calls a “grocery store” inventory, identifies food sources for juvenile sockeye. Juvenile sockeye will spend one or two years of their lives here before heading downstream to the Pacific.

Aquatic ecologist Allison Oliver, who works for the Skeena Fisheries Commission, leads the Meziadin food source study for the Gitanyow. She says her study has found that in the spring, sockeye smolts predominantly eat terrestrial organisms such as insects and larvae. As the season progresses into summer, they switch to feasting on aquatic zooplankton such as diaptomus (copepods) and daphnia (water fleas).

Oliver says the sockeye prefer one predominant variety, Daphnia longispina. “Baby sockeye love them,” she says. “It’s their favourite snack in the salad bar.”

It turns out this variety of daphnia is different from others she’s studied in the province: it thrives in the cold, glacier-fed portions of the lake. She suspects that this cold-water adaptation might mean this daphnia is a distinct species.

She estimates that when sockeye have been at their peak in Meziadin Lake, they’re consuming only about 20 per cent of the available food source.

“Theoretically, the lake can hold a lot more fish — a lot more customers could come to the grocery store,” she says.

Climate change causing shifts in spawning patterns

For many decades, the majority of sockeye spawned in Hanna and Tintina creeks at the eastern end of the lake, with about a quarter returning to Tintina and three-quarters to Hanna. Less than one per cent historically spawned in Strohn Creek, which was generally too cold and full of glacial sediment to be a good spawning habitat.

But lower snowfall and drier summers due to climate change have meant that seasonal flows in those creeks have declined substantially.

In 2016, when the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority was conducting a radio telemetry study of tagged spawning sockeye, they discovered something surprising. Gitanyow executive director Starlund remembers the moment when he and fisheries biologists, flying in a helicopter, detected low numbers of fish in Hanna and Tintina creeks. On a whim they decided to check on sockeye at the west end of the lake.

“We went to fly over Strohn Creek and all of a sudden the instruments were going beep, beep beep — indicating lots of salmon,” Starlund said. “And our biologists were saying, ‘Huh, this thing must be broken.’”

The counts were accurate. Further studies have shown that while sockeye populations have declined dramatically in Tintina, and to some extent Hanna, the population spawning in Strohn Creek has surged.

Marsden takes me to Tintina Creek, which sits below Highway 37. Trucks barrel by at high speed as we stand on a small highway bridge and look to the creek below. It’s not much more than a stagnant, brown pond with a cloud of mosquitoes hovering above it. Currently, fewer than seven per cent of Meziadin sockeye are spawning in Tintina.

Fisheries biologist Mark Cleveland says the sockeye runs spawning in Strohn are intriguing because, as the glacier recedes, the waters there are becoming warmer and less turbid and contain fewer sediments.

“They talk about winners and losers in climate change,” Cleveland says. “Here's a prime example. Hanna and Tintina, under those influences, have become losers. But thankfully Strohn and Surprise are picking up the slack.”

This shift in sockeye populations from Hanna and Tintina to Strohn and Surprise is a big reason that the Gitanyow declared the Meziadin Indigenous Protected Area, Marsden says.

In 2013, under a reconciliation agreement with the Gitanyow, the B.C. government designated the 24,000-hectare Hanna-Tintina Conservancy, which at the time included about 75 per cent of the lake’s spawning habitat. The new Meziadin protected area further expands that protected area to include Strohn and Surprise creeks.

“The glacier was once across the whole valley and covered where the road is at present day,” says glaciologist Matt Beedle, who advises the Gitanyow on climate impacts. “The ice itself served as a dam to the west. And so almost all of the meltwater used to flow into Strohn.”

After about 1962, Beedle says, the majority of meltwater now flows west into the Bear River, which drains west into Portland Inlet.

He also notes that the ice is dramatically wasting away as temperatures increase. Beedle calculated projections for the coming decades, and at the current pace of warming, the news isn’t good. “I ran glacier models up to the year 2100 and the main takeaway is that by mid-century, the vast bulk of this ice mass will be gone.”

It’s a strange irony to the Gitanyow that, for now at least, climate change has improved one habitat at the same time it’s taken one away.

After a stop at Hanna Creek, where the water is flowing slowly, Marsden and I drive farther up Highway 37A, leaving behind subalpine fir and aspen and entering alpine country.

We pull over at a viewpoint for the Bear Glacier. Today, its white-blue tongue of ice is now about a kilometre distant and surrounded by rocky moraines.

Looking up at the glacier, which is diminished but still impressive, Marsden says, “Nature’s given us a second chance.”

Where the IPCA fits into Gitanyow law

The village of Gitanyow, which lies at the south end of the lax’yip, in the wilp territory of Gwass Hlaam, is best known for its extraordinary collection of historic totem poles, or git’mgan, which record the intricate history of each wilp, its territories, the location of fishing and hunting grounds, legends and the rights and responsibilities of future generations.

“These poles are the deeds to our land,” Starlund tells me.

The declaration of the Meziadin IPCA and the Gitanyow’s title court case are intricately entwined in the effort to ensure the Gitanyow’s 1,000-year-old system of laws, known as Ayookxw, takes precedence over federal and provincial authority in decisions made on the lax’yip.

Jimmy Morgan leads the Gitanyow lax’yip guardian program, which monitors the health of the ecosystem, encourages non-Indigenous visitors to follow provincial and Gitanyow law and passes down knowledge of watersheds and habitat to the community’s youth.

Gwelx ye’enst — a concept of sustainability that focuses on passing things down to the next generation — is engraved in almost every law and every aspect of Gitanyow culture, Morgan says.

“It’s about being able to pass down not just pristine territory, but pristine knowledge,” he adds.

