aboriginal tourism bc

• Indigenous Tourism

Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) | Owen Perry

• Partners">Regional, Community & Industry Partners

Indigenous tourism experiences are part of British Columbia’s international appeal and a core element of the Super, Natural British Columbia® brand.

Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) | Grant Harder

Indigenous tourism is a valued and integral part of BC’s tourism network, providing a distinctive identity to the province and a deeper connection for travelers

What is Indigenous Cultural Tourism?

Trends in tourism indicate a strong and increasing demand for cultural tourism experiences. Put simply, more and more visitors are looking for meaningful experiences that immerse them in a culture different to theirs, allowing them to experience customs and traditions in an authentic way. The Indigenous cultural tourism industry in British Columbia has some of the most diverse and best developed operators in the world.

How is Indigenous Culture Revitalizing Tourism?

The growing interest in cultural tourism products has given Indigenous peoples in British Columbia an unprecedented opportunity to develop businesses that share some of their traditions, histories, and cultures.

Tourism creates new opportunities for economic development in Indigenous communities and provides opportunities for Elders, youth and community members to share their stories, dances and songs.

Indigenous Tourism by the Numbers:

• In 2016 there were approximately 401 Indigenous tourism related businesses operating in BC, generating $705 million in direct gross domestic output and creating 7,400 direct full-time jobs
• 1 in 4 visitors to BC actively seek authentic Indigenous experiences

Destination BC and Indigenous Tourism British Columbia

Destination BC partners with Indigenous Tourism British Columbia (ITBC) to grow and promote a sustainable, culturally rich Indigenous tourism industry.

ITBC is dedicated to raising awareness of the diverse and enriching Indigenous tourism experiences available in BC. The non-profit organization communicates directly with consumers, travel trade, and travel media creating interest in Indigenous tourism experiences, activities, and products.

Destination BC Works With ITBC to:

• Assist long-term growth
• Promote Indigenous cultural tourism within BC’s destination brand and marketing activities, including travel trade, travel media, and familiarization trips
• Ensure the destination development programs support Indigenous tourism development throughout the province
• Engage with Indigenous communities that have made tourism development a priority, identifying ways to support Indigenous cultural heritage and future aspirations for tourism
• Include Indigenous tourism in all areas of Destination BC’s program delivery

About Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC)

The Indigenous Tourism Association of British Columbia (ITBC) is a non-profit, stakeholder-based organization that is committed to growing and promoting a sustainable, culturally rich Indigenous tourism industry. Through training, information resources, networking opportunities, and co-operative marketing programs, ITBC is an important resource for Indigenous entrepreneurs and communities in British Columbia who are operating or looking to start a tourism business. ITBC works closely with industry, business, education, and government organizations to help BC’s Indigenous tourism businesses and communities in BC in the development and promotion of quality tourism experiences.

To find out more, contact:

Indigenous Tourism BC Tel: 604 921-1070 Fax: 604 921-1072 T-Free Fax: 1-877-533-7773 [email protected]

Destination BC Karen Tunkara Director, Indigenous & Regional Partnerships Tel: 250.419.8777 [email protected]

Subscribe to Directions , Destination BC’s e-newsletter, for the latest news and program updates.

Receive updates, research and news you can use.

Destination BC

Official websites.

HelloBC.com

Be inspired to start planning your BC Vacation.

Travel Media

Information for journalists, editors and broadcasters.

Tourism Business Portal

Online, self-service business listings system for tourism industry.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 12. Indigenous Tourism

12.4 Indigenous Tourism in BC

The Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia (ATBC), now recognized as Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) , was founded in 1996 and was spurred by a research project that detailed the changing motivations of visitors to BC. The research results identified that specific target markets were particularly motivated to visit BC to experience local or regional Indigenous culture. Leveraging this information and initial organizational momentum, ITBC has matured to become a stable and effective organization by establishing funding partnerships with governments, developing a stakeholder membership model, and initiating a range of development strategies and tactics outlined in regularly updated action plans.

ITBC provides recognized leadership to support the estimated 401 Indigenous tourism related businesses operating in BC. These businesses generate $705 million indirect gross domestic output and provides 7,400 direct full-time jobs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents in BC through their activities (ITBC, 2019).

Spotlight On: Indigenous Tourism BC

Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) has gained an international reputation for effectiveness. Its role is to encourage the professional development of Indigenous cultural experiences and destinations in the province and to then support marketing those businesses to the world.

For more information featuring market-ready Indigenous tourism experiences within BC visit the external consumer-focused ITBC website .

For more details about ITBC’s history, structure and planning tools visit the ITBC internal corporate and stakeholder-focused website .

Since its inception, ITBC has grown to represent a diverse range of stakeholder businesses and organizations, including campgrounds, art galleries and gift shops, hotels, eco-lodges and resorts, Indigenous restaurants and catering services, cultural heritage sites and interpretive centres, kayak and canoe tours, adventure tourism operations, and guided hikes through heritage sites (Aboriginal Tourism BC, 2012). It has also proven adept at online promotion and social media, has also become world renowned for its strategic approach to Indigenous tourism development.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Tourism Trip Planner App

Indigenous Tourism BC marketing staff are regularly updating not just their consumer website, but also their social media platforms with rich visual assets, including promotional videos for the sector, regions, and specific companies.

In 2020, they also released a new app for Indigenous Tourism trip planning, which includes some virtual experiences. Learn more by downloading it on your digital device at Indigenous BC Trip Planner App .

A Strategic Approach to Growth

In 2017, the organization now known as ITBC released its five-year strategic plan, entitled “Pulling Together,” which identified targets for Indigenous cultural tourism industry success in BC. Its goals by 2022 included:

• Increased provincial revenue of $75 million
• Employment at 4,950 full-time equivalent positions
• 128 market-ready Indigenous cultural tourism businesses

To achieve these targets, the plan focused on five distinct strategic performance areas:

• Experience Development
• Partnerships
• Organizational Excellence

Following good overall tourism planning principles, ITBC ensured its plan aligned with Destination BC’s strategy, Welcoming Visitors—Benefiting Locals—Working Together, A Strategic Framework for Tourism in BC , as well as Canada’s federal tourism strategy. Consistent with this sustained alignment, recent efforts have placed renewed emphasis on the need for market readiness.

Push for Market Readiness

As we’ve learned elsewhere in this textbook, today’s travellers are more complex than in the past and have higher expectations. Potential guests are well acquainted with technology and have the world at their fingertips. For this reason, it’s important that Indigenous operators ensure they are sufficiently ready to run as a tourism business and compete in an increasingly crowded tourism marketplace.

There are three categories of readiness, each with a set of criteria that must be met (Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada, 2013):

• A visitor-ready operation is often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but not be considered ready for cost-shared promotions with other businesses due to lack of amenities or predictability.
• A market-ready business must meet visitor-ready criteria plus demonstrate a number of other strengths around customer service, marketing materials, published pricing and payments policies, short response times and reservations systems, and so on.
• Export-ready criteria include the previous categories, plus sophisticated travel distribution trade channels to attract out-of-town visitors. They provide highly reliable services to all guests, particularly those traveling with groups.

By educating cultural tourism businesses about these standards, and then creating incentives for marketing opportunities, ITBC helps to raise the bar for BC Indigenous cultural tourism experiences. Its goal is to support as many operators toward market readiness (the second category) as possible so that they may eventually become export ready alongside other BC tourism experiences.

Drag the following descriptors to the appropriate category for market readiness:

Take a Closer Look: Authentic Indigenous

Authentic Indigenous is a marketing initiative by Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) – a successful designation program that identifies strong cultural Indigenous tourism experiences as Authentic Indigenous. With this designation, ITBC meets the demands of travellers seeking unique, educational, eco-friendly and culturally appropriate experiences within Indigenous communities across BC. Find out more by visiting the Authentic Indigenous web page .

Another key component of the Indigenous tourism experience is the host. In BC, the FirstHost program supports the development of Indigenous hosts who are well trained, know what guests are looking for, and who can help provide an authentic cultural experience. The one-day tourism workshop is offered through ITBC and delivered throughout British Columbia

FirstHost was inspired by Hawaiian tourism pioneer, Dr. George Kanahele (1913-2000), who saw the impact tourism was having on indigenous culture and set out to educate the industry that “the relationship between place, host and guest must be one of equality” (Native Education College, 2014, p. 28). Participants learn about hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship. This well-received workshop, delivered by Indigenous trainers, is another reason Indigenous tourism continues to grow stronger in the province.

Take a Closer Look: Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program

The Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) was born through a desire to increase workforce and community capacity for Indigenous tourism in coastal BC and developed in partnership between Vancouver Island University (VIU), North Island College (NIC), and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council (HTC), with support from Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) and funding through the Canada-British Columbia Job Fund.

Since 2014, 70 graduates from over 27 First Nations have successfully completed the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) that features an innovative place-based, culturally relevant and experiential design to post-secondary learning. Many of these students have continued in the tourism sector or are engaged in ongoing post-secondary education in business and tourism.

Learn more through a video on the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program and the article Adventures in Ecotourism: Building Partnerships, Collaborations and Trust through Aboriginal Education .

Examples of BC Indigenous Tourism Development

Spotlight On: Moccasin Trails

Many exceptional leaders and entrepreneurs in Indigenous Tourism wear multiple hats. Besides family, community, and cultural responsibilities, this often includes many other complex roles within Indigenous Tourism development through sector, regional, and national associations, plus outreach as consultants beyond their own tourism business — sharing expertise that bridges cultures and systems.

One dynamic example is through the suite of tourism experiences, services and leadership offered by Frank Antoine and Greg Hopf of Moccasin Trails in the Kamloops area.

They describe that, “We wanted to bring people from around the world on the ancestral paths our people walked, have them taste the food we ate, sing the songs we sang, hear the stories that were passed down orally from generations ago, and travel down the rivers we canoed. In order to truly learn about our culture we felt the only way was to touch, smell, see, hear, and feel it. Our journey started hundreds of years ago but your journey will start right now with us at Moccasin Trails .

Their vision and motivation is very representative of the tangible, tireless and authentic energy that underlies much of Indigenous Tourism development.

Indigenous tourism in BC offers diverse visitor opportunities that range from arts and cultural attractions to authentic food and beverage experiences to wildlife tours that highlight the spiritual significance of BC’s natural places for Indigenous people.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Experiences — A Journey

The consumer website for Indigenous Tourism BC features things to do, places to see, trip planning tools, featured itineraries and stories. For more information, visit the Indigenous Tourism BC website .

