With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
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72.8% B.C. First Nations members registered as treaty or status Indians under the federal Indian Act, which confers benefits and access to social programs 40 BCBUSINESS FEBRUARY 2020 SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA mineral exploration jobs, the Tahltan First Nation offers informed advice to other remote Indigenous communities looking to succeed financially and cul- turally. "Our governance model has both elected officials [a requirement of the Indian Act] and hereditary chiefs," Day explains. "We have a lot of capacity that other First Nations don't. When I started, there were four full-time staff, and most of the work was completed by Tahl- tan consultants in Vancouver." Today, the nation has 30 employees throughout its territory. "Our form of governance struc- ture and our experience with the mining industry are areas where I think we can help other First Nations in the province thrive," Day says. Remarkably, the Tahltan have more young women than men enrolled in their trades programs. "Last month, we had our first female millwright graduate," Day notes. But for him, building capacity doesn't mean hiring only First Nations mem- bers. He's looking at the big picture, recruiting Indigenous and non- Indigenous professionals to mentor younger employees. Truth-telling through tourism Kingcome Inlet has always been hard to reach: a two-hour boat ride at a steady 25-knot clip from Port McNeill on northeast Vancouver Island takes you into a deep, mountain-studded ord that is home to killer whales, dolphins, eagles, and black and griz- zly bears. At the head of the inlet, the majestic Silverthrone Glacier rises 1,500 metres above the ocean. From early July through mid- October, Mike Willie of Sea Wolf Adventures proudly shows interna- tional travellers his remote ancestral homeland. Each Sea Wolf tour promises safety, truth and education. Safety is pro- vided by experienced skippers who, like Willie, have been piloting boats through the narrow channels and open sounds of the Broughton Archipelago for their entire lives. Tourists seem most interested in the opportunity to see and learn about griz- zlies, but Willie's tours also teach a sad and shameful lesson: the truth about the forced relocation and cultural genocide of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation. "You know, the one person who has never been on one of my tours is my mother," Willie says. To his guests, the verdant rainforest, glacier-fed streams and lofty summits resemble paradise. But like thousands of others of her genera- tion, Willie's mother was sent to residen- tial school; removed from Kingcome Inlet, she attended St. Michael's in Alert Bay. For her, Kingcome is the painful reminder of a community decimated by smallpox, its sur- viving members relocated to tiny reserves outside Port Hardy. Family-owned Sea Wolf Adventures, which employs a handful of guides and administrative staff during peak periods, is one of many small and medium-sized companies that form the backbone of B.C.'s $750-million Indigenous tourism economy. The province is now home to some 400 First Nations tourism–related businesses, according to the Indigenous Tourism Association of British Columbia ( ITABC). From 2014 to 2017, First Nations employment in the sector more than dou- bled, to 7,500 full- and part-time staff. For Paula Amos, ITABC's marketing and communications director, the true meaning of reconciliation can be found by sharing First Nations stories with inter- national travellers and Canadians alike. "Our culture is very much alive, and people from all around the world are coming to experience it," says Amos, who is of Nuu-chah- nulth First Nations heritage. "It's very rewarding when I see our First Nations youth engaging with the elders to learn the language, songs and stories which lie at the heart of who we truly are." To Willie's family and business, capacity-building goes far beyond the tourism revenue numbers. "I'll use my niece as an example," he says. "She went from this really shy person who loves the land but was really too scared to talk to anybody." Willie taught her to drive the tour boat and become more engaged with customers. "She talks to the guests in an educated manner, and I can see that it's really made a difference in her confidence." Willie, whose grizzly tour is part of Destination Canada's Signature Experiences program, plans to add a second boat for the 2020 season. As other small-business owners who face challenges securing credit know, spending money to make money is a dicey proposition. That kind of risk-taking doesn't come naturally to B.C. First Nations, MLA and former Haisla chief council- lor Ellis Ross maintains. "The Indian Act actually penalizes band councils for tak- ing on debt, so we're not really equipped to be entrepreneurs," he says. "Our members need secure, high-paying jobs." LNG Canada is already making a big difference in Kitimat, where, according to Ross, "unemployment used to be around 60 percent." He predicts a snowball effect as the project gains speed. "No one up here's talking about unemployment any- more," he says. "They're talking about vacations in Mexico and Las Vegas." ■ 275,000 Indigenous people in B.C., according to the 2016 census, representing 5.9% of the population League of Nations IDENTIFY AS FIRST NATIONS 64% <1% 33% IDENTIFY AS MÉTIS IDENTIFY AS INUIT 198 First Nations reserves in B.C., home to 40% of the province's treaty Indians 56% Share of the province's Indigenous population that is under 35 B.C. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE LIVING IN RURAL AREAS THOSE LIVING IN METRO VANCOUVER 30% 23%