Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - More than 25 people turned out for the ‘Polycrisis Townhall-Party’ in the Klahoose Multi-purpose building on Friday, May 17. Chief Darren Blaney of the Homalco FIrst Nation, his wife, MP Rachel Blaney, and Cortes Island Regional Director Mark Vonesch were among them. The event was put together by Cortes Island’s  Alternate Director, Max Thaysen. Norm Harry, of the Klahoose FIrst Nation, welcomed everyone to the building. The most newsworthy portion was Chief Blaney’s declaration that First Nations need to take back stewardship of their traditional territories. An abridged version of his talk follows.Chief Blaney began by speaking in ayʔaǰuθɛm, which you can hear in the podcast. Then, in English, he acknowledged the close relationship of the Klahoose and Homalco First Nations, “It’s good to be in the home of our relatives. I’m happy to be here.”    “When you were speaking, you made me think about listening to an elder, and the elder talked about a sacred alliance with us and all of Mother Earth, all the animals. We look after them, and they look after us.” “I think when First Nations were connected to the land, it was the same. We were part of that cycle and I think it's important that we follow those teachings.”He spoke of ceremonies from his grandmother’s day. “Go to the first salmon ceremony, they were giving thanks and respect to that salmon, making sure it's there for future generations. The first berries and stuff, you give a prayer for that.  You give thanks, respect, and appreciation.”    “For us, in this time when we have all kinds of climate change issues, with the fires going on up north, I think that our Aboriginal rights are the best protection for the environment.”

He referred to the struggle with fish farms.“That fight is about saving wild salmon and Homalco has spent about $700,000. I keep telling the fisheries minister, we've spent $700,000 defending your decision to remove the farms because we're protecting our salmon. And it's not just our salmon, it's all our clam gardens, all the rock cod, all the ring cod, snappers, herring. All these things that are part of our ecosystem.”“I remember early in 2000 we were talking about the coming pandemic. And we were thinking, ‘what are we going to do when everybody's dying?’ And we thought, ‘We'll go back up to Bute Inlet,  but  the way DFO has managed our fisheries: our herring stocks have disappeared, our cod stocks have disappeared, lingcod  disappeared so we don't have any cod eggs anymore. The salmon have just about disappeared because of the fish farms and climate change.” “So our voice becomes even more important today as First Nations. What we're doing is we're working to rebuild the stocks, but at some point I'm looking to remove DFO from my territory because they're no help to the wild stocks.They're no help to the salmon.” “They're pretty much pro-fish farmers in my mind because every time we talk to them, I feel like I'm talking to a fish farmer. For us to rebuild our salmon stocks, we have to get DFO out of the way, and that's been a big struggle for us.”“Because of that, we have to build up our revenues. We have to get to the place where our people will be able to defend our rights in court and one of the biggest obstacles of going to court is what's called legal mischief.  Where these corporate bodies keep throwing all kinds of motions at you. Mostly, when they do that to First Nations, they're trying to empty out our bank accounts so we can't fight in court anymore.” “So we're working on building up a legal trust fund, so we'll be able to look after our land. The stewardship trust fund, so we'll be able to look after our land. The language, our trust fund for our culture, so that we'll be still connected to that land. All these things are important for us and it does go in a circle.”