Pages from Archive Quarterly ~ journal of The West Wasn't Won archive project
This journal offers archival documentation and interpretation of key historical events
in BC’s colonial progress - and resistance to it.
From archival collections, many donated by life-long Indigenous politicians
and community veterans, every issue offers rare insight:
interviews, original docs, maps, timelines, Declarations and Statements, news clippings, court transcripts and rulings,
which put today’s ongoing struggle over land title and self-determination into context.
AQ by the Issue
April 2024 - Spring
December 2024 - Fall
April 2024 - Spring
The Nanaimo hunting case, 1964,
that brought treaty and title into BC courts;
honouring the resistance to the Indian Reserve Commissions; Declarations, Disallowance, Protest and Petition rejecting British Columbia's "Land Act", and more.
July 2024 - Summer
December 2024 - Fall
April 2024 - Spring
Housing crisis on Reserve enters 8th decade.
Celebrating women's lifelong work to take back control of membership and benefits for Indigenous nations.
How the feds sued women for their Indian Status.
Tracking the Tsilhqot'in title case, after ten years since the first Supreme Court of Canada Declaration of Aboriginal title.
Bonaparte blockade 1974;Native Peoples' Caravan; march on the legislature; Kelowna Accord; much more.
And a special feature on the first year of BC's Indigenous-focused grad requirement - a profile of one class that thrived.
December 2024 - Fall
December 2024 - Fall
Introducing Archive Quarterly
Featuring legacy hunting cases;
looking into 20 years of "consultation and accommodation" since the Haida and Taku decisions came out of the Supreme Court of Canada in November 2004; facing the findings of Inquiries into MMIWG; and tackling BC and Canada's modern-day reliance on a 50y/o policy requiring Indigenous Nations to cede, release, and surrender in order to complete rights mobilization agreements and to receive settlement compensations.
Introducing Archive Quarterly
Introducing Archive Quarterly
Introducing Archive Quarterly
This publication is the unexpected result of a project that began investigating the ongoing legacy of Indigenous “roadblocks”
in British Columbia.
Special Issues
Introducing Archive Quarterly
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Taking a much closer look at the Canadian courts' development of their colonial tool "Aboriginal Title" - coming this Summer.
Examining the continual displacement of Indigenous jurisdiction over their own Children and Families - coming in December.
And in 2025: Fisheries; the Non-Status Indian era.
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Introducing Archive Quarterly
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Never miss an issue!
This journal, rising up from The West Wasn't Won archive project, offers a curated collection of original docs, interviews, maps and timelines focusing on the legacies that affect us today, west of the Rocky Mountains.
Archive Quarterly April 2024 - Contents
1964 Nanaimo hunting case, R. v. White and Bob:
- Excerpt: BC Supreme Court ruling, October 1964
- Interview: Kitty Sparrow, 1996, on that day in court
- Excerpt: Respondents Factum (Thomas Berger, counsel)
- Newspaper clipping, Supreme Court of Canada 1965
- SCC ruling, 1965
- Map: Douglas Treaties on southern Vancouver Island, 1850-54
- Excerpt: the years following the Douglas Treaties, from “The Smallpox War Against the Haida,” Tom Swanky
- Timeline: 1790-1864, events surrounding the Douglas Treaties
BC Lands Act 1874
- Excerpt: BC Lands Act 1874
- Full response from Attorney General Télèsphore Fournier and the federal Duty of Disallowance
- Touchstone: commentary on British Columbia’s recent attempts to legitimize their Lands Act
1874 Petition of the Douglas Tribes
- Full text, concerning rejection of the Indian Reserve Commission
The Allied Tribes intervention to Parliament, 1924 and 1926
- Full document, rejecting Indian Reserves and the Report of the McKenna-McBride Commission
- Map of Indian Reserves in British Columbia
Potlatch Laws, 1884
- Excerpt: Indian Act, re. criminalization of traditional governance
- Excerpt: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996- Excerpt: Chief William Scow’s appendix to the 1971 UBCIC Claim Based on Native Title
- James Louie’s paper on Consent and International Law
“The Fourth World” turns fifty
- Book review: Grand Chief George Manuel’s first book, 1974, concerning self-determination
The Provincial Vote in British Columbia
- 1949 re-print from The Native Voice, re Status Indian right to vote in provincial elections
UNDRIPA Act, Canada, 2021
- Full text of the legislated Act concerning the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- commentary
Inherent Right Policy, 1995
- Note on Canada’s treatment of self-determination in municipalization legislation
About Archive Quarterly
And The West Wasn’t Won archive project
Archive Quarterly ~ Summer 2024 - Contents
Highway toll at Bonaparte, Secwepemc
- The Cache Creek Native Movement and its blockade of Highway 12 at the Bonaparte Reserve, Secwepemc, July and August 1974. When an Elder's house burned down, the federal Department of Indian Affairs would offer no assistance, and maintained an Indian Act that prevented people from accessing their own resources to rebuild.
An 80 year campaign for homes on the reserve
- Timeline: from the 1910s British Homesteaders burning down cabins to take possession of their "pre-emptions" to the 1973 Declaration on Housing made by the National Indian Brotherhood, to the 2017 presentation of Minister Carolyn Bennett telling AFN leaders to "think outside the box" and start their own mortgage corporation, Canada's denial of Indigenous rights to land and resources to house the people has impacted everything from community culture to the MCFD's interference in poorly housed young families.
Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia
Tracking the first ever Supreme Court of Canada Declaration of Aboriginal title lands.
- Excerpts from the court rulings
- Interviews with the Tsilhqot'in neighbouring nationals whose recognition of Tsilhqot'in title long predates the existence of Canada
- Book review: "Lha Yudit'ih We Always Find A Way - Bringing the Tsilhqot'in Title case home" by Lorraine Weir with Chief Roger William
- Maps and Timeline
The failed Transformative Change, 20 years later
- What did the Kelowna Accord between First Nations leaders, Canada and British Columbia involve?
- Looking at how the federal government collapsed days after the signing ceremony, and how the Canada-wide promise of $5billion to "close the gap" in Aboriginal housing, education, health and economic development funding disappeared.
BC's Indigenous Grad Requirement: 1 year in
- Profile of a high school class in Sto:lo country, where students learn the place names, crafting, herbs, and land forms in a reciprocating Community Recreation class
When the Feds sued the Women for their Status
- In 1973, Canada's Attorney General sued Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell and Yvonne Bedard to overturn their legal victories. The two women had both succeeded in anti-discrimination cases to restore their Indian Status, after it had been stripped when they married non-native partners.
The Supreme Court of Canada sided with the federal government, saying that the Bill of Rights was not meant to interfere in the operation of the Indian Act.
- Interview with Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell, Anishnaabe Commissioner on Citizenship
- Honouring the Grandmothers Healing Journey down the Fraser River, and those Grandmothers who lived and died without their rights or recognition, far from their homes, in the cities.
- Excerpts from Indian Act amendments affecting women's Indian Status
Native Peoples' Caravan 1974
- Following from the mutual support with the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee in 1973, a peaceful occupation by Onigaming people at a park near Kenora, Ontario, was besieged by armed police troops. The reoccupation of Two Springs at the Bonaparte reserve in Secwepemc, and the closure of Highway 12, was soon surrounded by heavily armed police.
Uprisings across the northern hemisphere joined in a caravan and march on Ottawa, and the writing of a Manifesto.
Introducing AQ ~ journal of The West Wasn't Won
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