The West Moberly First Nations
is a
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
located in the
Peace River Country
The Peace River Country (or Peace Country; french: Région de la Rivière-de-la-paix) is an aspen parkland region centring on the Peace River in Canada. It extends from northwestern Alberta to the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia ...
in northern
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
. They are part of the
Dunne-za and
Cree cultural and language groups. The West Moberly First Nations used to be part of the Hudson Hope Band, but in 1977 the band split becoming the modern-day
Halfway River First Nation and West Moberly First Nations.
The Nation is located on the West Moberly Lake 168A
[ reserve, at the west end of Moberly Lake, about southwest of Fort St. John, within territory covered by ]Treaty 8
Treaty 8, which concluded with the June 21, 1899 signing by representatives of the Crown and various First Nations of the Lesser Slave Lake area, is the most comprehensive of the one of eleven Numbered Treaties. The agreement encompassed a ...
. Facilities on the reserve include the band administration office, the leadership offices, the lands management building, a community health centre, the Dakii Yadze childcare centre and the Dunne-za Lodge.
West Moberly is affiliated with the Treaty 8 Tribal Association
Treaty 8 Tribal Association (T8TA) is an association of six of the eight Peace River Country First Nations bands who are signatories to Treaty 8 in northeastern British Columbia. They have joined together in an effort to negotiate with British C ...
,[ which is registered under the B.C. Societies Act.
]
Governance
West Moberly First Nations Chief and Council consists of a generally elected Chief and four family Councillors that are elected according to the preference of each of the main families (Brown, Dokkie, Desjarlais, and Miller).[ West Moberly used to operate under a governance model set forward by ]Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
* Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
* Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehor ...
(INAC), but a custom governance system was established in 2000. Under the custom governance system, every member over the age of 19 has a vote, and council may not proceed on any action without support from 50% + 1 of its membership.
Council composition history
Treaty Process
The West Moberly First Nation is a signatory of the Treaty 8
Treaty 8, which concluded with the June 21, 1899 signing by representatives of the Crown and various First Nations of the Lesser Slave Lake area, is the most comprehensive of the one of eleven Numbered Treaties. The agreement encompassed a ...
but are now in discussions outside the BC Treaty Process
The British Columbia Treaty Process (BCTP) is a land claims negotiation process started in 1993 to resolve outstanding issues, including claims to un-extinguished indigenous rights, with British Columbia's First Nations.
Two treaties have be ...
, along with five other First Nations who have joined together as the Treaty 8 Tribal Association.
History
Prior to 1977, the people of West Moberly were part of the Hudson Hope Band, also referred to as the Hudson's Hope Indigenous Band, after the nearby region of Hudson's Hope
Hudson's Hope is a district municipality in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, in the Peace River Regional District. Having been first settled along the Peace River in 1805, it is the third-oldest European-Canadian community in the province, a ...
, where a North West Company outpost had been established in 1805.
Some Crees and Saulteaux
The Saulteaux (pronounced , or in imitation of the French pronunciation , also written Salteaux, Saulteau and other variants), otherwise known as the Plains Ojibwe, are a First Nations band government in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, A ...
arrived in the area in the late nineteenth century, fleeing the North-West Rebellion of 1885.
In 1914, the Nation was admitted to Treaty 8 as part of the Hudson Hope Band, referred to in the 1914-1915 Indian Affairs Annual Report as "Hudson’s Hope (Beaver) 116". The West Moberly Reserve 168A was established at the same time, the same size as it is today. They had not been admitted to the treaty earlier (as other nearby nations had) because the day the Treaty Commission arrived in 1899 "conflicted with the annual hunt." The Chief at the time was Chief Dokkie.
In 1977, the Hudson Hope Band split and became the modern West Moberly First Nations and Halfway River First Nation.
In the 1980s, West Moberly First Nations began hosting an annual celebration known as West Mo Days.
In 1996, West Moberly submitted its Treaty Land Entitlement claim, by which they hoped to receive the full extent of the land they were promised as signatories to Treaty 8. The claim was accepted for negotiation in 1998, but Canada did not appoint its first negotiation team until 2002.
Around 1999, during a full audit, West Moberly was found to have misspent, and was entered into a repayment program to the federal government. The community removed the council of the time, and appointed an interim council with a mandate to fix the Nation's financial troubles. The 1999 interim council included Roland Willson as a councillor, before he was acclaimed chief in 2000.
On September 5, 2002, members of the Kelly Lake First Nation (KLFN), set up a blockade at the Rat Lake entrance of the Wapiti River
The Wapiti River is a river in eastern British Columbia and western Alberta, Canada. It is a major tributary of the Smoky River, located in the southern area of the Peace River Basin.
Wapiti is named after the Cree word for elk (''waapiti'').
