Cleaning up Coles Bay: The Urgent Need to Restore Traditional Shellfish Harvesting Sites of the Pauquachin First Nation

In essence, the beaches were the schools and community centers for the Pauquachin – and the closure of harvesting beaches has removed important opportunities for cultural knowledge transfer and revitalization.51 Decimation of a way of life like shellfishing has broad impacts on the passing on of culture. [...] 61 See: “In sum, the right to “fisheries as formerly” is best understood as protecting the Aboriginal fisheries, including the rights to catch fish and manage the fisheries in the places where they conducted their fishing and the right to dispose of fish for whatever purpose, but also as securing for the Crown the right to grant settler access to fisheries that were not exclusive before the treati. [...] 139; “Several years after concluding the last of the treaties, Douglas informed the Vancouver Island House of Assembly that Aboriginal peoples ‘were to be protected in their original right of fishing on the coast and in the bays of the Colony.’” pg 141 of same source. [...] 69 In Blueberry River, the Court ruled that a treaty infringement occurs if the answer is “yes” to two critical questions: 1) Was there disturbance to the status of wildlife, due to the cumulative impacts of government permitting development, in the area subject to the treaty? 2) Did the cumulative impacts of development result in the inability to meaningfully exercise treaty rights such that the. [...] Cleaning up Coles Bay: The Urgent Need to Restore Traditional Shellfish Harvesting Sites Page 29 of 53 of the Pauquachin First Nation The Court answered yes to both these questions in the case of Blueberry River First Nation – and the answers are likely the same in the case of the Pauquachin First Nation with regards to fishing rights.