Bike Sense

Indigenous Communities moving ahead with Active Transportation

• The BC Cycling Coalition • Season 2 • Episode 8

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Active transportation in Indigenous communities isn't just a matter of movement — it's also about culture, identity, and safety. Aaron Pete, Chawathil First Nation Councillor (and Podcaster!), shares how the Chawathil are forging partnerships to support the Coast to Canyon Trail near Hope, BC, identifying the changes necessary for safe travel within the region, and integrating traditional values into modern transportation plans.

Check out Aaron's podcast, Bigger Than Me, where he chats with leaders and change makers from across the political/cultural spectrum.
 

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The Bike Sense podcast with Peter Ladner is produced by the BC Cycling Coalition – your voice for safer and more accessible cycling and active transportation in British Columbia.

Membership in the BCCC is now FREE! To find out about BCCC's projects and add your voice to the chorus please visit BCCycling.ca


Speaker 1:

Welcome to Bike Sense, the BC Cycling Coalition's podcast, where we talk about all things related to active transportation advocacy in BC. I'm your host, Peter Ladner, Chair of the Board of the BC Cycling Coalition. I hope you enjoy the show. At the Active Transportation Summit in June 2024, Aaron Peet was a presenter and gave us an insight into issues facing Indigenous communities that are quite different from the rest of BC, and we've invited him onto the podcast today to talk about how active transportation plans are affecting his own community and how he foresees the future for active transportation in Indigenous communities. Welcome, Aaron Peet. Thank you so much for having me. Now I'm going to do something. You have a podcast You've done 180 podcasts and I'm in the hands of a master here and I notice you always ask people to introduce themselves, so I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself.

Speaker 2:

My name is Aaron Peet. I am a counsellor with Chihuahua First Nation, I host the Bigger Than Me podcast and I work as the strategic relations manager for Métis Nation BC.

Speaker 1:

And you have a law degree, by the way, I do. Yes, could you tell us how transportation has changed in your community over the past 200 years?

Speaker 2:

That's a very interesting question. So I've actually been doing a lot of work learning about a lot of this history. So, historically, pre-contact, we actually had a location called T'Kols and it is where the District of Hope's main area is today, and that was our village site and we actually have photos from that period. Um, throughout contact, we were actually displaced and moved over from where to calls was over to what we call chihuahua ir4 indian reserve 4 and that moved us farther away from our usual fishing sites, village sites, and the consequence of that shortly thereafter was that highways were then also put in that further displaced us and disconnected us from our ability to move back and forth from community to community safely. And I would say that's where we are today is we are farther away from the District of Hope. We're about a 10, 15 minute drive from the District of Hope and a significant like an hour walk along two different highways in order to get into town. There are very narrow points where there are bridges, and these are some of the constraints our community is facing now.

Speaker 1:

And people in your community where you are a councillor. They have to go to Hope quite regularly, I assume, for groceries and so on. There are a few amenities in your community, Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Correct. We don't have grocery stores, so everything that you have to go pick up, taking your kids to school, all of those are commutes outside of the community.

Speaker 1:

And I noticed that the plan that you've done you recorded that 100% of your trips right now are made by car and yet you've got ambitions for an active transportation plan. Can you describe how you're going to get from where you are now to a more active form of transportation and why that's even important or necessary?

Speaker 2:

So we actually started off engaging the community on this front, and I guess I'll just backtrack a little bit. My understanding of active transportation was actually introduced when I was a native court worker, assisting Indigenous people through the legal system, and a predominant amount of the files that I was dealing with were driving while prohibited, driving without a license and other motor vehicle infractions for driving without a proper insurance or license, and so that's predominant across, from my understanding at least, the Fraser Valley. And so, coming into this role, I knew as a council member that this was a pain point, and so we started and applied for $50,000 from the federal government for an active transportation plan. We did that back November 2022. Throughout 2023 and consulted the community. We did open houses, community surveys, focus groups and really got to know what the community was looking for. And this was a pain point for them as well.

Speaker 2:

Within the Fraser Valley, we have lost members as a consequence of them having to commute on the highway by walking, being hit by semis. Those types of issues have arisen. So this is a well-known issue within Indigenous communities, and so we started communicating. We started putting up maps on some of our ideas. We actually met with our floodplain mappers and team there to start to understand where they think some good trails could be, where we're putting in dikes and stuff to further encourage that. And then we started reaching out to organizations like the Fraser Valley Regional District and other stakeholders like Tourism BC to understand where their goals for regional active transportation were, and one of those was the Costa Canyon Trail. And throughout this process we've been able to engage organizations like Enbridge, cp Rail, other funders like TransCanada Trails to start to get funding, to start to look at design. So we are in the design phase. We've finished our active transportation plan. Now we're designing and implementing.

Speaker 1:

Tell us for a minute about the Coast to Canyon Trail. You said that the design has been done. How much of that has been built and what would that look like when it's built out?

Speaker 2:

So the Coast to Canyon Trail starts, from my understanding, somewhere in Vancouver or New Westminster, and the dream has always been for trails to be able to go from there all the way to the canyon, which is Hope, and a lot of that has, from my perspective, been completed.