Examples of BC Indigenous tourism enterprises include:

• The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in the heart of downtown Vancouver, home of the permanent collection of Bill Reid as well as contemporary exhibitions.
• St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino , a First Nation-owned 4.5-star hotel with a golf course and casino, outside of Cranbrook in the Kootenay Rockies.
• Cariboo Chilcotin Jetboat Adventures , offering exciting and scenic tours of the Fraser River.
• Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro , offering authentic Indigenous food in urban Vancouver.
• Spirit Bear Lodge , in the Great Bear Rainforest, specialize in wildlife and Indigenous cultural experiences.
• Talaysay Tours offering Indigenous cultural and eco-tourism experiences in and around Vancouver, Squamish and the Sunshine Coast.
• Skwachàys Lodge , a downtown Vancouver luxury hotel, art gallery and store operating as a social enterprise and supporting Indigenous artists.

Take a Closer Look: UNESCO World Heritage List 

This list, evolving from 1972 World Heritage Convention, identifies outstanding significant sites across the globe, linking the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The convention sets out the duties of governments in identifying potential sites and their role in protecting and preserving them. The list features an interactive map and an alphabetical list. To explore the more than 1,100 properties on the list, including 20 sites in Canada, visit the UNESCO World Heritage List .

The village of SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay (formerly Ninstints or Nan Sdins) is a prominent example of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada, located on a small island off the west coast of Haida Gwaii.

While ITBC members are too numerous to detail here, one BC First Nation is often in the spotlight for its significant tourism and economic development activity, thanks to its physical and cultural assets and positive leadership. Let’s take a closer look at this example.

Osoyoos Indian Band

The Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) is located in the Interior of BC. A main goal of the OIB has been to move from dependency to a sustainable economy like that which existed before contact (Centre for First Nations Governance, 2013).

Take a Closer Look: Centre for First Nations Governance Success Stories

The Centre for First Nations Governance is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing self-governance support to First Nations communities across Canada. It helps with planning, governance, the establishment of laws, and nation-rebuilding efforts. Its website features success stories, in video format, that highlight these efforts. For more information, visit the Centre for First Nations Governance website for Success Stories.

Okanagan First Nations once travelled widely to fish, gather, and hunt. Each year, the first harvests of roots, berries, fish, and game were celebrated during ceremonies honouring the food chiefs who provided for the people. During the winter, people returned to permanent winter villages. The names of many of the settlements in the Okanagan Valley — Osoyoos, Keremeos, Penticton and Kelowna — come from Indigenous words for these settled areas and attest to the long history of the Syilx people on this land.

Forty-five years ago, the OIB was bankrupt and living off government social assistance. In 1988, it sought to turn the tide on this history and created the Osoyoos Indian Band Development Corporation (OIBDC). Through focused leadership and initiative, the band has been able to develop agriculture, eco-tourism, and commercial, industrial, and residential developments on its 32,200 acre reserve lands. It does have the good fortune to be located in one of Canada’s premier agricultural and tourism regions; however, it has also taken a determined and well-crafted effort to become an example of Indigenous economic success.

The OIBDC manages a number of tourism-related businesses including the Nk’Mip Campground and RV Park, Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. In addition, the OIBDC have several prominent tourism-related partnerships, including with Baldy Mt. Ski Resort, Nk’Mip Cellars, Spirit Ridge Resort, and others (OIB, 2020). The area attracts about 400,000 visitors per year, and at peak tourist season there is essentially full employment among the more than 470 members of the Osoyoos reserve.

In addition to the core businesses and partnerships, many secondary businesses have formed. For example, the award-winning Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre promotes conservation efforts for desert wildlife and has also helped to create several spinoff businesses, including a landscaping business, a greenhouse for indigenous plants, a website development business, and a community arts and crafts market (LinkBC, 2012).

The organization responsible for developing and marketing Indigenous tourism experiences in B.C. in a strategic way. Marketing stakeholder members are over 51% owned and operated by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.

Often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but is not ready for more complex promotions (like cooperative marketing); may not have a predictable business cycle or offerings.

A business that goes beyond visitor readiness to demonstrate strengths in customer service, marketing, pricing and payments policies, response times and reservations systems, and so on.

The highest level of market readiness, with sophisticated travel distribution trade channels, to attract out-of-town visitors and highly reliable service standards, particularly with groups.

An Indigenous tourism workshop focusing on hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship.

Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC - 2nd Edition Copyright © 2015, 2020, 2021 by Morgan Westcott and Wendy Anderson, Eds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Sponsored Content

Aboriginal Tourism BC

Aboriginal Tourism BC (AtBC) is your portal into British Columbia’s one-of-a-kind Aboriginal travel and culinary experiences. From sleeping in teepees under soaring Kootenay summits, to chowing down on gourmet riffs on ancient dishes, spend the summer getting to know the rich culture that is the foundation of B.C.’s rich history—and its radiant future.

AtBC is a non-profit, stakeholder-based organization that is committed to growing and promoting a sustainable, culturally rich Aboriginal tourism industry. Our vision is a healthy, prosperous, strong, respectful and dynamic Aboriginal tourism industry sharing authentic high quality experiences that exceed visitor expectations.

Our mission is to contribute to the preservation of Aboriginal culture and advancement of economic development through information resources, networking opportunities and co-operative marketing programs. AtBC is a one-stop resource for First Nations entrepreneurs and communities in British Columbia who are operating or looking to start a tourism business.

AtBC works closely with tourism, business, education and government organizations to help B.C.’s Aboriginal tourism businesses offer quality experiences and actively promotes these experiences—from international visitors to local residents.

The long-term goal is to support, facilitate and promote the growth and sustainability of a quality and culturally rich Aboriginal tourism industry in British Columbia.

Recommended for You

Travel Light, Travel Right: Minimalist Packing Tips for Solo Explorers

A Solo Traveller’s Guide to Cozy Accommodations

Local Getaway: Relax at a Hidden Cabin along Jordan River

Springtime Adventures: One BC Travel Destination Calling Your Name

Top Spots to View Cherry Blossoms Across B.C.

Plan Your BC Foodie Field Trip

• International
• Hotel Reviews
• Product Review
• Restaurant Reviews
• Travel Tips
• Travel Stories
• Video Blogs
• Inspiring Travelers
• UNESCO World Heritage Sites
• Inditales In Media
• Print Publications
• Talks & Teaching
• Privacy Policy

• Andhra Pradesh
• Arunachal Pradesh
• Chhattisgarh
• Dadra & Nagar Haveli
• Daman & Diu
• Himachal Pradesh
• Jammu & Kashmir
• Madhya Pradesh
• Maharashtra
• Pondicherry
• Uttar Pradesh
• Uttarakhand
• West Bengal
• United Arab Emirates
• Czech Republic
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom

Rest Of The World

• New Zealand

Holistic Living At Swaswara, Om Beach In Gokarna

Where To Stay In Shekhawati? Consider Piramal Haveli

Westin Pushkar Resort & Spa – Luxury Travel in Pilgrim’s city

Living The Lucknow Life With Clarks Awadh

British columbia first nations aboriginal tourism.

First Nations is the contemporary name used for the Aboriginal people of British Columbia in Canada. They have been known by various names like Indians, Natives, Native Americans, American Indians, or Amerindians. Irrespective of the name you choose to address these people, these are the original inhabitants of the land that we now know as Canada. You could call them the Indigenous people of Canada. They lost their lands and identities to the Europeans when they first landed here a few centuries back. Today, British Columbia First Nations people are reclaiming their identity by reclaiming public places that showcase their art.

They are documenting their languages that were always spoken and never written and recording their oral histories. Everywhere I traveled in Canada, I could prominently see their imprint. Mostly this was in the form of colorful wood-carved Totem Poles or painted walls. Souvenir shops were full of artifacts with tribal motifs.

I am always most fascinated by the oldest living parts of any place. So, in British Columbia, I was fascinated by the tribes. I wanted to know all about their history, their culture, their faith, their practices, their crafts and decipher the stories hidden in their Totem Poles.

Who are British Columbia First Nations Aboriginals?

We know they are aboriginal people and that they were called Indians earlier. But who are these people? Is it one homogenous tribe or do they have different tribes within them? Did these people have any contact with the rest of the world? Did they always live here or did they come from somewhere else? What happened when the Europeans landed here in 18th CE and what kind of interactions they had?

Well, be prepared for a surprise. There are more than 600 First Nations Communities in Canada and there are about 200 of them in British Columbia First Nations.

One of the theories of the origins of First Nations says that these people came from Siberia thousands of years ago. They came via land and sea routes and landed somewhere in Alaska. From there, they started moving around and settling down in different places. This looks plausible as the features of many people do have chubby cheeks and small eyes. However, most tribal people believe that they have lived here since time immemorial.

Ontario has the largest aboriginal population in Canada followed by British Columbia. In British Columbia, the first tribal groups were defined by the distinct languages they spoke. The map below shows the tribe names and the languages they speak.

The northwest coast of Canada was inhabited because of the abundance of food available here – especially the fish besides the ample vegetation. These tribal people would spend 7-8 months of the year wandering and collecting food for the 4-month-long winter. It was during these winter months that they would sit and carve wood & create some beautiful artifacts used for practical and spiritual use.

European Colonization

When Europeans landed on the North West Coast of Canada, both parties welcomed each other in their own way. As the Europeans started settling down, they pushed the British Columbia First Nations people away from their areas. They wanted the land so these people had to move away.

Unfortunately, the worst thing Europeans brought with them were the diseases that the local people had no immunity to. This led to major deaths among the tribal people especially because they were communicable diseases like smallpox and measles. One infected person killed the whole village. They not only lost their lands and livelihoods but also succumbed to the newly arrived diseases.

Europeans thought native Indians were not able to cope with modernity. They started collecting their artifacts for their museums back home – in their minds, they were preserving them for posterity.

Red Cedar Tree is at the heart of the North West Pacific Coast tribal people’s lives. This is one tree that can serve all their needs – right from making items of everyday use to ritual items. They used the red Cedar tree available in abundance here for clothing, housing, and transportation. They even weaved their baskets using the bark of the Cedar Tree.

