Work has yet to begin on rebuilding the concession and caretakers’ home at Shelter Point Regional Park on Texada Island, due to a process involving the archeological significance of the site.
A fire in September 2012 destroyed the food concession and caretakers’ home. The Powell River Regional District board approved funding in the 2013 budget for a gathering structure and replacement of the office and concession. However, the regional district must obtain permits from the provincial government’s archaeology branch before work can proceed.
Director Dave Murphy, who represents Texada on the board, raised the issue at the May 9 committee-of-the-whole meeting and asked Erik Blaney, coordinator of Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation’s Guardian Watchmen program who was at the meeting, to comment on the situation. “Everything has come to a grinding halt, as much as we have been trying to push this forward as best we can,” Murphy said. “It’s been moving along at a steady pace and now it’s come to a grinding halt and it’s not our fault. It lies with the province.”
However, Blaney said the perception could be that it is local government that slowed the process down. Shelter Point is one of Tla’amin’s largest historical village sites, Blaney explained, and contains shell middens, canoe skids and intertidal traps. “It’s one huge archaeological site, that whole park,” he said.
The first contact with the archaeologist who was hired to work on the project was October 19, 2012, Blaney said, adding he and the archaeologist worked with Sean McGinn, the regional district’s manager of community services, and Murphy, to assess the fire damage at the park. However, there wasn’t a signed contract with the archaeologist until March 4, Blaney added. “There’s five months there when there should have been more intense conversations with the archaeologist, with Sliammon and with the regional district, because there’s a minimum six-week waiting time to get an archaeological alteration permit,” he said.
The archaeologist did send in the permit application a week or so after the contract was signed, Blaney said. The application came back with suggested changes. Those changes were made and the application was sent in again, he said. “Basically, they have six weeks to review and approve it,” he said.
Once it has been approved, neighbouring first nations that have claimed Texada as their traditional territory are notified, Blaney said, and those first nations have 30 days to respond.
“There is some perception on Texada that Tla’amin is holding up the project,” Blaney said. If the archaeologist had received the contract earlier, the process would have been completed by now, he added. “I understand it’s the first time the regional district has gone through this and there’s a little bit of a learning curve,” he said. “I don’t really want to point fingers or blame anybody at this point.”
Additionally, the archaeology branch is undergoing change as a result of a proposed condo development at the Marpole Midden, an ancient burial ground sacred to the Musqueam First Nation. The province decided to halt the development after months of negotiations between Musqueam and the developer failed to produce a compromise.
“Everything is changing,” said Blaney. “The arch branch has all new policies and all new procedures.”
He added that he thought the application for the alteration permit was the first to go through the new process.
Meanwhile, the park is open and the regional district is exploring options for the concession, said Murphy.