Speaker 2:

Obviously, a lot of that falls outside of Chihuahua's jurisdiction, but we were looking at what can we implement within our region to support this trail. So we have about four to six kilometers of that trail that we can start to implement and we have actually the space. We've spoken to CP Rail, we've spoken to the Ministry of Transportation of our goals to begin to implement this. That way, if somebody does need to walk, bike run or cycle to town, they would have a safe way to do so where they're not on the road. So we're working with Trans Canada Trails. They've funded some grants to do some of the design work and starting to figure out exactly where that would go. There are some very narrow points where we do need some further design to figure out how we support people where the highway really constricts and there's not a lot of space on either side, in order to reach some of these goals, to make sure that it's feasible all the way through.

Speaker 1:

And how far are you in your estimation, in the completion of your portion of this project like that would enable your community to meet its transportation needs without having to drive?

Speaker 2:

We are, I would say, probably maybe five to ten years away from actually having that section completed. We are in the planning. We just finished the planning stage. Now we're trying to figure out where those pain points are, designing that and then the cost to actually implement that. We're starting to speak with funders to see who has the dollars for implementation, because six kilometers of developed trail, whether we look at paved or gravel, that's all going to be a significant cost. And so now we're reaching out to stakeholders to kind of engage who's willing to participate. How do we make sure we recognize them in their support? Is there ways to put up signs that say supported by Enbridge, supported by CP Rail, supported by the Ministry of Transportation, in order to kind of get their buy-in as well?

Speaker 1:

As an Indigenous community, do you have access to other funds that are specially allocated to Indigenous causes and projects like this?

Speaker 2:

I don't think we have access to special funds, but I would say that we have special considerations that we're starting to receive and funders are able to kind of look at our application somewhat differently because the challenges that we have are so much different than challenges faced by individuals living in a municipality. Municipalities have a tax base to pull from, and First Nation communities we don't have that same tax base, and so we do rely more heavily on grants and their ability to understand that we're in unique circumstances. We're not just wanting trails because they're nice to bike on or because we enjoy the experience, or we're doing it because we actually need safe transportation for people who might not have licenses in order to get to and from community. How much support is there for this in your community? I would say very high support. We continue.

Speaker 2:

We just did an infrastructure survey with the community and we again pulled very strongly in support of active transportation. Particularly the Costa Canyon Trail, I think is more interesting perhaps to your viewers. But within our community there needs to be more connections for people to get from their house to the band office without having to drive, and so we've developed. The Enbridge line actually runs through our community and there's huge interest from the community to have that, because then they wouldn't have to drive four minutes from their place to the band office, they'd have a safe place to walk and it would be private trails for them to enjoy. And we haven't really had that. It's always been kind of walking through the grass, and so the idea of having beautiful scenery throughout the forest that's only member accessible is something I think that really excites them, because it's their ability to reconnect with the land in a more private way than the Costa Canyon Trail would look. So there's huge support for that Enbridge Line Trail.

Speaker 1:

Can you describe what the impact of that Enbridge Line is? Is this like a hydro right away, where everything's cleared out and now you're left with an open path that can be replanted in different ways?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so they have one of their pipelines that comes through our community and it is fairly wide I'd say it's probably 30 meters wide and there's special spots where we would be able to develop these trails that wouldn't impact the actual pipeline, is very supportive of that. But it runs through the whole of our reserve and so, um, tourists wouldn't be able to access it, but it would be a way for communities to go for nice long walks throughout their community. Um, we have lots of wildlife that they'd be able to enjoy and that would be just for their benefit to connect the communities more so because right now and this is true for many first nation communities there's a house and then like five blocks and then another house, and so the connection between homes has always been a challenge, and this will kind of integrate the community and make it more accessible for people to connect.

Speaker 1:

Now you said that your community, the Chihuahua community, is separate from the SCAM community, which is just slightly north of Hope, is separate from the SCAM community, which is just slightly north of Hope. What's the distance between those communities and do you have families that are spread out between those two communities?

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's around a 50-50 split. Scam is mainly higher ground, so we don't have to worry about the floodplain. Chihuahua IR4 is within the floodplain, so that's one of the challenges that we have with our Chihuahua IR4 is that we were also displaced to a location that is. We're working with Northwest Hydraulics and they've identified that we're very deeply within the floodplain and at very, extremely high risk, and we saw that during the 2021 atmospheric river, and so a lot of our new developments are looking at SCAM. The challenge is it is about a five to seven minute drive from Chihuahua to SCAM. Again, the highway narrows throughout those points and so people are walking very, very close to highway traffic in order to go from one community to the other or relying on somebody to drive them. But SCAM is another area where we're looking at further development, so we also want to see further growth in terms of active transportation. Our first trail that we built was actually up at SCAM, around the ball field, and we've actually accomplished that a couple of months almost a year back in August, sorry.

Speaker 1:

You're also looking for a bridge over the highway, a grade separated crossing. How likely is that to happen and is that a that would sound like a major cost?