Red Cedar Tree is called the tree of life in the tribal communities on the North West Pacific Coast. It is light and soft, allowing the users to manipulate it with the simplest of tools. Remember they used this in the pre-machine era. Cedar Tree has oil that repels water as well as bugs, so it was perfect for outdoor use. Yes, it is a natural pesticide.

Choosing Cedar Tree

At the Squamish and Lilawat Cultural Center in Whistler, the tour guide, who herself came from the Lilawat community spoke about how they chose the trees before taking their bark or before cutting them. She said – you hug the tree and only if you can touch your fingers while hugging can you take it from the tree. Otherwise, you leave it alone to grow. If your fingers touch, you pray to the tree and then take no more than 2 hands or 2 arm lengths of bark from the tree. After taking you to thank the tree for giving you the life-sustaining material.

It reminded me of the tree-worshipping people I had met at Achanakmar in Chhattisgarh . How similar are the aboriginal cultures across the world?

I saw a lot of images of Cedar Trees with barks taken off them – just about a couple of arm lengths taken and the rest of the trees left intact. They are called culturally modified trees.

At the same center, I made a small bracelet with the soaked Cedar tree bark, that I brought back as a souvenir with me.

At the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, I saw a box made of seasoned Cedarwood without any nails. It was made by bending or folding the seasoned wood. These boxes that are just stitched at one side are watertight – families used them to store anything from regalia to grain to water. Impressive!

Yellow Cedar has finer grains so it is used more for art pieces like the Bill Reid masterpieces we will soon see.

British Columbia First Nations Territories Map

This map across British Columbia shows the tribes, their names, and the regions they inhabited.

In Whistler, I gathered it belongs to Lilawat people who lived a little north of Whistler. To the South of Whistler is the land of the Squamish people. Vancouver City is the land of the Musqueam people while in Victoria it is the Songhees, Saanich, and Esquimalt people who inhabited it. Why I am mentioning these – well, I visited the lands of these people, so acknowledge that.

There has been evidence, like the presence of shells that are not native that indicate that the tribes were trading with the other parts of the world.

Story of Haida Gwaii

An interesting fact that I learned about Haida Gwaii Island was that it was called Queen Charlotte Island. When the British Captain George Dixon arrived on these islands in 1790 – one of his ships that were called Queen Charlotte. She was also the queen of King George III of England for whom the captain was claiming the island. However, in 2010 the Haida tribe in a ceremony returned the name and now the island is called Haida Gwaii or the land of the Haidas.

Interestingly, the tribes never signed any treaties with the colonial powers. They never sold their lands and never surrendered anything to them, which many other tribes did during those times. So, a lot of land titles still belong to them. A lot of them are in courts trying to reclaim their lands, their names, and their space on the map of the world.

Like most ancient tribes, their people also worshipped nature. I watched a video at Whistler Cultural Center that talked about how they worshipped the mountains, the rivers, the earth, and their ancestors. They believe that the good people were turned into mountains – which means mountains are their ancestors. They talk about their living relationship with rivers, forests, and mountains.

Ancestor worship is the most prevalent one. In their ritual dances and ceremonies, their ancestors descend down and are present there to bless or to witness. This is done through the elaborate masks that they wear while dancing. Like in Ramlila at Ramnagar , they become the person or the spirit that they are portraying.

Similarly, the transformation was possible between humans and animals. However, religion remained a private affair and not a public one. Rituals and ceremonies were performed either at home or in spirit houses.

There are a few stories I heard from the vast collection of their folk tales. There is a common story about how a raven brought light to Earth by stealing the sun. You would hear different versions of it from different tribes. There is a story about Dzunukwa – a woman who stole children. This is a story that mothers would tell children to put them to sleep.

British Columbia First Nations Aboriginals Art

Their art has two distinct eras. One set of artifacts belongs to the pre-colonization era. This includes original Totem Poles, Wood carving panels, everyday use items, woven blankets, ritual regalia, etc. These items can now be seen in various museums around the world. All the old art has been done by anonymous artists – they were probably artist guilds who were commissioned by the noble families.

Famed Artists

The second set is the revivalist artifacts by modern artists who are using the same motifs but making modern artworks. The credit for this revival goes to one artist – Mungo Martin who came from the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe of British Columbia First Nations. He was a master sculptor, a poet & a musician who carved Totem Poles even during the Potlatch ban. He will be best remembered for training the next generation of woodcarvers in the community people. And he also insisted that carving Totem Poles is spiritual work. It is done to honor their ancestors. This in a way worked in bringing pride back in the community.

Bill Reid is another artist who was half First Nation from his mother’s side and he created some huge sculptures combining both sides of his lineage. One of his masterpieces in Jade can be seen at the Vancouver Airport. It shows a canoe full of humans and animals.

Another one of his works was featured on the Canadian $20 currency note . Now, that is quite an honor for a contemporary artist.

Look for his Raven & the First Men sculpture at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.

Emily Carr is the most famous modern artist of British Columbia. She also began by painting totem poles and you can see her works at the Vancouver Art Gallery and at the Audain Museum in Whistler.

Let me walk you through some of the community common artworks:

Totem Poles

These are tall carved wood poles. They are oral storytelling poles that tell the story of the family that erected them. They tell about the status and the wealth of the family.

Most Totem poles have human figures, animal figures, and some mythical elements. The families or clans were identified by animals like bears, or, frogs, or, ravens etc. This animal would then be part of all paraphernalia associated with the family including the Totem Poles.

Each of the communities had its own way of carving and its own design elements. For example, Haida pieces can be identified by the shape of the eyes that they carve as Ovoid or squarish roundel. Even contemporary artists would use these key elements to depict their heritage.

Totem poles could be raised only by chiefs or high-ranking families. Not everyone could raise the poles.

Carved wood panels exist on the walls of the houses.

Aboriginals Canoes

Canoes were used for fishing and transportation across rivers. They were the prized possession of First Nations people. These long narrow boats were carved out of a single Cedar tree – mostly red cedar tree but sometimes yellow too. They took the trunk of a single tree and then scooped out the wood to create a hollow space.

Once it is hollow enough, it would be steamed – yes by heating it. The steaming process can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months depending on the size of the canoe. The wood has to be soft enough for the craftsmen to work on it. Once it is soft enough, a group of men would pull it on either side to give it the required width.

Canoes were carved as per the waters they were to ply on. For example, the islands of Haida Gwaii have rough waters so they needed big and sturdy canoes. On the other hand, Musqueams of Vancouver who mostly used canoes in the Fraser River for fishing needed basic flat-bottomed canoes. Squamish canoes can be as long as 75 feet in length.

Panels attached to the canoe for sitting have sacred images on them.

As soon as motors arrived, the fishermen shifted to motored boats. However, canoes are still made for ceremonial purposes.

I could see a special one at the Legislative Assembly building in Victoria.

Aboriginals Heritage Masks

All masks have a spiritual meaning to them and the curators will tell you that you must handle them respectfully with two hands. They are scared as they are part of rituals and ceremonies.

Some common masks you will see are:

• Raven Mask – It usually represents ancestors. Wearing it means bringing the ancestors to the ceremony.
• Bear Mask – It can be a family ancestor or play the role of someone who oversees the potlatch ceremony ensuring that everyone is doing their role and wearing their regalia.
• Eagle Mask – Used by the Eagle clan families

• Dzunukwa Mask or   Wild Woman Mask – There is a story in every First Nations community about this woman who has a basket on her back. She picks up little children in her basket, takes them home, and has them for dinner. Dzunukwa has big red lips she moves around making a noise. Ironically, she is also a symbol of wealth & prosperity.
• Bakwas – This is a water creature who takes away drowned people and someone with the power to hypnotize them.

Bear in mind that each of the communities has its own ways to use masks and this is just an indicative description to give you an idea of how these masks are used.

Woven Baskets

At every museum, you can see baskets of various kinds woven from red cedar roots or bark. Some of them are loosely woven and some of them are so tightly woven that they can even hold water. Imagine the skill required to weave the soaked bark of a tree in a way that it would not even allow water to pass through it!

Like most ancient tribes, British Columbia First Nations communities were also master weavers. They used the wool of the local sheep and a woolly white dog that it seems is extinct now. For colors, they used plant-based dyes.

The patterns on all the woven pieces I saw across museums were geometrical – which is again common across ancient communities. The fabric is coarse. Clothes woven for the chief carried the community symbols or icons.

In the late 19th, CE shiploads of machine-made blankets started coming to Vancouver and that was the end of hand-woven fabrics. The machine-made stuff was cheap and easily available, so why toil on collecting fur, spinning & weaving?

Life came full circle for British Columbia First Nations weaving when some women in the 1970s started learning the traditional way of weaving.

The Spindles that were used for weaving can be seen as a symbol at the inner harbor in Victoria.

Costumes & Jewelry

In their world, the costumes along with masks help you transform into another world. There are elaborate costumes like button blankets with family insignia or Chilkat’s. I loved the bone blanket holders I saw on Squamish costumes. There is jewelry made out of animal bones and silver. Basically, nothing that was taken from nature was wasted – everything was utilized.

Copper was a well-used metal among them though I did not see many old artifacts made of copper.

Potlatch is a sacred ceremony of the First Nations in Canada. Potlatch literally means ‘To Give’. This sacred ceremony has economic, political, and spiritual ramifications. Potlatch was done when the family raised a Totem Pole and everyone was invited to witness the event.

In the absence of written history, stories of the family were told at the Potlatch event, and gifts were given to everyone invited to Potlatch by the host family. The status of the chief’s family came from how much you could give away. Having said that, the gifts are given as per the status of the guest – big ones get the bigger gifts. It sounds so much like Indian weddings.

Potlatches were banned in British Columbia from 1884 To 1951. The Britishers did not understand the concept of collective ownership that first nations communities practiced. They also wanted to set up a very European model of governance so to enforce that they banned ceremonies like Potlatch. They would take children to be taught English and given Christian names. This was intentionally or unintentionally erasing their culture. Thankfully, the ban was lifted and you can witness a modern Potlatch if you have friends in the communities.

Potlatch Ceremony

A Potlatch ceremony begins with a long whistle sound that in a way announces the formal beginning of the ceremony. Potlatch involves mask dances with huge wooden masks. It is about bringing the ancestors alive through transformation. The chief also dances wearing his elaborate headdress along with a button blanket with the family crest on it. Button blankets are worn by the high-ranking people in the clans mostly but sometimes children can also wear them.

