Newly re-elected Uchucklesaht Chief Councillor Charlie Cootes Sr. says his nation must pursue an aggressive program of economic development now that it is free of the Indian Act.
On Dec. 29, Cootes defeated his son, Charlie Jr., and Warren Robinson in a close election to form a new government under the Maa-nulth Treaty, which was implemented on April 1, 2011. With a few days to reflect, he said the message was clear.
“The status quo cannot be the future. We are going to have to make some changes,” Cootes said. “We have to very quickly develop an Official Community Plan, as well as a Land Use Plan.”
Cootes said his nation will also have to forge new strategies for tourism, fisheries and land use.
As part of Maa-nulth, Uchucklesaht will receive treaty settlement lands, which will be held in free title.
“We started with about 600 acres. Now we have about 3,300 hectares. That’s about 10 times the land we originally had,” he said.
Cootes was first appointed to the chief councillor position in 1967, and served, with one three-year hiatus, until the Uchucklesaht Tribe Government went to an elected council eight years ago.
“It’s a different world, now,” Cootes said. “It’s actually the third time I have been elected since I started. I served two terms under the Indian Act.”
Cootes explained that once Maa-nulth was implemented, Uchucklesaht had six months to set up the election for a new council.
Uchucklesaht Tribe has just 256 members, who are scattered far and wide. Like other Maa-nulth nations, Cootes said he hopes to bring some of those members back to the traditional territory, but that means expanding the job base.
“Right now, we have a business at Green Cove. We sell gas and tackle and groceries,” Cootes said. “We’re hoping to create a marina at Green Cove and at Limestone Bay, just across the water.”
Currently, both sites are accessible only by water, he said. It would require consultation and partnerships with the province and the forest companies which own the rights of way, Interfor and Island Timberlands, to develop road access via existing logging roads.
For Cootes and Uchucklesaht, the long-term dream was once to restore Henderson Lake as a major sockeye salmon producing habitat and an economic driver for Uchucklesaht.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the commercial fishing fleet harvested heavily on Henderson Lake sockeye and a small hatchery was built at the head of the lake to supplement stocks.
That hatchery was shut down in the 1930s and overfishing soon resulted in a serious decline in Henderson Lake sockeye. In the 1950s, water levels at Sproat Lake and Great Central Lake were raised, creating new sockeye spawning habitat and creating a major run in the Somass River.
Cootes said a number of factors conspired to prevent the Henderson Lake stocks from recovering.
“Since the beginning of logging in the Henderson watershed, the effects have been atrocious,” he said, adding that the companies failed to factor in the fact that the lake receives the highest annual rainfall in North America. “When they logged right down to the creeks, it created excessive erosion, and flushed out most of the spawning beds on Clemons Creek.”
So for 20 years, supported by some funding from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Uchucklesaht Tribe poured scant band resources into a modern hatchery complex at the head of the lake.
“We were putting in about $150,000 to $200,000 a year and we couldn’t afford it any more. It was taking money away from programs for our people, so we had to shut it down,” Cootes said.
Since the closure of the hatchery, the buildings have been re-developed as a lodge, but that initiative is on hold for the moment.
“Our plans are to find a business-minded person or couple, or company, to run it,” he said. “It can accommodate up to 18 people as an accommodation/tourist business.”
Cootes said the lodge could provide a secluded conference site, “for brainstorming sessions” and extended meetings or training courses.
“We’re not stuck on it as a tourism/hospitality business,” he said, adding that the facility itself is ready to be used at any time.
Cootes said one of the short-term goals is to improve infrastructure and services at the home village of Ehthlateese, near Kildonan. The area is not on the B.C. Hydro grid, so all electricity must be generated locally, either by fuel-burning generators or, for some local residents, by means of small hydro generators on the streams flowing into the inlet.
“We’re planning a 16-unit subdivision on the village site and working with B.C. Hydro to install a new generation system,” he said. “This month, they’ll be breaking ground to put in a new hybrid system with a generator and battery system.”
The new housing will be offered to current residents and to members seeking to return home, Cootes said.
There is also a plan to install a low-head micro-hydro generator on the Henderson River, using a portion of the massive water flow generated by 300-plus inches of annual rainfall.
“That would only be to generate power for our village, because we’re not on the hydro grid,” Cootes said.
Building a generator with enough capacity to sell excess power would mean capturing a higher percentage of the water flow, at huge cost, he explained.
For Uchucklesaht, those economies of scale loom large, Cootes said. There were hopes that forestry would become a major economic driver, but it has been impossible to establish a business with the small quantities of timber involved.
“Right now, we’re moving away from forestry,” he said. “We’re working on about 5,000 cubic metres (m3) per year. The Maa-nulth Treaty does not provide any more forest tenure; it just moves the existing volume into treaty.”
Currently, Uchucklesaht has 24,000 m3 of available timber in the Henderson Lake watershed, representing five years of unused allocation. Cootes said that is not enough tenure to set up a forest management company like some larger Nuu-chah-nulth nations already have in place.
“We have one forester who works on a fee-for-service basis,” he said, adding that harvesting, whenever it takes place, would be contracted out.
The new Uchucklesaht Council holds its first meeting on Jan. 6.
“We’re going to be swearing in our new government and putting our new executive in, and taking a look at all the committees and their terms of reference,” Cootes said. His nation plans to hold three to four Peoples Assemblies in 2012.