Speaker 2:

that is likely to happen. I guess I should reframe the question you asked me before. We do have special funding, in the sense that we are supported by Indigenous Services Canada and they have funds specifically for Indigenous communities in order to accomplish infrastructure goals and make sure that we're served. Again, since we don't have a tax base, we rely on the federal government support for a lot of these initiatives, and so we are working with them right now to do a feasibility study on whether or not we would look at a bridge or a tunnel, on whether or not we would look at a bridge or a tunnel. There's concerns with both, but we're not okay with an accurate crosswalk, which was proposed by the Ministry of Transportation initially. We don't feel comfortable with that. People from what's called K Street have to cross the road over to Scam in order to catch the bus, and we don't feel comfortable with our children having to cross the number one highway in order to catch the bus in the morning. We're looking at potentially having a daycare up at SCAM, and so people would have to take their kids across the road again in order to access those services, to access the parks and all of those pieces. We have a cultural centre up at SCAM, so we need something that's more safe for people to get across. So we're speaking with Indigenous Services Canada, the Ministry of Transportation and we're working on a feasibility study right now in order to look at some of those costs.

Speaker 2:

What's the most feasible? There's a lot of hesitation with a tunnel because a lot of wildlife would likely go through there. It can become an unsightly premise and there can be challenges with people who are unhoused in those areas, and so those are some of the concerns. The concerns with the bridge would be that young people like to cause shenanigans and there's a risk that they might utilize that bridge in order to cause some challenges for oncoming traffic, and so we're considering all of those things as we move forward. I do think that there's a huge momentum within our council and leadership and within the community to want to see that project come to fruition, and so I do think that there's a strong likelihood that it comes to life. That's a three to five year project in order to get implemented, but I think as long as we have that community support, we'll be able to get that across the finish line.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting. You say that as three to five years and I said earlier that sounds like a big project, but when you compare that to the highway projects that we do, there's no way a little thing like that, compared to a big highway exchange, would take that long.

Speaker 2:

In another First Nation community I can see the hydro poles that go through the forest up a mountain, and that's an incredible feat for Canadians, for British Columbians, that were able to do those things. But yes, when an organization comes back to me and says that's really expensive, it's like my argument is that we were displaced here. It wasn't our preference to be here.

Speaker 1:

We wouldn't have had these issues if we weren't displaced, and so we do need some give and take on these fronts to make sure that it is feasible for our members to live here aaron, if you figure out how to get a the highways, to put a pedestrian overpass on a highway, there are communities all over this province aching for that solution and realizing that to truly realize an active transportation integrated plan, you have to have ways of crossing these highways, and so I I really hope that works for you. I want to ask you something about. One of the things that you're trying to do is integrate culture and tradition into your plans. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 2:

So I actually had the opportunity during law school to study some more of the history of how Indigenous people traveled, and we have the statistics that people traveled from Alaska all the history to learn more about how people traveled vast distances. And I think the part that's really interesting to me about us being an oral culture is that the stories that you hear about the mountains served two purposes from my perspective. One was they were moral stories, very similar to biblical stories on how to live a good life. They taught you a lot about philosophy, how to be a good contributing person in your community. But then two, they are also a geographic map. If you understand the story, you understand where you are geographically, because they wouldn't have had GPS or anything like that, so they were serving dual purposes. So when you get to learn some of that history about Mount Siam and stuff, you start to realize that these are actually geographic points that you would be able to identify if you're traveling through from Alaska all the way down to California and having those stories you would tell along your walk to keep track of where you were and learn some things along the way.

Speaker 2:

The challenge I always remind people with written traditions is that often they get disconnected or they don't make as much sense, Like. People know who Shakespeare was, but how much can they tell you about what those stories actually meant or the lessons to be learned from them? That's where people start to drop off for written traditions but oral traditions. If you don't understand something, then it's my job as the storyteller to shape it in a way that does make sense to you. So those stories were able to survive for so long because people were really able to take them in and see themselves reflected in those stories, and so I like that piece and I think there's ways to incorporate that history and that rich culture into these trails.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, so interesting. Aaron, I know you have a tight deadline. We're going to let you go, but I would just like to leave us with a plug for your podcast. Tell us it's called Bigger Than Me and tell us what you do with that podcast and why our listeners might be interested in it.

Speaker 2:

It's called the Bigger Than Me podcast. I interview people from all different backgrounds. I had the opportunity to interview all of the party leaders for the last BC election. That was David Eby, kevin Falcon, john Rustad and Sonia Fersonow and that was a huge opportunity. But I go down all different types of paths to learn about people's journey and why they do what they do and why they love making a difference in their community.

Speaker 1:

Well, let us know the next time you're going to do one that's even remotely related to transportation. We'd be happy to help you promote it. Thanks so much, Aaron, and good luck with that project.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, I appreciate it you've been listening to bike sense, an original podcast from the bc cycling coalition. If you like the podcast, we'd be grateful if you could leave us a rating. On whatever platform you use, you can also subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you have comments or suggestions for future episodes, email me at peterladner at bccyclingca. No-transcript.