Potlatches are overseen by the women of the family. Any mistakes in the ceremonies are looked down upon and sometimes even fined. There is a lot of family prestige at stake if you make mistakes.

Salmon and seafood are the main foods served at Potlatches.

For more information on Potlatch – refer to this Wikipedia page.

Watch a video of a modern Potlatch ceremony.

Potlatches today are not as elaborate as they used to be in the past. However, they still have the same essence – they are about the family, about acknowledging and respecting their ancestors and hence their lineage.

Potlatches can be called for raising a pole, or, after the death of a family member of the chief or when the name is passed on from one generation to the next.

Aboriginal Tourism

As the First Nations reclaim their space in their own land, they are also venturing into aboriginal tourism. Check out their website . The tourism infrastructure of British Columbia is totally supporting them by showcasing their culture in all possible public places and museums.

Best Places to Know British Columbia First Nations Aboriginals

Here are some places where you can learn more about Aboriginal Tourism in British Columbia:

Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver

I highly recommend taking a guided tour of this museum. They tell you the story in a way that the culture and lives come alive. They will even tell you that some of the museums in New York, Berlin, London, etc have a much bigger collection of their art but that is all from the past. This museum is situated on their land and is in constant dialogue with the artisans. They regularly talk to community elders and the new generation to see what these artworks mean for each of them.

You can see a traditional Haida house behind the museum. There are all kinds of artifacts on display.

What I recommend is to sit back on comfortable red chairs and listen to them tell you their folk tales. I heard one of them for 10 minutes or so, but if I had all the time in this world, I would just sit back and listen to these stories while surrounded by the items that help me visualize those stories.

Royal BC Museum, Victoria

This is a beautifully curated museum that takes you through the history of the tribal people through various objects. I loved their Totem Pole gallery which almost gives you a feeling of being in an aboriginal village.

The best part of the Royal BC Museum at Victoria is its documentation of the languages of the tribes. You can see how they are trying to document the spoken languages by recording with elders. How they are developing a script that has all the sounds their languages have using the Roman script. You can enter small cells and hear the language to know how they sound. You can press the button and hear a greeting in the different First Nation’s languages.

How I wish we could do this for all vanishing languages of the world.

Squamish and Lil’wat Cultural Center, Whistler

This small but lovely center was my first introduction to the tribal communities. The center talks about two tribes – Squamish which lives a bit south of Whistler and Lil’wat which lives a little North of Whistler.

I loved the guided tour and the small video showing their cultures and traditions. I had Goosebumps while watching the video & while exploring the souvenir shop. And I knew I would re-align the rest of my trip to know more and that is exactly what I did.

Audain Museum, Aboriginals Art, Whistler

This museum also takes you through both the old and the new Aboriginal’s art. Here I saw this amazing wood-carved screen that is used for performances. It reminded me of Arjuna’s Penance in Mahabalipuram where we have a backdrop full of stories for a performance stage.

All around the screen is Salmon – the key food around which life is sustained. In the center of the screen are all the animals who rely on salmon for food. On one side of the screen is the female killer whale on another side is the male killer whale. Up above a Raven is holding two humans. In the center is the Shaman sitting on a door panel. The dancers would come in through this screen indicating that they are coming from a spiritual world. The shaman is the witness to the performance.

There is so much more I want to know about these lovely people of British Columbia.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

10 Best Fishing Destinations Around The World

12 Best Places To See In The Canadian Rockies

Whistler Canada – Things To Do In Ski Town Of British Columbia

46 comments.

This is such an interesting and exhaustive post on the indigenous people of Canada! I have always been fascinated by Cultural Anthropology.

As,I read the story I could relate it with our India in so many ways.Just day before,I attended Indian art & culture sessions by Shri.Benoy( I am sure you know him..because we share similar interests) and we had discussed the effects of Colonialism on the world.

It is indeed sad and painful that the legitimate occupants of the land ought to live in denial and in an identity crisis!

I am also glad that they have started imprinting their past and works in writing.A late wake-up call but very much needed if we ought to protect our diverse cultural identities.

I also observed that they look so similar in photographs to the tribes settled in and around Orissa and Aruku!! Did you also find a resemblance ,ma’am?

Meenakshi – I could see a strong resonance with what happened to Indic culture in India. We need to come back as strong as them to reclaim our culture. I could see a resemblance in features with North East people, not sure if Odisha and Andhra people resemble them.

The good part is now amidst all modernity too, you can miss their culture – it is everywhere to be seen and admired. They are championing the aboriginal tourism.

We have something similar in Europe like Dzunukwa and Bakwas. People tell kids that the “Perchten” will come from the mountains with a witch to take the naughty children. And my dad would smile now because he kept on trying to make us kids believe that the water man (like Bakwas) would come and take us if we go into the river. These are old believes from the Alps but then again I can see a similarity. I find those indigenous people very interesting too and I think they have a huge knowledge about the surrounding nature of the area. Canada is huge after all and diverse as well! Do the indiginous people have territories like in the US where they are not under the countrie’s jurisdiction?

Wow, all the ancient cultures are so distinct, yet so similar. We all have stories to communicate the message which were far more effective than preaching.

All the aboriginal communities lived with nature so they had a very strong relationship with their surroundings beside knowledge. As of now, all these communities are under the jurisdiction of Canada, but if there are others outside, I do not know. First Nations are reestablishing their culture as Canadians but carrying their first nation’s identity distinctly.

Canada is definitely on my list as a place I want to visit to and explore. Thank you for your in-depth introduction to the First Nations people in this post. I had no idea that they came from Siberia, that the cedar tree has SO many uses and it was a pesticide! Indigenous people certainly had/have such vast knowledge of the land, what plants to use. I also had no idea that totem poles told the story of the family that carved it! I hope that the First Nations will reclaim their lands back through the court. It’s about time!

Mags – To me it was all a discovery in few days in Canada. I did not know anything about First Nations – but am glad that I found them just about everywhere in British Columbia. They are reclaiming their heritage and everything they can & I think they are a great inspiration for aboriginals around the world.

I had no idea there was such a richness of Heritage in Canada in British Columbia. I particularly like the canoe with its motifs! And the story of finger touching if you are going to take from a tree. Fascinating

Fiona – all their stories, legends, and myths are so fascinating. I can go back just to explore them once again.

A really interesting and detailed post. We are hoping to visit Western Canada next year so the more we know about the rich heritage of the area, the better. Didn’t realise how many First Nations communities there were in Canada. The two eras of art are particularly fascinating.

It is lovely how the old art forms are being presented in modern forms or how the old motifs are replacing the usual abstract art. You would enjoy Western Canada.

Wow what an amazing article! I learned so much here! British Columbia has always been a dream for me, for its incredible landscapes, and now that I have been introduced to its First Nations communities and all this cultural heritage, it makes the whole thing much deeper and fascinating.

Julien, I just shared what I learned during my BC trip. Even I thought of British Columbia full of natural wonders – which it is, but this whole cultural aspect was a sheer discovery and what a joy it gave me.

Haidi Gwaii is definitely one of the best spots not only in B.C. but also Canada to learn about Aboriginal culture. I haven’t been to the island yet unfortunately, but have heard it’s an incredible experience!

Tamara – even I could not go to Haida Gwaii – I just heard their stories and saw a typical home of theirs at the museum of anthropology. I would also like to visit the island as and when I am there next.

This was a fascinating read. I have recently been to Alaska and loved the totem poles, so this was nice to read. Next time I go to Vancouver I will go to the First Nations Art at Museum of Anthropology as it looks very interesting.

Lucy – and now I want to go to Alaska to see the Totem Poles there. Culturally the First Nations of BC are related to the first nations of Alaska.

Wow, I learned so much about Canada. Those portraits and masterpieces are absolutely stunning and rich with history. It must be a very amazing cultural experience. It’s also a shame that it is the first time I heard of Aboriginal Tourism. Thank you for making me less ignorant today!

Kirstie – we all learn from each other. I have learned from each of the bloggers I have read. I also discovered aboriginal tourism for the first time in British Columbia. Now, my curiosity is raised and I want to see more and more of it.

Very interesting, when I think of aboriginal people, Indians (aka Native Americans) don’t come to mind. Nor that they were in Canada, but it makes sense. Good tip about cedar being a natural repellant. The details on the totem poles are amazing.

Debra – there is hardly anything we know about the native people across the world. My sense is that they are all coming out and soon we would see them more than ever, which is a wonderful thing. They have stayed in shadow for too long.

What an interesting history British Columbia has! I would love to go there and visit this part of the World one day and visit the local museums and see these artifacts you mention in your post. Sounds like it is a really fascinating place.

Barb, it is a fascinating history full of art history and culture. May you get to see it soon enough.

What a fascinating account of the Original inhabitants. Like you mention we can draw a lot of parallels with many other cultures including our own. I have added this to my list of things to do in Canada. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Nisha Ji. May you get to travel to BC soon.

Learnt something new today – I wasn’t aware of the name First Nations to describe the Canadian indigenous people. I really like it though, I feel it’s a very respectful name. I’m also very interested and fascinated by the people who came before us, and the communities and tribes who lived off the same land we live off today. I love that the First Nation’s imprint is so prominently displayed throughout BC, through their artwork, totem poles, and it sounds like there are many fabulous museums worth visiting. They created so many interesting things, from their canoes, to jewellery, baskets and masks!

Really interesting to know that the First nations from BC never surrendered or sold their land to colonialists. And it’s fabulous to hear that aboriginal tourism is really taking off, so that they can educate the rest of the world on their culture, preserve their history, and, most importantly, be the ones who benefit from the tourist $$

Thanks for this really interesting post!

Meg – Even I learned the meaning of First Nations after I landed in BC. It was such a learning experience for me and now such a joy to share this with traveling friends. Hope more and more visit first nations and help them grow more and help them preserve their culture.

I’ve seen several photos of the First Nations Group on books and movies, but I didn’t know they are from Canada.. Such an informative post to a group pf people who form part of Canada’s beautiful history.. Very interesting facts about the Totem Pole too. What a unique way of documenting a family’s status and wealth… 🙂

Marvi – They are in Canada, Hawaii and some parts of USA as well. I guess Totem Poles were a cultural version of printed word today. Every motif in them was loaded with meaning and history.

It’s indeed captivating to know about first nations, sometimes if we all have the luxury of time, we could just sit and listen to their stories and learn so much more deeply. The Totem poles reminded me of a first safari in the Philippines where Totem poles look alike were placed. Tho I’ve not seen First Nations, but only on movies, it’s also nice to read interesting things about them, a combination of culture, history and something more.

