I'd like to ask all the people out there to reclaim their culture--practice it, teach the children, and let's reclaim our backbone, our culture and put some pride in our children.
-- Harriet Nahanee

Harriet Nahanee was born on the Pacheenaht Reservation on Vancouver Island in 1935. She was taken from her parents at a young age, along with other children from her tribe, and sent to the first of a series of residential schools. The abuses Harriet and the other children suffered at these residential schools have since been uncovered, in part due to Harriet's own efforts. Harriet testified in 1998 that she had been sexually assaulted for several years while in school, had been starved and then beaten for stealing food, and in 1948 had witnessed another child's murder. The children were also punished for singing tribal songs and speaking their own language. None of these experiences seem to have been uncommon in the residential school system. (More information on the Canadian residential schools for aboriginal peoples can be found at http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/.)

As an adult, Harriet married into the Squamish tribe. She became an activist on behalf of her people and the land they lived on. She was also a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Harriet believed that First Nations Canadians, as well as aboriginal people worldwide, must fight to preserve their land and their culture and pass it on to future generations.

In May 2006, Harriet took part in a peaceful protest against the development of Eagleridge Bluffs, an area of Squamish land slated for development in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Harriet stood side by side with other men and women, many of them elders such as herself, singing songs and blocking the way of the machinery. She was arrested. On January 24, 2007, after refusing to apologize to the court for her actions, Harriet was sentenced to two weeks at the Surrey Pre-Trial Centre.

Harriet's confinement at Surrey was very controversial. Many believed she was too sick to be confined, particularly in what is reputed to be a "hard" men's jail, regardless of whether or not her protest actions were legal. Before she went into jail, Harriet was weakened by asthma and the flu. The judge who sentenced her was asked repeatedly to take her weak health into account but sent her to jail anyway. By the time she came out, she had pneumonia. She was hospitalized a week later. A week after that, she died. Some call Nahanee's death a "judicial murder," while others blame it on the previously undiagnosed lung cancer that was discovered in her last weeks of life.

Since Harriet's death, efforts to block development of Eagleridge Bluffs continue. Information can be found at http://www.eagleridgebluffs.ca/ .

Sources:

Betty's Early Edition .

Blunt, Zoe, "First Nations Activist Dies After Release from Jail ," Guerrilla News Network, 24 February 2007.

Ivens, Andy, "Harriet Nahanee, elder and activist, dies at 71," The Province, February 26, 2007.

"Police arrest West Vancouver protestors," CBC News, May 25, 2006.

Rob's Ramblings