You are hereDevelopment clashes with history
Development clashes with history
Jack Knox, Times-Colonist, April 21, 2007
For developer George Schmidt, it’s been a 35-year eternity.
But as the freshly dug trench by Somenos Creek shows, that’s just a blink in the Cowichan Tribes’ history. Archeologists working the site have just unearthed evidence of a large, man-made structure that could be what, hundreds, thousands of years old?
Welcome to B.C. in microcosm, where it can take ages to sort out the conflicting values when developers’ interests clash with aboriginal history. The frustrated builders fume about money tied up in land they can’t use, while the natives worry about their past — and sometimes their ancestors — being lost under the tracks of the bulldozers.
With 23,000 archeological sites on register, and untold others but an unsuspecting backhoe blade away, the province is rife with potential for bad feeling. Builders squirm because such sites may not be disturbed without provincial permit, and permits are not issued without the appropriate First Nation being consulted — though natives are quick to point out that consultation isn’t the same as a veto.
Up in North Cowichan, the story goes back to 1972, when Schmidt and others bought 100 acres of the old Kingston farm and transformed it into Timbercrest Estates — just in time to see the property frozen in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Eventually that got sorted out, and close to 300 houses were built.
But, down by the creek, one six-acre piece of the old farm remains untouched. In 1992, someone spotted a shell midden in some freshly cleared soil. Subsequent archeological investigation revealed the remains of 11 people, and, two years later, 25 more, including the 1,600-year-old bones of a 11/2-year-old child who was buried with 400 slate beads on six strings draped around its neck. At that point the Cowichan elders said whoa, this looks like a burial site, and development stopped. The unearthed remains were reburied on the property.
So things have sat since then, the municipality refusing to entertain a rezoning proposal without the band’s blessing, the band wanting assurances that its history wouldn’t get plowed under. It’s a graveyard, they said, and you don’t rip up graveyards for housing. As for Schmidt, he thought he had jumped through all the regulatory hoops on what was, after all, his land, only to find more hurdles to clear.
Schmidt — who is on good terms with Cowichan Tribes — now wants to develop maybe a dozen lots around the perimeter of the six-acre parcel, leaving the rest of the land untouched. As part of the proposal, Timbercrest and the band agreed to more archeological investigation.
Ground-penetrating radar showed 26 spots worth probing on the property. The first 24 turned up nothing terribly remarkable when dug up. But on Thursday, at the very end of the four-week excavation, archeologists found evidence of a man-made structure, possibly a house, measuring four metres by five metres. It’s old, though how old cannot be said without laboratory analysis.
“Clearly it’s of architectural significance, though there are a lot of questions about it,” said archeologist Eric McLay. The find proves that there were architectural features beyond the known shell midden and burial sites, though, significantly, no more human remains were discovered.
Schmidt hopes all this means Cowichan Tribes will be satisfied and he will finally be able to complete the project he began in 1972.
“I’d like to finish this while I’m still alive. Thirty-five years is long enough,” said Schmidt, peering out at the trench. “If I had known there was something like [the burial site], I don’t think I would have purchased the property.” Developers dealing with such land never can be sure what the rules are, he says. He thought his obligation was finished after paying $100,000 for the archeological work back in 1992. Now he’s swallowing a similar bill.
Dianne Hinkley, research director for Cowichan Tribes, is not unsympathetic to Schmidt’s interests, knows this ground is fraught with uncertainty. It’s the same for the band. How significant does a site need to be before it demands preservation? A burial ground? An ancient village? “I think we’re all struggling with that one.”
But she is adamant that such sites at least need to be studied before being developed, lest the clues to an unwritten history be buried.
“These archeological sites are as important to the history here as the pyramids are to Egypt,” she said. “Once you get in there with your excavators, that information is lost forever.”
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