Oh, I did not know they have Totem Poles in the Philippines as well. I need to go there. I was totally fascinated by everything I could see, experience about First Nations and there is so much more I want to know about them.

As a Canadian myself, I am always fascinated how much more I learn everyday about this cultural group! It’s always so interesting to learn more about the people who came to our land before us. I love how they are so ubiquitous throughout BC, and epecially throughout the artwork!

As a Canadian myself, I am always fascinated how much more I learn everyday about this cultural group! It’s always so interesting to learn more about the people who came to our land before us. I love how they are so ubiquitous throughout BC, and especially throughout the artwork!

Alli – First nations history, culture, art is fascinating. What is even more interesting is that their culture shares so much with the aboriginal culture around the world including their art forms and storytelling.

Thank you for spreading awareness about the indigenous populations that have been so unfairly forgotten in the aftermath of colonization. This post has totally reignited my goal to further educate myself about native cultures and histories throughout the world- definitely necessary to understand the foundations of the places we call home.

Lois – Bingo! The more I read about First Nations of BC, more I am inclined to read about ancient cultures and explore them by visiting all the oldest inhabited places in the world.

This is amazing. As an American we frequently study First Nations peoples here (well … we study them historically. Somehow we seem to gloss over their current plights) but I admit I knew nothing about British Columbia’s First Nations peoples. I feel much more educated now thanks to this comprehensive post!

Thanks, Lia. Glad that you found the post on First Nations educative. Good to know that they at least teach you historically about First Nations – we in India hardly know about our aboriginal tribes.

This is a fascinating journey into the hearts and the origin of the indigenous people of British Columbia. Always intrigued by the origin and roots of any people and their culture. The great migrations of Man millions of years ago have resulted in myriad cultures mushrooming in different parts of the earth. But somewhere they all link together to one common origin. The faith practiced by the First Nations people where they worship nature has echoes of the Vedic age in India.

Yes, all ancient cultures lived in sync with nature. God knows when we distanced ourselves from all-pervasive nature around us. Wonder if it happened when we built physical walls between us.

The native people of Canada have such a fascinating and rich history. I live in Ontario and we have many native communities here. There are a lot of problems with the treatment of indigenous people over the years here and I’m not sure what we’ll ever make it right.

I’d love to go to British Columbia and see the totems and the native art that you’ve showcased! It’s beautiful.

Lauren – I believe Ontario has the largest population of First Nations. I want to visit Ontario and see how the people on two coasts are similar and different. I hope people reclaim their rightful position in the society where they have loved since time immemorial.

Wow, what an informative post! Love reading about all the traditions including the totem poles and masks. Glad to hear there are opportunities to learn about this culture through traveling. Thanks for teaching me about a new culture today.

Brian – It was such an immense learning experience at British Columbia to learn about these aboriginal people and to know that the tourism is getting more and more aligned towards their culture.

Your posts are so insightful and informative at the same time! ❤ It’s like reading a good book before bed!

Thank you, my namesake, for that lovely compliment. Do keep encouraging us.

Really it’s a very attractive place I am always fascinated to visit this kind of places. This place directly related to Canada’s history. The person who can’t even visit Canada earlier they can visit famous places through your blog. Really you are doing a Great Job!

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Popular Posts

Bath – City Of Roman Baths, Jane Austen & River Avon

Bikaner Havelis – Heritage Walk Through Opulence

Madurai Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu Visit – A Travelogue

Mithila’s Madhubani Artist Ganga Devi & Her Paintings

Forum Romanum – Rome Tour You Must Read And Know

A quick guide to Aboriginal Tourism in BC

Things to do

The Haida. The Tsimshian. The Nuu-chah-nulth. The Stó:lō. The Ktunaxa. These are just some of the 50-plus First Nations of British Columbia, some of which have inhabited the region for 12,000 years.

The province is home to the highest diversity of First Nations societies in Canada, each with its own language, traditions, and history. Aboriginal cultures are increasingly accessible to visitors, with growth in everything from Aboriginal-owned art galleries and cultural centers, to First Nations-operated wilderness treks, wildlife viewing tours, and cultural experiences.

To help you connect with the origins of British Columbia during your stay, we’ve gathered some of the most interesting Aboriginal experiences in the province.

Museums and galleries

Archeological finds, totem poles, jewellery, and carvings are just some of what you'll find in BC's world-leading Aboriginal museums and galleries.

• The Museum of Anthropology External Link Title , at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, contains one of the finest displays of First Nations art in the world. Located on ancestral Musqueam land, the museum strives to showcase the incredible culture and traditions of these First Nations hosts. Incredible artwork greets you as you walk through the front doors. As you enter the Great Hall, you'll be awed by massive, intricate totem poles. Over 10,000 culturally significant objects from around the world are on display in the museum's galleries, and travelling exhibits help bring fresh perspectives to the rich permanent collection.
• The Bill Reid Gallery External Link Title , located in downtown Vancouver, showcases the works of the acclaimed Haida master sculptor, carver, goldsmith, writer, and spokesman. The gallery also hosts travelling exhibits and permanent works from other Aboriginal artists. On a typical visit, you'll see stunning gold and silver jewellery, large sculptures, and a towering totem pole by Haida Gwaii artist James Hart. Don't leave without picking up an authentic indigenous work of art to take home from the gallery shop.
• In the heart of Prince Rupert, north of Vancouver,  the Museum of Northern British Columbia External Link Title  is home to artifacts reflecting the 10,000-year-long First Nations settlement of the area. Set in a Northwest Coast traditional longhouse overlooking the harbour, the museum has earned international acclaim for the quality of its collection. Peruse the Hall of Nations, appreciating the distinctive art, ceremonial objects and regalia of each Northwest Coast First Nation.

Other excellent collections can be found at  The Royal BC Museum External Link Title in Victoria, the  Haida Heritage Centre External Link Title  in Skidegate, and the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre External Link Title in Whistler.

Cultural experiences and destinations

One of the most popular ways to learn about a First Nations' way of life is to visit one of BC's many heritage parks and villages. These centres allow you to experience, and sometimes participate in, the traditions and cultures of the local Aboriginal groups that run them.

• In Northern BC lies the  'Ksan Historical Village and Museum External Link Title , a re-created Gitxsan village. Seven longhouses, the first of which was built in 1959, replicate a community that stood on the same riverside site for hundreds, or possibly thousands of years.
• The  Secwepemc Museum & Heritage Park External Link Title  in Kamloops is a reconstructed village at a traditional gathering place. The 12-acre site is home to a replica winter pit house village, a summer lodge, gardens showing plants used by the Secwepemc, a wildlife marsh, and a museum.  On the BC Day long weekend, at the beginning of August, Kamloops hosts the annual  Kamloopa Powwow External Link Title , BC's biggest festival of First Nations dance.
• At the  Xat's?ll Heritage Village External Link Title  in Soda Creek, overlooking the Fraser River, visitors can learn about the daily lives of the Xat's?ll people. Visit a sweat house, learn to make traditional crafts, and join a lava rock pit cooking demonstration. You can even sleep in a teepee or pit house to immerse yourself in the Xat's?ll experience.
• Vancouver Island offers a multitude of authentic Aboriginal experiences. Sea Wolf Adventures External Link Title , based in Port McNeill, takes guests to BC's remote Great Bear Rainforest and Broughton Archipelago areas for grizzly bear viewing, whale watching and local First Nations Cultural tours. Alert Bay's U'mista Cultural Centre External Link Title has a renowned collection of Kwakwaka'wakw potlatch regalia.

A growing number of Aboriginal-owned tourism operators are also encouraging visitors to enjoy BC's wilderness, wildlife, culture, and history from a First Nations point of view. Experiences range from  paddling a traditional ocean-going canoe External Link Title  and  seeking out the mysterious Kermode (Spirit) bear External Link Title  in the Great Bear Rainforest, to watching a dance performance and joining a generations-old purification ceremony.

Tradition meets modern living

One of the best ways to get to know a person, or understand a culture, is by sharing a meal. Several BC resorts are owned and operated by First Nations people and offer a taste of Aboriginal food, culture, and entertainment alongside modern accommodations. These include  Tsa-Kwa-Luten External Link Title , an oceanfront resort on Quadra Island, the  St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino External Link Title  in Cranbrook, and the  Quaaout Lodge & Spa External Link Title .

You can also visit North America's first Aboriginal-owned-and-operated winery, the Nk'Mip Cellars in Osoyoos. The cellars are part of the larger  NK'MIP Resort External Link Title , which includes vineyards, a cultural center, a spa, and a golf course.

For more on First Nations experiences, visit the Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia’s website .

Get inspired

Other articles you might enjoy

Vancouver to Whistler: a 3-day itinerary

Fall colours in Canada

The best spots in Canada for a romantic getaway

The best of Canada’s vibrant cities from coast to coast to coast

5 New Year’s resolutions to check off in Canada

Five of Canada’s best beaches near the city

Local's guide: Canada's best breweries and pubs

Experience Indigenous culture in the heart of the city

8 urban adventures to try in Canada

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons
• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

12.4: Indigenous Tourism in BC

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 9374

• Morgan Westcott & Wendy Anderson et al.

The Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia (ATBC), now recognized as Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC), was founded in 1996 and was spurred by a research project that detailed the changing motivations of visitors to BC. The research results identified that specific target markets were particularly motivated to visit BC to experience local or regional Indigenous culture. Leveraging this information and initial organizational momentum, ITBC has matured to become a stable and effective organization by establishing funding partnerships with governments, developing a stakeholder membership model, and initiating a range of development strategies and tactics outlined in regularly updated action plans.

ITBC provides recognized leadership to support the estimated 401 Indigenous tourism related businesses operating in BC. These businesses generate $705 million indirect gross domestic output and provides 7,400 direct full-time jobs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents in BC through their activities (ITBC, 2019).

Spotlight On: Indigenous Tourism BC

Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) has gained an international reputation for effectiveness. Its role is to encourage the professional development of Indigenous cultural experiences and destinations in the province and to then support marketing those businesses to the world.

For more information featuring market-ready Indigenous tourism experiences within BC visit the external consumer-focused ITBC website .

For more details about ITBC’s history, structure and planning tools visit the ITBC internal corporate and stakeholder-focused website .

