To end this series on the Land Question in BC, we return to a deeper question: What does it mean to have a relationship with the land?

Dr. Lorna Wánosts’a7 Williams, Lil’wat scholar, educator, and prominent Indigenous voice in British Columbia, offers a way of understanding our relationship to land that goes beyond ownership, monetary value and legal title. Wánosts’a7 contrasts a framework in which land is owned and given economic value with an Indigenous perspective centred on responsibility and care.

Wánosts’a7 has spoken about growing up in Mount Currie and building a house in the forest, which happened to be near power lines. She recalls how decisions about the placement of power lines and highways repeatedly affected reserve lands. In her account, these decisions reflected a broader assumption that Indigenous lands and lives were treated as less important. She also recalls power lines being sprayed with toxic chemicals and the impacts this had on people in her community.

Her words reflect an understanding of what an economy and a society should be organized around: “Care for the land. Care for the rivers. Care for the air. Care for all the vegetation” (Price & Wanosts’a7 Williams, 2026).

This is more than an environmental message. For many of us, it offers a new way of thinking about what land means.

As the late George Manuel (Secwépemc, Neskonlith) articulated more than 50 years ago, land is not something to be “speculated, bought, sold, mortgaged, claimed by one state, surrendered or counter-claimed by another.” It is the “land from which our culture springs…like the water and the air, one and indivisible. The land is our Mother Earth. The animals who grow on that land are our spiritual brothers” (as cited in Price & Wanosts’a7 Williams, 2026).

Together, these perspectives invite us to think about the Land Question not simply in terms of who owns the land or who has authority over it, but also in terms of the complexity of who holds responsibilities towards the land. We come from the land, and we are responsible for how we live with it.

As Dr. Amy Parent Noxs Ts’aawit (Nisga’a) reminds us, land is not a resource. Rather, “she is a dearly beloved, revered relative who is in crisis right now” (Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2021). Dr. Alex Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree), similarly describes a relationship with land that is “more like a familial relationship, where protection is naturally a part of it” (Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2021). As we move through the places we call home, what would it mean to see them not simply as property, but as places with which we have a relationship? What might change if, instead of asking, “who owns this property?” we began asking, “how are we caring for this place?”

References:

Canadian Commission: United Nations Education Scientific & Cultural Organization (2021). Land as teacher: Understanding Indigenous land based education. Retrieved from https://en.ccunesco.ca/idealab/indigenous-land-based-education.

Price, J., & Wanosts’a7 Williams, L. (2026, August 2). Marking 180 years: The Oregon Treaty, DRIPA and the future of reconciliation. Times Colonist. https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/marking-180-years-the-oregon-treaty-dripa-and-the-future-of-reconciliation-12604046

Williams, L. W., & Price, J. (2026). DRIPA, the 1846 Oregon Treaty and the future of Indigenous-settler relations. BC Policy Solutions. https://bcpolicy.ca/2026/08/10/dripa-bc/