‘An Indescribable Moment’: Indigenous Nation in US Has Right to Lands in Canada, Court Rules
26th April 2021
For decades the Rick Desautel had been told by courts and governments that his people no longer exist in Canada.
But Desautel and others in his community in Washington state have long argued that they are descendants of the Sinixt, an Indigenous people whose territory once spanned Canada and the United States.
On Friday, Canada’s highest court agreed, ruling that Desautel and the 4,000 other members of the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington state were successors to the Sinixt – and as a result, that they enjoy constitutionally protected Indigenous rights to hunt their traditional lands in Canada.
And a beer….