Since its inception, ITBC has grown to represent a diverse range of stakeholder businesses and organizations, including campgrounds, art galleries and gift shops, hotels, eco-lodges and resorts, Indigenous restaurants and catering services, cultural heritage sites and interpretive centres, kayak and canoe tours, adventure tourism operations, and guided hikes through heritage sites (Aboriginal Tourism BC, 2012). It has also proven adept at online promotion and social media, has also become world renowned for its strategic approach to Indigenous tourism development.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Tourism Trip Planner App

Indigenous Tourism BC marketing staff are regularly updating not just their consumer website, but also their social media platforms with rich visual assets, including promotional videos for the sector, regions, and specific companies.

In 2020, they also released a new app for Indigenous Tourism trip planning, which includes some virtual experiences. Learn more by downloading it on your digital device at Indigenous BC Trip Planner App .

A Strategic Approach to Growth

In 2017, the organization now known as ITBC released its five-year strategic plan, entitled “Pulling Together,” which identified targets for Indigenous cultural tourism industry success in BC. Its goals by 2022 included:

• Increased provincial revenue of $75 million
• Employment at 4,950 full-time equivalent positions
• 128 market-ready Indigenous cultural tourism businesses

To achieve these targets, the plan focused on five distinct strategic performance areas:

• Experience Development
• Partnerships
• Organizational Excellence

Following good overall tourism planning principles, ITBC ensured its plan aligned with Destination BC’s strategy, Welcoming Visitors—Benefiting Locals—Working Together, A Strategic Framework for Tourism in BC , as well as Canada’s federal tourism strategy. Consistent with this sustained alignment, recent efforts have placed renewed emphasis on the need for market readiness.

Push for Market Readiness

As we’ve learned elsewhere in this textbook, today’s travellers are more complex than in the past and have higher expectations. Potential guests are well acquainted with technology and have the world at their fingertips. For this reason, it’s important that Indigenous operators ensure they are sufficiently ready to run as a tourism business and compete in an increasingly crowded tourism marketplace.

There are three categories of readiness, each with a set of criteria that must be met (Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada, 2013):

• A visitor-ready operation is often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but not be considered ready for cost-shared promotions with other businesses due to lack of amenities or predictability.
• A market-ready business must meet visitor-ready criteria plus demonstrate a number of other strengths around customer service, marketing materials, published pricing and payments policies, short response times and reservations systems, and so on.
• Export-ready criteria include the previous categories, plus sophisticated travel distribution trade channels to attract out-of-town visitors. They provide highly reliable services to all guests, particularly those traveling with groups.

By educating cultural tourism businesses about these standards, and then creating incentives for marketing opportunities, ITBC helps to raise the bar for BC Indigenous cultural tourism experiences. Its goal is to support as many operators toward market readiness (the second category) as possible so that they may eventually become export ready alongside other BC tourism experiences.

Take a Closer Look: Authentic Indigenous

Authentic Indigenous is a marketing initiative by Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) – a successful designation program that identifies strong cultural Indigenous tourism experiences as Authentic Indigenous. With this designation, ITBC meets the demands of travellers seeking unique, educational, eco-friendly and culturally appropriate experiences within Indigenous communities across BC. Find out more by visiting the Authentic Indigenous web page .

Another key component of the Indigenous tourism experience is the host. In BC, the FirstHost program supports the development of Indigenous hosts who are well trained, know what guests are looking for, and who can help provide an authentic cultural experience. The one-day tourism workshop is offered through ITBC and delivered throughout British Columbia

FirstHost was inspired by Hawaiian tourism pioneer, Dr. George Kanahele (1913-2000), who saw the impact tourism was having on indigenous culture and set out to educate the industry that “the relationship between place, host and guest must be one of equality” (Native Education College, 2014, p. 28). Participants learn about hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship. This well-received workshop, delivered by Indigenous trainers, is another reason Indigenous tourism continues to grow stronger in the province.

Take a Closer Look: Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program

The Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) was born through a desire to increase workforce and community capacity for Indigenous tourism in coastal BC and developed in partnership between Vancouver Island University (VIU), North Island College (NIC), and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council (HTC), with support from Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) and funding through the Canada-British Columbia Job Fund.

Since 2014, 70 graduates from over 27 First Nations have successfully completed the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) that features an innovative place-based, culturally relevant and experiential design to post-secondary learning. Many of these students have continued in the tourism sector or are engaged in ongoing post-secondary education in business and tourism.

Learn more through a video on the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program and the article Adventures in Ecotourism: Building Partnerships, Collaborations and Trust through Aboriginal Education .

Examples of BC Indigenous Tourism Development

Spotlight On: Moccasin Trails

Many exceptional leaders and entrepreneurs in Indigenous Tourism wear multiple hats. Besides family, community, and cultural responsibilities, this often includes many other complex roles within Indigenous Tourism development through sector, regional, and national associations, plus outreach as consultants beyond their own tourism business — sharing expertise that bridges cultures and systems.

One dynamic example is through the suite of tourism experiences, services and leadership offered by Frank Antoine and Greg Hopf of Moccasin Trails in the Kamloops area.

They describe that, “We wanted to bring people from around the world on the ancestral paths our people walked, have them taste the food we ate, sing the songs we sang, hear the stories that were passed down orally from generations ago, and travel down the rivers we canoed. In order to truly learn about our culture we felt the only way was to touch, smell, see, hear, and feel it. Our journey started hundreds of years ago but your journey will start right now with us at Moccasin Trails .

Their vision and motivation is very representative of the tangible, tireless and authentic energy that underlies much of Indigenous Tourism development.

Indigenous tourism in BC offers diverse visitor opportunities that range from arts and cultural attractions to authentic food and beverage experiences to wildlife tours that highlight the spiritual significance of BC’s natural places for Indigenous people.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Experiences — A Journey

The consumer website for Indigenous Tourism BC features things to do, places to see, trip planning tools, featured itineraries and stories. For more information, visit the Indigenous Tourism BC website .

Examples of BC Indigenous tourism enterprises include:

• The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in the heart of downtown Vancouver, home of the permanent collection of Bill Reid as well as contemporary exhibitions.
• St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino , a First Nation-owned 4.5-star hotel with a golf course and casino, outside of Cranbrook in the Kootenay Rockies.
• Cariboo Chilcotin Jetboat Adventures , offering exciting and scenic tours of the Fraser River.
• Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro, offering authentic Indigenous food in urban Vancouver.
• Spirit Bear Lodge , in the Great Bear Rainforest, specialize in wildlife and Indigenous cultural experiences.
• Talaysay Tours offering Indigenous cultural and eco-tourism experiences in and around Vancouver, Squamish and the Sunshine Coast.
• Skwachàys Lodge , a downtown Vancouver luxury hotel, art gallery and store operating as a social enterprise and supporting Indigenous artists.

Take a Closer Look: UNESCO World Heritage List

This list, evolving from 1972 World Heritage Convention, identifies outstanding significant sites across the globe, linking the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The convention sets out the duties of governments in identifying potential sites and their role in protecting and preserving them. The list features an interactive map and an alphabetical list. To explore the more than 1,100 properties on the list, including 20 sites in Canada, visit the UNESCO World Heritage List .

The village of SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay (formerly Ninstints or Nan Sdins) is a prominent example of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada, located on a small island off the west coast of Haida Gwaii.

While ITBC members are too numerous to detail here, one BC First Nation is often in the spotlight for its significant tourism and economic development activity, thanks to its physical and cultural assets and positive leadership. Let’s take a closer look at this example.

Osoyoos Indian Band

The Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) is located in the Interior of BC. A main goal of the OIB has been to move from dependency to a sustainable economy like that which existed before contact (Centre for First Nations Governance, 2013).

Take a Closer Look: Centre for First Nations Governance Success Stories

The Centre for First Nations Governance is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing self-governance support to First Nations communities across Canada. It helps with planning, governance, the establishment of laws, and nation-rebuilding efforts. Its website features success stories, in video format, that highlight these efforts. For more information, visit the Centre for First Nations Governance website for Success Stories.

Okanagan First Nations once travelled widely to fish, gather, and hunt. Each year, the first harvests of roots, berries, fish, and game were celebrated during ceremonies honouring the food chiefs who provided for the people. During the winter, people returned to permanent winter villages. The names of many of the settlements in the Okanagan Valley — Osoyoos, Keremeos, Penticton and Kelowna — come from Indigenous words for these settled areas and attest to the long history of the Syilx people on this land.

Forty-five years ago, the OIB was bankrupt and living off government social assistance. In 1988, it sought to turn the tide on this history and created the Osoyoos Indian Band Development Corporation (OIBDC). Through focused leadership and initiative, the band has been able to develop agriculture, eco-tourism, and commercial, industrial, and residential developments on its 32,200 acre reserve lands. It does have the good fortune to be located in one of Canada’s premier agricultural and tourism regions; however, it has also taken a determined and well-crafted effort to become an example of Indigenous economic success.

The OIBDC manages a number of tourism-related businesses including the Nk’Mip Campground and RV Park, Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. In addition, the OIBDC have several prominent tourism-related partnerships, including with Baldy Mt. Ski Resort, Nk’Mip Cellars, Spirit Ridge Resort, and others (OIB, 2020). The area attracts about 400,000 visitors per year, and at peak tourist season there is essentially full employment among the more than 470 members of the Osoyoos reserve.

In addition to the core businesses and partnerships, many secondary businesses have formed. For example, the award-winning Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre promotes conservation efforts for desert wildlife and has also helped to create several spinoff businesses, including a landscaping business, a greenhouse for indigenous plants, a website development business, and a community arts and crafts market (LinkBC, 2012).

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 9. Indigenous Tourism

9.4 Indigenous Tourism in BC

The Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia (ATBC), now recognized as Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) , was founded in 1996 and was spurred by a research project that detailed the changing motivations of visitors to BC. The research results identified that specific target markets were particularly motivated to visit BC to experience local or regional Indigenous culture. Leveraging this information and initial organizational momentum, ITBC has matured to become a stable and effective organization by establishing funding partnerships with governments, developing a stakeholder membership model, and initiating a range of development strategies and tactics outlined in regularly updated action plans.

ITBC provides recognized leadership to support the estimated 401 Indigenous tourism related businesses operating in BC. These businesses generate $705 million indirect gross domestic output and provides 7,400 direct full-time jobs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents in BC through their activities (ITBC, 2019).

