For indigenous people in North America, European colonization brought upheaval and suffering that continues to reverberate. While Canada ranks 6th on the United Nations Development Index, Canadian aboriginal communities are 63rd. Although settlement here was not characterized by Indian wars along an advancing frontier as in the United States, it nonetheless brought decimation by disease, displacement from lands, and suppression of language and culture that created a legacy of marginalization, poverty and despair.

Today, First Nations continue to grapple with these realities even as a high birth rate makes First Nations the fastest growing demographic in the country. For several decades, the courts have been ruling in favor of aboriginal rights and title, making it clear that Canada has been breaking its own laws for generations. As the government continues to deal with land claims at a snail's pace, frustration is boiling over into direct action and the call for justice is growing louder.

In the traditional territory of the Sto:lo, colonization began with a smallpox epidemic that killed two-thirds of the families living in the lush valley along the salmon-rich Fraser River which had been their home since the ice receded 9,000 years earlier. Then, in 1858 a gold rush brought 30,000 miners into Sto:lo territory in the space of one summer. Ensuing European settlement pushed the Sto:lo onto less than one percent of their former lands. Their children were sent to church-run residential schools where they were forbidden to speak their language and many were abused, cultural and spiritual practices were outlawed, and every effort was made to eradicate Sto:lo identity. Today, Sto:lo territory is the most densely settled region of BC and the second largest urban area in the country.

The ways in which history is remembered touch all of us more deeply than we realize. The story of colonization lies outside every Canadian's back door, yet mainstream society remains full of misconceptions about what transpired here between First Nations and newcomers. How we sculpt memory in the aftermath of repression is an urgent issue facing countries around the world. What is the responsibility of present generations for past wrongs? How should they be redressed? What is the meaning of land? Who has the right to decide how resources are used?

In words and photographs New Relationship? takes a storytelling approach to this important subject and speaks to the tough questions that are raised by colonization wherever it occurs. The project looks at attitudes and beliefs that animated the past, explores how we got where we are today, and asks how communities reorient themselves from antagonism to cooperation and move from a divided past towards a shared future.

see photographs from New Relationship?

Project-related links:

Work from the New Relationship? project has appeared in print media and been exhibited at conferences and museums, including:

Reconciling with First Nations - a reader-funded series of five articles on The Tyee, BC's premiere online news source
T'xwelatse Comes Home - a photo essay about the repatriation of an ancient Sto:lo statue in the Seattle Time's weekend magazine
Exhibition at the Chilliwack Museum: The Story and Meaning of T'xwelatse, including photographs by David Campion, May 5 to June 27, 2007

About the production team:

New Relationship? is produced by photographer David Campion in collaboration with writer Sandra Shields. The award-winning couple fuse words and photos into a compelling brand of storytelling. Their first book Where Fire Speaks: A Visit with the Himba was made possible by a grant from the non-governmental organization Rights & Democracy. The resulting book gives a candid account of life on the development frontier of northern Namibia (winner BC Book Prize for Nonfiction). Their second book, The Company of Others: Stories of Belonging documents the impact of friendship in the lives of five Canadians with disabilities.

See their work at www.fieldnotes.ca.