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Tlowitsis - UBC Okanagan Partnership

Tlowitsis - UBC Okanagan Partnership

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In 1962 the government removed basic services to remote Turner Island where the Tlowitsis Nation lived. Without schooling for their children and access to basic health care services, community members began to leave the island. In the ensuing diaspora Tlowitsis members have become culturally, as well as physically, removed from their community and traditional territories.

In the summer of 2006 elders and youth returned to Turner Island to reacquaint themselves with their lands and way of life. For many elders on the trip it was the first time they had returned to the island since their departure in 1962. Working in collaboration with Dr. Jon Corbett and UBC O student researchers, Tlowitsis youth were trained in using video equipment. They documented the entire trip. In technical partnership with UBC O, community members produced a DVD that documented this return to the land. Since it creation, the community has used the DVD to attract more Tlowitsis members to return to their traditional lands and thus build a stronger and more cohesive nation for the future.

This initial media project has led to the development of several more collaborative community-based research projects between the Tlowitsis Nation and UBC O researchers. These include the formation and support of a Tlowitsis Citizens Advisory Group that helps guide the Treaty Negotiation office in the Land Claims process, and the development of a community internet portal that enables community members to share photographs, ideas, histories and other digital media.

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