Spotlight On: Indigenous Tourism BC

Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) has gained an international reputation for effectiveness. Its role is to encourage the professional development of Indigenous cultural experiences and destinations in the province and to then support marketing those businesses to the world.

For more information featuring market-ready Indigenous tourism experiences within BC visit the external consumer-focused ITBC website .

For more details about ITBC’s history, structure and planning tools visit the ITBC internal corporate and stakeholder-focused website .

Since its inception, ITBC has grown to represent a diverse range of stakeholder businesses and organizations, including campgrounds, art galleries and gift shops, hotels, eco-lodges and resorts, Indigenous restaurants and catering services, cultural heritage sites and interpretive centres, kayak and canoe tours, adventure tourism operations, and guided hikes through heritage sites (Aboriginal Tourism BC, 2012). It has also proven adept at online promotion and social media, has also become world renowned for its strategic approach to Indigenous tourism development.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Tourism Trip Planner App

Indigenous Tourism BC marketing staff are regularly updating not just their consumer website, but also their social media platforms with rich visual assets, including promotional videos for the sector, regions, and specific companies.

In 2020, they also released a new app for Indigenous Tourism trip planning, which includes some virtual experiences. Learn more by downloading it on your digital device at Indigenous BC Trip Planner App .

A Strategic Approach to Growth

In 2017, the organization now known as ITBC released its five-year strategic plan, entitled “Pulling Together,” which identified targets for Indigenous cultural tourism industry success in BC. Its goals by 2022 included:

• Increased provincial revenue of $75 million
• Employment at 4,950 full-time equivalent positions
• 128 market-ready Indigenous cultural tourism businesses

To achieve these targets, the plan focused on five distinct strategic performance areas:

• Experience Development
• Partnerships
• Organizational Excellence

Following good overall tourism planning principles, ITBC ensured its plan aligned with Destination BC’s strategy, Welcoming Visitors—Benefiting Locals—Working Together, A Strategic Framework for Tourism in BC , as well as Canada’s federal tourism strategy. Consistent with this sustained alignment, recent efforts have placed renewed emphasis on the need for market readiness.

Push for Market Readiness

As we’ve learned elsewhere in this textbook, today’s travellers are more complex than in the past and have higher expectations. Potential guests are well acquainted with technology and have the world at their fingertips. For this reason, it’s important that Indigenous operators ensure they are sufficiently ready to run as a tourism business and compete in an increasingly crowded tourism marketplace.

There are three categories of readiness, each with a set of criteria that must be met (Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada, 2013):

• A visitor-ready operation is often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but not be considered ready for cost-shared promotions with other businesses due to lack of amenities or predictability.
• A market-ready business must meet visitor-ready criteria plus demonstrate a number of other strengths around customer service, marketing materials, published pricing and payments policies, short response times and reservations systems, and so on.
• Export-ready criteria include the previous categories, plus sophisticated travel distribution trade channels to attract out-of-town visitors. They provide highly reliable services to all guests, particularly those traveling with groups.

By educating cultural tourism businesses about these standards, and then creating incentives for marketing opportunities, ITBC helps to raise the bar for BC Indigenous cultural tourism experiences. Its goal is to support as many operators toward market readiness (the second category) as possible so that they may eventually become export ready alongside other BC tourism experiences.

Take a Closer Look: Authentic Indigenous

Authentic Indigenous is a marketing initiative by Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) – a successful designation program that identifies strong cultural Indigenous tourism experiences as Authentic Indigenous. With this designation, ITBC meets the demands of travellers seeking unique, educational, eco-friendly and culturally appropriate experiences within Indigenous communities across BC. Find out more by visiting the Authentic Indigenous web page .

Another key component of the Indigenous tourism experience is the host. In BC, the FirstHost program supports the development of Indigenous hosts who are well trained, know what guests are looking for, and who can help provide an authentic cultural experience. The one-day tourism workshop is offered through ITBC and delivered throughout British Columbia

FirstHost was inspired by Hawaiian tourism pioneer, Dr. George Kanahele (1913-2000), who saw the impact tourism was having on indigenous culture and set out to educate the industry that “the relationship between place, host and guest must be one of equality” (Native Education College, 2014, p. 28). Participants learn about hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship. This well-received workshop, delivered by Indigenous trainers, is another reason Indigenous tourism continues to grow stronger in the province.

Take a Closer Look: Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program

The Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) was born through a desire to increase workforce and community capacity for Indigenous tourism in coastal BC and developed in partnership between Vancouver Island University (VIU), North Island College (NIC), and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council (HTC), with support from Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) and funding through the Canada-British Columbia Job Fund.

Since 2014, 70 graduates from over 27 First Nations have successfully completed the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) that features an innovative place-based, culturally relevant and experiential design to post-secondary learning. Many of these students have continued in the tourism sector or are engaged in ongoing post-secondary education in business and tourism.

Learn more through a video on the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program and the article Adventures in Ecotourism: Building Partnerships, Collaborations and Trust through Aboriginal Education .

Examples of BC Indigenous Tourism Development

Spotlight On: Moccasin Trails

Many exceptional leaders and entrepreneurs in Indigenous Tourism wear multiple hats. Besides family, community, and cultural responsibilities, this often includes many other complex roles within Indigenous Tourism development through sector, regional, and national associations, plus outreach as consultants beyond their own tourism business — sharing expertise that bridges cultures and systems.

One dynamic example is through the suite of tourism experiences, services and leadership offered by Frank Antoine and Greg Hopf of Moccasin Trails in the Kamloops area.

They describe that, “We wanted to bring people from around the world on the ancestral paths our people walked, have them taste the food we ate, sing the songs we sang, hear the stories that were passed down orally from generations ago, and travel down the rivers we canoed. In order to truly learn about our culture we felt the only way was to touch, smell, see, hear, and feel it. Our journey started hundreds of years ago but your journey will start right now with us at Moccasin Trails .

Their vision and motivation is very representative of the tangible, tireless and authentic energy that underlies much of Indigenous Tourism development.

Indigenous tourism in BC offers diverse visitor opportunities that range from arts and cultural attractions to authentic food and beverage experiences to wildlife tours that highlight the spiritual significance of BC’s natural places for Indigenous people.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Experiences — A Journey

The consumer website for Indigenous Tourism BC features things to do, places to see, trip planning tools, featured itineraries and stories. For more information, visit the Indigenous Tourism BC website .

Examples of BC Indigenous tourism enterprises include:

• The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in the heart of downtown Vancouver, home of the permanent collection of Bill Reid as well as contemporary exhibitions.
• St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino , a First Nation-owned 4.5-star hotel with a golf course and casino, outside of Cranbrook in the Kootenay Rockies.
• Cariboo Chilcotin Jetboat Adventures , offering exciting and scenic tours of the Fraser River.
• Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro , offering authentic Indigenous food in urban Vancouver.
• Spirit Bear Lodge , in the Great Bear Rainforest, specialize in wildlife and Indigenous cultural experiences.
• Talaysay Tours offering Indigenous cultural and eco-tourism experiences in and around Vancouver, Squamish and the Sunshine Coast.
• Skwachàys Lodge , a downtown Vancouver luxury hotel, art gallery and store operating as a social enterprise and supporting Indigenous artists.

Take a Closer Look: UNESCO World Heritage List 

This list, evolving from 1972 World Heritage Convention, identifies outstanding significant sites across the globe, linking the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The convention sets out the duties of governments in identifying potential sites and their role in protecting and preserving them. The list features an interactive map and an alphabetical list. To explore the more than 1,100 properties on the list, including 20 sites in Canada, visit the UNESCO World Heritage List .

The village of SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay (formerly Ninstints or Nan Sdins) is a prominent example of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada, located on a small island off the west coast of Haida Gwaii.

While ITBC members are too numerous to detail here, one BC First Nation is often in the spotlight for its significant tourism and economic development activity, thanks to its physical and cultural assets and positive leadership. Let’s take a closer look at this example.

Osoyoos Indian Band

The Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) is located in the Interior of BC. A main goal of the OIB has been to move from dependency to a sustainable economy like that which existed before contact (Centre for First Nations Governance, 2013).

Take a Closer Look: Centre for First Nations Governance Success Stories

The Centre for First Nations Governance is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing self-governance support to First Nations communities across Canada. It helps with planning, governance, the establishment of laws, and nation-rebuilding efforts. Its website features success stories, in video format, that highlight these efforts. For more information, visit the Centre for First Nations Governance website for Success Stories.

Okanagan First Nations once travelled widely to fish, gather, and hunt. Each year, the first harvests of roots, berries, fish, and game were celebrated during ceremonies honouring the food chiefs who provided for the people. During the winter, people returned to permanent winter villages. The names of many of the settlements in the Okanagan Valley — Osoyoos, Keremeos, Penticton and Kelowna — come from Indigenous words for these settled areas and attest to the long history of the Syilx people on this land.

Forty-five years ago, the OIB was bankrupt and living off government social assistance. In 1988, it sought to turn the tide on this history and created the Osoyoos Indian Band Development Corporation (OIBDC). Through focused leadership and initiative, the band has been able to develop agriculture, eco-tourism, and commercial, industrial, and residential developments on its 32,200 acre reserve lands. It does have the good fortune to be located in one of Canada’s premier agricultural and tourism regions; however, it has also taken a determined and well-crafted effort to become an example of Indigenous economic success.

The OIBDC manages a number of tourism-related businesses including the Nk’Mip Campground and RV Park, Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. In addition, the OIBDC have several prominent tourism-related partnerships, including with Baldy Mt. Ski Resort, Nk’Mip Cellars, Spirit Ridge Resort, and others (OIB, 2020). The area attracts about 400,000 visitors per year, and at peak tourist season there is essentially full employment among the more than 470 members of the Osoyoos reserve.

In addition to the core businesses and partnerships, many secondary businesses have formed. For example, the award-winning Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre promotes conservation efforts for desert wildlife and has also helped to create several spinoff businesses, including a landscaping business, a greenhouse for indigenous plants, a website development business, and a community arts and crafts market (LinkBC, 2012).

Image Credits

Figure 9.4.1 FirstHost Cover by LinkBC is used under a CC-BY-NC 2.0 license.

SG̱ang Gwaay mortuary poles by Dale Simonson on Flickr is licensed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 licence.

The organization responsible for developing and marketing Indigenous tourism experiences in B.C. in a strategic way. Marketing stakeholder members are over 51% owned and operated by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.

