A few hours after Ktunaxa Nation Council chair Kathryn Teneese, retired hockey legend Scott Niedermayer and NDP and Official Opposition leader Adrian Dix held a media event at the Victoria Legislature to celebrate the first anniversary of the Qat’muk Declaration, a celebration with a dual purpose was held at the Akisqnuk Band Hall in Windermere.

The Nov. 15 evening gathering celebrated the first anniversary and the return to Victoria by local First Nations, once again demanding that Qat’muk, or the Jumbo Valley, be kept free of industrial tourism in the form of the Jumbo Glacier Resort project.

Akisqnuk Chief Lorne Shovar told the full-house gathering that since the Jumbo Glacier Resort proposal first hit the provincial government scene in 1991 “there has been significant opposition to it. Our people have stood united,” he said, reminding those assembled, from many valley communities, that the 40 people who went to Victoria last year to deliver the Qat’muk declaration delivered a powerful “grassroots” message designed to “help stop this Jumbo mistake from happening>

Bertha Andrews was one of the 40 Ktunaxa residents to deliver the declaration.

“We got to share stories about our lives and how they are impacted by the grizzly bear,” she said with emotion in her voice.

She recalled the thrill of hearing the drummers and singers as they entered the Legislature. “As we started up the stairs together,” she said, a realization washed over her: “Our nation flag had never been there before. The security guards were lined up across the door” and wouldn’t let them in at first, but soon parted to allow entrance.

“United we walked into those Legislative buildings,” Andrews said. “We knew we had our ancestors with us.”

Evening emcee Don Sam agreed. “I do believe the ancestors are looking over us through this process,” he said.

The Ktunaxa peoples’ opposition to Jumbo isn’t about being opposed to economic development, Sam pointed out.

“Economic development is important. We all want the best things for our families and a roof over our heads. The nation is not against economic development but we need balance. We have to consider the natural capital,” he said before introducing the evening’s guest speaker Chris Luke Sr., who recently stepped away as Chief of the Lower Kootenay Band last winter after 30 years’ service.

Speaking in English and Ktunaxa, Luke told the story as to how he became involved with the issue, beginning when he took part in a meeting in 2004 on Jumbo.

“Before that, I never really paid too much attention to it,” but during that particular meeting he said he was “touched, as you would say, by the Great Spirit. Something told me that the grizzly bear does not have a voice. I said we are here and we are that voice.”

The issue then died down for Luke Sr., but it began to creep back into his consciousness a year later after he suffered a major heart attack. Later on, after a second heart attack returned him to hospital in Calgary, he experienced visions that cemented his opposition to the $1 billion ski resort proposal for the upper Jumbo Creek Valley, 55 km west of Invermere.

“The creator was there for me – I should have been gone,” Luke Sr. said. “I was visited by seven grizzly bears that morning. They didn’t want me to go to sleep, and they were slappin’ me in the face and whatnot,” he said, explaining that there were three bears on each side of his bed and a single, much larger one, at the foot of the bed.

“I thought I had died and that was my pall bearers,” Luke Sr. said.

“They were all dressed in white robes with hoods and they were all bending over so I couldn’t see any of them” and then he heard a “beeeeep” – signaling that his heart had stopped.

The bears began to leave one at a time, each turning to the left. The bear at the foot of the bed was the last to move.

“His hood slipped back and he was the biggest grizzly bear I ever saw – but he had kind eyes. He told me I was fixed and everything would be okay,” Luke Sr. said, adding that at that point the heart monitor returned to a normal rhythm.

“That was when my actual journey in life – my purpose, or part of it, started,” he said.

Three weeks later he was joining the KNC board dealing with the Jumbo issue. Soon Luke Sr. was speaking with senior government officials and spreading the word against the proposal.

“I know from the visitation I got from the grizzly bears that I have an obligation – a purpose and the plan is to reject any kind of development that’s going to happen in the Jumbo Valley,” he said, adding later that he doubts the project proponents are going to go away.

“I do know that if they do (go away) they are doing themselves a great big favour” because anytime one does any kind of “desecrating – harm – whatever it may be, as they say, what goes around comes around. It will be the innocents who get hurt.”

In closing, Luke Sr. said he doesn’t believe the provincial government will hang the Ktunaxa out to dry in Jumbo.

A host of other speakers then rose to share their views, including long-time District of Invermere councillor and Jumbo Creek Conservation Society (JCCS) co-founder Bob Campsall.

“How proud we are to stand with you in the protection of this area,” he said, adding he believes the Ktunaxa people have shown “incredible courage and conviction.”

Campall also noted that they are not alone, as the JCCS, running since 1995, has 1,500 members.

“There are many people on side with you,” he said, pointing out that there have been “at least nine public surveys” done and in every case the percentages of those opposed have ranged “from 64% to 94%.”

In 2003 at the District of Invermere’s community hall, a town hall meeting was held and 91% of the letters and comments received at it came from an opposition side, Campsall said, concluding with a pitch for Jumbo bumper stickers – of which about 8,000 have been handed out.

“I think you will be successful and with you, we will be successful.”

Nolan Rad, a JCCS member and a backcountry expert who has spent his lifetime hunting, fishing, trapping and working in the Jumbo Valley, among others, said, “I imagine I have spent more time in Jumbo than anyone in this room. When we first went in there, there was no road. It’s sacred to the Ktunaxa and it’s also sacred to me. I’ll do anything for those bears and I ain’t goona drop dead ‘til it’s over.”

Regional District of East Kootenay Electoral Area G director Gerry Wilkie shared a story rooted with the 2008 Farnham Glacier blockade, where JCCS, Wildsight, KNC and general members of the public took turns stopping road-clearing workers from working their way up to Farnham.

During that time, he recalled, Glacier Resort’s local contact, Grant Costello, repeated an oft-said comment that there aren’t many, or any at all, grizzly bear in Jumbo. Wilkie was taking part in an information tour of the Farnham area, learning about “the mess from the road to nowhere,” when providence appeared

“He said he’s been coming up here for 30 years and never seen a bear (grizzly),” Wilkie said of Costello. A short time later a sow grizzly and two cubs were spotted by the entire group.

While the KNC is opposed to the Jumbo proposal, the valley’s other First Nation, the Shuswap Band, is on the record as being in support. The band’s chief and economic development director were two of the 16 signatories on a June 26 letter to Premier Christy Clark, from ‘community leaders,’ asking that the project be given a green light once and for all.

However, not all Shuswap people back that view said Margaret Teneese, a Shuswap Band member.

She silenced the room when she began noting that she “supports Jumbo” but as it is, and not developed.

Teneese said she was part of the group of 40 that presented the Qat’muk Declaration.

“When the drummers went into the hall, it was just beautiful,” she recalled, adding the declaration is something “that we hold dear to ourselves. It annoys me that someone who does not live here, does not pay taxes here” can come in and “build a mega-project and then leave.”

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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