Two innovative projects that are strengthening Indigenous communities, with help from the Indigenous-led Granting Advisory Pilot.
Indigenous-led granting centers Indigenous voices, values, and priorities, improving access to funding for Nations and communities.
Started in 2023, the Indigenous-led Granting Advisory Pilot (IGAP) has focused on social and cultural resilience and infrastructure. Supported by the Victoria Foundation, this pilot has granted over $1.1 million from the Indigenous Priorities Fund.
Some recent initiatives include a nature-based therapy program for Indigenous youth, a safe place for elders’ literacy training, and supports for Indigenous people facing gender-based violence.
“It has been amazing to see the vast scope of creative and culturally resilient projects that Nations and Indigenous organizations are implementing,” says Tamara Napoleon, Victoria Foundation Board Chair and of the Saulteau First Nations.
She’s also a member of the all-Indigenous granting advisory who guided the program’s development, grounded in Indigenous values. The Advisory reviews applications and recommends funding that helps address community needs and priorities.
These past years, IGAP has been building relationships with local Nations and organizations to understand their priorities. Family-friendly open houses held last year invited everyone together to learn about the program, share food, and conversation.
Of the many projects serving the communities’ needs, ahead are two local initiatives that bridge societal gaps, connect the generations, and reawaken cultural practices.
When the tide is out, the table is set
Pauquachin Nation’s sea garden restoration project
Gerald Henry stands on the rocky beach at Coles Bay with the Pauquachin First Nation Marine team. He looks out to the place where he, as a child, would harvest shellfish with his family when the tide was low.
“My uncles were digging clams, my grandparents were down there shucking, and me and my cousins were playing,” he reminisces. “We thought we were just having fun, but we were actually learning.”
For thousands of years, the shellfish harvest has been an integral way of life for the Pauquachin First Nation – up until 1997, when the harvest was closed due to marine pollution.
Nearly 30 years later, with the harvest’s upcoming return, the marine team has been setting the groundwork for a new sea garden in the bay to revive an essential cultural practice, restore the bay’s health and food sources, and reawaken a deep, intergenerational bond to the beach.
Octavio Cruz, Pauquachin Marine Manager, says the team of eight has spent a few years learning the structures of ancient sea garden sites and hearing from elders about traditional practices. “We’ve gone as far as Alaska and Hawaii to learn from different communities about Indigenous aquacultures,” he adds.
This August, during the season’s lowest tides, the team will host a monumental three-day gathering at Coles Bay in Pauquachin territory, where the community will carefully build a 250-metre-long rock wall down the beach. This traditionally designed sea garden will help nourish healthy clam beds to harvest and maintain, from that day forward.
Over the past three years, the marine team has regularly tested the water for contaminants, working with Parks Canada scientists who’ve partnered with many local Nations to restore shellfish beds throughout the Salish Sea. In 2024, the Pauquachin First Nation also received a $50,000 grant from the Indigenous Priorities Fund for this important work.
The marine team’s Leonard Peter says he “can’t wait to see more of the younger ones on the beach again,” learning from elders about their ancient harvesting traditions – a type of bond put to sleep for a quarter-century.
Pauquachin Chief Rebecca David says it’s “an honour to see the team coming together” for such a symbolic project, with help from the surrounding Nations.
“I was probably 16 when the beach closed,” she reflects, “and now I have a granddaughter born 7 months ago, so we’ll actually have her connect to the beach early on.”
Likewise, Gerald Henry says he gets emotional when he thinks about how much his young daughter will learn from the sea garden – harvesting from it, turning the rocks, returning the clam shells.
He’s thankful for the bridge she’ll build to her ancestors; a chance for them to encourage her when the tide is low: “Get out there, the tide is out, the table is set.
Go work on that garden.”
Authorship is labelled as “Pauquachin First Nation” in alignment with our community’s values of collective representation and acknowledgement of the collaborative nature of our work.
Decolonizing your own backyard
The South Island Reciprocity Trust
Sarah Reid says Indigenous land acknowledgements are being given everywhere these days, from large-scale events to casual online meetings. While well-intentioned, “there’s not a lot of substance behind many of them,” she says.
As director of the South Island Reciprocity Trust, Sarah, founder Craig Candler, and their team work directly with local Nations and the Smokehouse Foundation to help residents and small businesses bring more meaning to their words of gratitude.
Through Reciprocity Trusts, participants can acknowledge Nations’ historic and ongoing presence, influence, and generosity by making voluntary, tax-deductible payments equal to a suggested 1% of monthly rent or annual property taxes to the Nations whose lands they live and work on.
“It’s not a huge amount,” Sarah says, “but enough to signal an intention to be in better relations.” The money is in turn shared among the ten Indigenous communities who have territory in what is known today as the capital region, to use as they choose.
Part of the program’s aim is to fulfill the original intent of the Douglas Treaties, which, signed in 1850, involved the exchange of Indigenous lands for goods and rights to continue hunting, harvesting, and fishing, “sentiments that have been washed away over the years through colonization,” Sarah explains.
Susan Olding, one of the first participants to begin making payments, says the principle of reciprocity is “an important part of the complex, ongoing work of reconciliation.” Her time in the garden and on her bike during the 2020 pandemic restrictions had her reflect on who the south island’s beauty truly belonged to. It motivated her to be more reciprocal.
“It’s a start,” she says. “It gives me hope that together we might build a future that respects and embraces Indigenous wisdom and ways of knowing.”
After signing up on Reciprocity Trust’s website, Susan received a window decal with Indigenous artwork – a visual declaration of reciprocity, created by Coast Salish artist lessLIE.
So far, 300 homes and businesses in the capital region are on board, and the Trust aims to reach 1,000 participants by end of year, with help from an Indigenous Priorities Fund grant of $22,500.
Sarah adds there are also non-monetary ways to show reciprocity, like Indigenizing a garden with native species. More suggestions can be found at www.reciprocitytrusts.ca.
With plans to expand throughout BC, Sarah says this movement is so much more than simply handing a cheque over to a Nation – it builds trust and shares power with all local Indigenous communities. “Those 300 participants behind us are saying, ‘We see you, we recognize that we have an impact here, and we want to be doing better.'”