The Chief of each Gitanyow wilp is responsible for their territory. Decisions affecting the Gitanyow as a whole require consensus from all eight Chiefs.

Rights to fishing and hunting are not guaranteed across the territory. Instead, members of other wilps are required to gain consent to fish or hunt outside of their wilp’s territory.

The Gitanyow have incorporated this consent-based rights system into their guardians program, which monitors and protects resources on the lax’yip.

It’s also similar to what the Chiefs are asking of the federal and provincial governments with regard to logging and mining on their lands.

The Gitanyow title case comes in the wake of the landmark 2014 Tŝilhqot’in title decision, which granted the exclusive right to the Tŝilhqot’in to decide how to use their lands, including requirement of consent for any development.

But that court case, unlike the Gitanyow’s, covered only a portion of Tŝilhqot’in land. This case, like the historic 2024 title agreement between the B.C. government and the Haida Nation, seeks title over the entirety of the Gitanyow lax’yip. If they’re successful, it would set yet another precedent in the road toward reconciliation and decolonization in Canada and B.C.

The Gitanyow court case is backed up by detailed reports, which combine both centuries of Ayookxw and rigorous contemporary wildlife biology studies, including a territory-wide land-use plan published in 2012 and a 2023 management plan for the Meziadin Indigenous Protected Area.

Morgan says Gitanyow guardians are well versed in both worlds. “It’s this braiding of environmental, western science and Indigenous knowledge that's really cool,” he says.

The Nisga’a Nation, which sued to be a party in the Gitanyow title case, has announced it will appeal a ruling dismissing its attempt to be a co-defendant. The Nisga’a, who signed a treaty with the federal government that went into effect in 2000, have been in dispute with the Gitanyow over territorial claims, culminating in a disagreement over the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas project, which the Nisga’a support and the Gitanyow oppose.

Starlund believes the Supreme Court will reject the appeal and notes that the Gitanyow weren’t included in treaty negotiations between the federal government and the Nisga’a.

He says that after years of negotiating in good faith with the B.C. and Canadian governments, the Gitanyow felt forced to declare the protected area and file the title case — especially because of increasing mining claims in the western portion of Gitanyow territory.

As climate change is causing glaciers to retreat, it’s also exposing new land that’s being staked out by modern-day prospectors, some of whom have never set foot on Gitanyow land.

A philanthropist has agreed to donate money to buy up some of those new mining tenures, Starlund says, but he believes what’s ultimately needed is recognition of Gitanyow authority over all their lax’yip.

“I feel that when we do gain control of our territories,” Starlund says, “we are going to be operating in a more certain and sustainable and economically viable way that all British Columbians and Canadians will benefit from, whereas they would not if we go with the status quo.”

At the crossroads of mining and glaciers

Starlund and Cleveland invite me to join them and biologist Melinda Bahr on a trip to a glacier at the headwaters of Surprise Creek — which feeds into Strohn Creek, where sockeye are increasingly spawning — to assess some old mining sites.

We ride up a rocky trail squeezed together in a small four-wheel-drive vehicle that makes quick work of the steep, unmaintained former mining road. Nearing the glacier, we get out and walk. The path is lined with wildflowers: paintbrush and columbine, yarrow and low-growing succulents.

Starlund carries a shotgun in case we encounter a grizzly.

This area is in the western edge of Wii Litsxw territory and was mined in the 1950s and 1960s, Starlund says. It’s here that modern-day prospectors are eyeing land exposed as the glacier retreats. B.C.’s antiquated 19th-century-era mineral tenure rules allow companies to stake claims on nearly any land in the province, with very few sensitive ecosystems deemed off limits. In addition to these new claims, the Gitanyow are concerned about the old mines, which left behind contaminated talus and rusted equipment leaking solvents and oil.

Cleveland, who’s gone up ahead, shouts to alert us that there’s a grizzly not far from us. We spot it — a young, 135-kilogram bear snacking on low vegetation. It eventually wanders downhill and out of sight.

We catch up with Cleveland and Bahr, who are still short of breath after their own encounter with the bear. “It came within about 30 feet of us,” Cleveland says, noting that the young grizzly, which didn’t appear to see them, kept coming closer and closer.

“I really thought I’d have to use the bear spray,” Bahr says, noting that at the last moment the wind changed direction, the bear caught their scent and it ambled off.

“That’s the Meziadin for you,” Starlund says with a grin.

At the foot of the glacier, frigid meltwater burbles at the start of its long journey to Meziadin Lake, the Nass River and, eventually, the Pacific. Amid piles of mining talus, we spot an assortment of abandoned equipment. There’s an overturned mine cart, twisted remnants of rails and a rusted fuel tank. About 100 metres above us on the mountainside, the dark hole of a mine shaft is visible, strewn with a tangled spaghetti of iron cables.

“We’ll need to do an assessment of what it would cost to clean this up,” Starlund says.

The Meziadin is a wild landscape but one that is deeply scarred — first by colonization and now by climate change. With thousands of years of knowledge and experience on their side, the Gitanyow are making a strong case that they should be the ones to manage their lands through this crisis.

“We hope that British Columbia and Canada will come to their senses and agree we can’t blow this another time,” Starlund says. “Let’s protect it now.”

As we head back down the trail, I recall the pride that the young Gitanyow fisher Matthew Daniels expressed when he talked about dip-netting for sockeye in the Meziadin River. He seemed to stand a little taller as he described it — not bragging so much as standing up for a way of life that has endured.

“This is my lax’yip,” he said simply, echoing the words his Elders use in their fight to regain control of their land.

This article was made possible by a Messengers of Biodiversity grant from the Sitka Foundation.