...
to demand their recognition as an independent first nation, separate from the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations. Up until that point, members of KLFN had been members of the other two bands, despite KLFN having gained status
Status (Latin plural: ''statūs''), is a state, condition, or situation, and may refer to:
* Status (law)
** City status
** Legal status, in law
** Political status, in international law
** Small entity status, in patent law
** Status confere ...
in 1994. A few weeks after the blockade went up, Saulteau First Nations agreed to allow KLFN to separate from them.
Treaty Land Entitlement claim negotiations were suspended by Canada in 2004, then resumed in 2006 with a second negotiation team, and the team changed again in 2008. In 2015, the Nation described negotiations as "effectively stalled".
In 2004, the Nation headed up a study on petroleum contaminants after hunters noticed abnormalities in game. This study contributed to a change in how the BC Oil and Gas Commission
The BC Oil and Gas Commission is a Crown Corporation of the province of British Columbia, Canada, established in 1998. Its mandate is to regulate oil and gas activities and pipelines in British Columbia. Their mandate does not extend to regulating ...
dealt with reclamation fines.
In 2005, West Moberly, along with several other Nations under Treaty 8, began litigation around the definition of the western boundary of the treaty, which was defined in the original document as "due west to the central range of the Rocky Mountains, thence northwesterly along the said range to the point where it intersects the 60th parallel of north latitude," but defined differently in the map attached to Order in Council 2749 (1898). On September 27, 2017, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled in ''West Moberly First Nations v. British Columbia'' that the western boundary was "the height of land along the continental divide between the Arctic and Pacific watersheds," rather than an interpretation proposed by the Province and the Kaska Dena Council (and, on appeal, the McLeod Lake
McLeod Lake is an unincorporated community located on Highway 97 in northern British Columbia, Canada, north of Prince George. It is notable for being the first continuously inhabited European settlement established west of the Rocky Mountains ...
First Nation) of a boundary of the height of the Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
. The British Columbia Court of Appeal
The British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) is the highest appellate court in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It was established in 1910 following the 1907 Court of Appeal Act.
The BCCA hears appeals from the Supreme Court of Britis ...
upheld the ruling in May 2020.
Demographics
Population History
Social, educational and cultural programs and facilities
Klinse-Za Caribou Maternity Pen
In 2014, the West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations jointly began a caribou penning project to stabilize and regrow the Klinse-Za caribou herd. The caribou populations had been devastated by industrial development in the region, including the severing of a major migration route by the construction of the W. A. C. Bennett Dam in the 1960s. The project is primarily run by members of the two founding nations, and involves the capture and transportation of pregnant caribou cows every March to the 15-hectare pen on a mountaintop in the Misinchinka Ranges
Misinchinka Ranges, is the largest subdivision range of the Hart Ranges, of the Northern Rockies in British Columbia, Canada. The boundaries of the Misinchinka Ranges generally lie between the Rocky Mountain Trench to the west, Clearwater Cre ...
, where they are tagged, protected, and cared for while their calves are young, and then released in mid-summer, once the calves are old enough to survive in the wild. From an initial population of 36 animals in 2014 (including some taken from the Scott herd), the herd had grown to 95 as of July 2020. The project has received funding from crowdfunding, provincial and federal government organizations, and some resource extraction companies including TransCanada, Teck Resources
Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking indust ...
, Canadian Natural Resources Limited
Canadian Natural Resources Limited, or CNRL or Canadian Natural is a senior Canadian oil and natural gas company that operates primarily in the Western Canadian provinces of British Columbia,
Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, with offshore op ...
, Spectra Energy
Spectra Energy Corp, headquartered in Houston, Texas, operated in three key areas of the natural gas industry: transmission and storage, distribution, and gathering and processing. Spectra was formed in late 2006 from the spin-off from Duke ...
. The project also receives technical assistance from Wildlife Infometrics Inc and West Fraser Timber
West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. is a Canadian forestry company that produces lumber, LVL, MDF,OSB, plywood, pulp, newsprint, and wood chips based in Vancouver B.C., Canada.
West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. is a member of the Forest Products Association o ...
.
In less than a decade, the collaborative program had succeeded in bringing the herd back from extinction. A March 23, 2022 article in the ''Ecological Applications'' journal cited West Moberly Elders saying that caribou were once so numerous that they were "like bugs on the landscape". The herd had declined from ~250 in the 1990's to 38 in 2013, then with the program, had increased to 114.
Dakii Yadze Out Of School Care Centre
As of October 2019 and since at least September 2011, the Dakii Yadze Centre has operated a licensed child care program on weekdays to serve the families of West Moberly. The centre emphasizes holistic programming and play-based learning in its mission statement.
Dunne-za Lodge
The Dunne-za Lodge is a year-round retreat destination located on the northwest shore of Moberly Lake, with 30 acres of land, cabins that are available for rent, and a meeting space. The First Nations' website states that the lodge "is used to showcase our culture, traditions, host community events, cultural healing camps and other special events hosted by West Moberly First Nations".
References
{{Numbertreaty, treaty=8
First Nations governments in British Columbia
Peace River Country