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The Gitksan - We'suwet'en Test Case

Delgam uukw v.s. The Queen

Gitksan - Wet'suwet'en Territories

Summary of document:

A radical idea with a long history is being asserted in northwestern British Columbia. It is simply this. That people should be personally responsible for the well being of their neighbours and of the land they all live on. The idea has been the basis of law and politics on the upper Skeena for the at least 10,000 years the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en peoples have lived there.

The Gitksan, (GITkSAN), people of the misty river, (Skeena), and the Wet'suwet'en, (WET SO WETAIN), people of the Wedzen Kwe, (Bulkley river), are presently in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Their hereditary chiefs, (not the DIA or the tribal council), have decided to take B.C. to task in the Provinces own court system.

Claiming ownership to their House territories, (some 22,000 square miles) and jurisdiction over the land and their people, they have begun to call their own people to the stand as witnesses. One after the other, from both Nations, they have shared with the judge and other witnesses key elements of their unique societies, previously kept well guarded.

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