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Law

Appeal Of Tribal Sovereignty Case Gets Underway In British Columbia

Rick Desautel of Inchelium, Washington, center, was accused of illegal hunting after he crossed into Canada in 2010 to hunt for elk on the traditional hunting grounds of the Sinixt tribe in Canada.
Emily Schwing
/
Northwest News Network
Rick Desautel of Inchelium, Washington, center, was accused of illegal hunting after he crossed into Canada in 2010 to hunt for elk on the traditional hunting grounds of the Sinixt tribe in Canada.

Members of the Sinixt Indian tribe reside on the reservation of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville in Washington. Last spring, one of them won a landmark court case in Canada reestablishing their tribal rights there.

A two-day hearing on an appeal of the case began Wednesday. 



Last spring, Rick Desautel, a Washington state man with Sinixt roots, won a landmark case which effectively revived his tribe—seven years after he illegally hunted elk in Canada to bring attention to his heritage.

In the original case, the provincial government in Britsih Columbia argued that when members of the Sinixt tribe moved onto the reservation of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville in Washington, they gave up sovereign rights in Canada. It’s the same argument the government is using in its appeal. 



The traditional territory of the Sinixt spans a wide swath of northeast Washington and southern BC. For decades, the tribe was considered “extinct”—language used by the Canadian government after the last surviving Sinixt member in British Columbia passed away in 1956.

Copyright 2017 Northwest News Network

Emily Schwing
Emily Schwing comes to the Inland Northwest by way of Alaska, where she covered social and environmental issues with an Arctic spin as well as natural resource development, wildlife management and Alaska Native issues for nearly a decade. Her work has been heard on National Public Radio’s programs like “Morning Edition” and “All things Considered.” She has also filed for Public Radio International’s “The World,” American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” and various programs produced by the BBC and the CBC. She has also filed stories for Scientific American, Al Jazeera America and Arctic Deeply.