25 years after the Delgamuukw case, the fight for land is more contentious than ever

Twenty-five years after the Delgamuukw verdict was handed down, First Nations' leaders behind the historic case are still ruminating about how the land they fought for is still largely in the hands of the Crown. 

"I thought the fight would have been over, but 25 years later, here we are still fighting," said Dimdiigibuu, also known as Ardythe Wilson.

Dimdiigibuu was one of five speakers representing the Gitxsan and the Wet'suwet'en during the Delgamuukw vs. British Columbia trial, where the two nations fought to have their land title recognized.

She says government's refusal to affirm Indigenous people's title to the land is, in part, why there are still conflicts over land among Indigenous people, governments, companies and police and why the Crown still controls almost 90 per cent of land in Canada.

In 1987, after years of failed negotiations with the provincial government over their claim of ownership and jurisdiction over 58,000 square kilometres of territory in northwest B.C., Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs Delgamuukw and the Wet'suwet'en's Gisday'wa brought their case to the B.C. Supreme Court.

But in 1991, Justice Allan McEachern ruled their title was extinguished when B.C. joined Confederation. 

The two nations appealed in 1993.

"We never gave up our land. We never lost it in war. We never signed it away in treaty. It is still ours," said Dimdiigibuu in her Gitanmaax community.

In 1997, the Gitxsan and the Wet'suwet'en took their fight to the Supreme Court of Canada.

And they won — to a degree.

The judges ruled that Indigenous people in British Columbia have ancestral land rights protected by section 35 (1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, which had not been extinguished when the province joined Confederation.

This means Aboriginal title was recognized as an "existing aboriginal right," something that earlier drafts of the Constitution Act did not include.

It also confirmed Indigenous oral testimony as legitimate as other forms of evidence.

"That's probably the greatest legacy of the case, that Indigenous law was uplifted," said Merle Alexander, who observed the case as a law student in 1997 and is now a partner with the firm Miller Titerle.