Mapping Contemporary Challenges to Island Hul'qumi'num Peoples' TerritorIes

This website presents a series of interactive maps illustrating the ongoing challenges to the exercise of land, resource and governance rights from development and conservation efforts within Hul'qumi'num peoples territory.

The member First Nations of the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group are an indigenous community of Coast Salish peoples living on the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island and the surrounding Gulf Islands.

These maps tell part of the story of how past and ongoing land development, extractive industry, urban expansion, and exercise of local, provincial and federal government jurisdictions have by in large not incorporated the Hul'qumi'num peoples rights of free prior and informed consent with respect to their ongoing relationship to their unceded territories.

Throughout this website, we have provided direct links to Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group's Strategic Land Use Plan (2005), providing more context for the vision, values and goals for the future for their territories, as well as additional historic and contemporary context. To begin, HTG's excellent statement of strategic vision for their territory is provided the HTG Strategic Land Use Plan: Chapter 5.

This project has been developed in association with the INSTEAD and CICADA projects, and the UVic Ethnographic Mapping Lab, and is an accompaniment to a forthcoming paper by Brian Thom and Kathleen Johnnie titled 'Implementing Contemporary Indigenous Territories: Mapping the Aspirations and Challenges of Island Hul'qumi'num Peoples, in Indigenous Stewardship of Environment and Alternative Development, edited by Evodia Silva-Riveria, Katie Sinclair and Colin Scott (submitted Sept 2016). We would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the research assistants who contributed to this project: Jack Baker, Janelle Kuntz, Ursula Abramczyk, and the support of GIS specialist MJ Churchill at the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group.

For questions, please contact Dr. Brian Thom (UVic), project lead.