Often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but is not ready for more complex promotions (like cooperative marketing); may not have a predictable business cycle or offerings.

A business that goes beyond visitor readiness to demonstrate strengths in customer service, marketing, pricing and payments policies, response times and reservations systems, and so on.

The highest level of market readiness, with sophisticated travel distribution trade channels, to attract out-of-town visitors and highly reliable service standards, particularly with groups.

An Indigenous tourism workshop focusing on hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship.

Introduction to Tourism Copyright © 2020 by NSCC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Loading some cool stuff... Please wait...

if ('ontouchstart' in document.documentElement) { document.write(' 1.800.605.4643 '); } else { document.write('1.800.605.4643');}

Popular Native Culture Tours Indigenous Merchandise Items

Vancouver, sunshine coast & squamish, british columbia.

Now Open - Talking Trees - Capilano Hatchery

NEW - Songs of Birds, Stanley Park

Virtual Talking Totems Indigenous Art Tour - Stanley Park - Scheduled

Private - Talking Trees - Accessibility Tour

Latest news.

Presenting Our Virtual Tour Series

Aboriginal Eco Tours Wins TripAdvisor 2019 Certificate of Excellence

10 years later, Indigenous tourism still reaps the benefits of the 2010 Olympics

Providing uniquely native outdoor cultural tours in vancouver area that promote wellness and memorable experiences that will last a lifetime.

recent video

December 31, 2023, from our recent tours.

• Nature Walks

On Water | Kayaking & Canoeing

Talking Trees & Nature Walk Tours

Talking Trees & Nature Walk Tours - Stanley Park, Vancouver

Spoken Treasures - A History of Vancouver and Stanley Park through Indigenous eyes

Get in Touch

A picture is worth a thousand words, super nice way to know about the land.

Date: March 18, 2019 Written by: Yunning From: Beijing, China

The guide Talaysay is fantastic. She knows a lot about the forest, the land and the culture. I am searching for this kind of travel experience for a while. I am glad I meet Talaysay, the tour is not just about the knowledge, which of course is erudite, it's more about the attitude toward to plants that how indigenous people treat to their history and mother nature. I really enjoy the trip!

More reviews

Book Your Tour

• Virtual Tours - New
• Sunshine Coast
• Sea to Sky for the Squamish - Whistler Corridor
• Gift Certificates
• Merchandise
• Attractions
• News, Events & Blog

About & Media

   About Us

   Testimonials

   Photos

   Videos

   Get in Touch

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 12. Indigenous Tourism

12.4 Indigenous Tourism in BC

The Aboriginal Tourism Association of British Columbia (ATBC), now recognized as Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) , was founded in 1996 and was spurred by a research project that detailed the changing motivations of visitors to BC. The research results identified that specific target markets were particularly motivated to visit BC to experience local or regional Indigenous culture. Leveraging this information and initial organizational momentum, ITBC has matured to become a stable and effective organization by establishing funding partnerships with governments, developing a stakeholder membership model, and initiating a range of development strategies and tactics outlined in regularly updated action plans.

ITBC provides recognized leadership to support the estimated 401 Indigenous tourism related businesses operating in BC. These businesses generate $705 million indirect gross domestic output and provides 7,400 direct full-time jobs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents in BC through their activities (ITBC, 2019).

Spotlight On: Indigenous Tourism BC

Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) has gained an international reputation for effectiveness. Its role is to encourage the professional development of Indigenous cultural experiences and destinations in the province and to then support marketing those businesses to the world.

For more information featuring market-ready Indigenous tourism experiences within BC visit the external consumer-focused ITBC website .

For more details about ITBC’s history, structure and planning tools visit the ITBC internal corporate and stakeholder-focused website .

Since its inception, ITBC has grown to represent a diverse range of stakeholder businesses and organizations, including campgrounds, art galleries and gift shops, hotels, eco-lodges and resorts, Indigenous restaurants and catering services, cultural heritage sites and interpretive centres, kayak and canoe tours, adventure tourism operations, and guided hikes through heritage sites (Aboriginal Tourism BC, 2012). It has also proven adept at online promotion and social media, has also become world renowned for its strategic approach to Indigenous tourism development.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Tourism Trip Planner App

Indigenous Tourism BC marketing staff are regularly updating not just their consumer website, but also their social media platforms with rich visual assets, including promotional videos for the sector, regions, and specific companies.

In 2020, they also released a new app for Indigenous Tourism trip planning, which includes some virtual experiences. Learn more by downloading it on your digital device at Indigenous BC Trip Planner App .

A Strategic Approach to Growth

In 2017, the organization now known as ITBC released its five-year strategic plan, entitled “Pulling Together,” which identified targets for Indigenous cultural tourism industry success in BC. Its goals by 2022 included:

• Increased provincial revenue of $75 million
• Employment at 4,950 full-time equivalent positions
• 128 market-ready Indigenous cultural tourism businesses

To achieve these targets, the plan focused on five distinct strategic performance areas:

• Experience Development
• Partnerships
• Organizational Excellence

Following good overall tourism planning principles, ITBC ensured its plan aligned with Destination BC’s strategy, Welcoming Visitors—Benefiting Locals—Working Together, A Strategic Framework for Tourism in BC , as well as Canada’s federal tourism strategy. Consistent with this sustained alignment, recent efforts have placed renewed emphasis on the need for market readiness.

Push for Market Readiness

As we’ve learned elsewhere in this textbook, today’s travellers are more complex than in the past and have higher expectations. Potential guests are well acquainted with technology and have the world at their fingertips. For this reason, it’s important that Indigenous operators ensure they are sufficiently ready to run as a tourism business and compete in an increasingly crowded tourism marketplace.

There are three categories of readiness, each with a set of criteria that must be met (Aboriginal Tourism Association of Canada, 2013):

• A visitor-ready operation is often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but not be considered ready for cost-shared promotions with other businesses due to lack of amenities or predictability.
• A market-ready business must meet visitor-ready criteria plus demonstrate a number of other strengths around customer service, marketing materials, published pricing and payments policies, short response times and reservations systems, and so on.
• Export-ready criteria include the previous categories, plus sophisticated travel distribution trade channels to attract out-of-town visitors. They provide highly reliable services to all guests, particularly those traveling with groups.

By educating cultural tourism businesses about these standards, and then creating incentives for marketing opportunities, ITBC helps to raise the bar for BC Indigenous cultural tourism experiences. Its goal is to support as many operators toward market readiness (the second category) as possible so that they may eventually become export ready alongside other BC tourism experiences.

Drag the following descriptors to the appropriate category for market readiness:

Take a Closer Look: Authentic Indigenous

Authentic Indigenous is a marketing initiative by Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) – a successful designation program that identifies strong cultural Indigenous tourism experiences as Authentic Indigenous. With this designation, ITBC meets the demands of travellers seeking unique, educational, eco-friendly and culturally appropriate experiences within Indigenous communities across BC. Find out more by visiting the Authentic Indigenous web page .

Another key component of the Indigenous tourism experience is the host. In BC, the FirstHost program supports the development of Indigenous hosts who are well trained, know what guests are looking for, and who can help provide an authentic cultural experience. The one-day tourism workshop is offered through ITBC and delivered throughout British Columbia

FirstHost was inspired by Hawaiian tourism pioneer, Dr. George Kanahele (1913-2000), who saw the impact tourism was having on indigenous culture and set out to educate the industry that “the relationship between place, host and guest must be one of equality” (Native Education College, 2014, p. 28). Participants learn about hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship. This well-received workshop, delivered by Indigenous trainers, is another reason Indigenous tourism continues to grow stronger in the province.

Take a Closer Look: Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program

The Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) was born through a desire to increase workforce and community capacity for Indigenous tourism in coastal BC and developed in partnership between Vancouver Island University (VIU), North Island College (NIC), and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council (HTC), with support from Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) and funding through the Canada-British Columbia Job Fund.

Since 2014, 70 graduates from over 27 First Nations have successfully completed the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program (AETP) that features an innovative place-based, culturally relevant and experiential design to post-secondary learning. Many of these students have continued in the tourism sector or are engaged in ongoing post-secondary education in business and tourism.

Learn more through a video on the Aboriginal Ecotourism Training Program and the article Adventures in Ecotourism: Building Partnerships, Collaborations and Trust through Aboriginal Education .

Examples of BC Indigenous Tourism Development

Spotlight On: Moccasin Trails

Many exceptional leaders and entrepreneurs in Indigenous Tourism wear multiple hats. Besides family, community, and cultural responsibilities, this often includes many other complex roles within Indigenous Tourism development through sector, regional, and national associations, plus outreach as consultants beyond their own tourism business — sharing expertise that bridges cultures and systems.

One dynamic example is through the suite of tourism experiences, services and leadership offered by Frank Antoine and Greg Hopf of Moccasin Trails in the Kamloops area.

They describe that, “We wanted to bring people from around the world on the ancestral paths our people walked, have them taste the food we ate, sing the songs we sang, hear the stories that were passed down orally from generations ago, and travel down the rivers we canoed. In order to truly learn about our culture we felt the only way was to touch, smell, see, hear, and feel it. Our journey started hundreds of years ago but your journey will start right now with us at Moccasin Trails .

Their vision and motivation is very representative of the tangible, tireless and authentic energy that underlies much of Indigenous Tourism development.

Indigenous tourism in BC offers diverse visitor opportunities that range from arts and cultural attractions to authentic food and beverage experiences to wildlife tours that highlight the spiritual significance of BC’s natural places for Indigenous people.

Take a Closer Look: Indigenous Experiences — A Journey

The consumer website for Indigenous Tourism BC features things to do, places to see, trip planning tools, featured itineraries and stories. For more information, visit the Indigenous Tourism BC website .

Examples of BC Indigenous tourism enterprises include:

• The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in the heart of downtown Vancouver, home of the permanent collection of Bill Reid as well as contemporary exhibitions.
• St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino , a First Nation-owned 4.5-star hotel with a golf course and casino, outside of Cranbrook in the Kootenay Rockies.
• Cariboo Chilcotin Jetboat Adventures , offering exciting and scenic tours of the Fraser River.
• Salmon n’ Bannock Bistro , offering authentic Indigenous food in urban Vancouver.
• Spirit Bear Lodge , in the Great Bear Rainforest, specialize in wildlife and Indigenous cultural experiences.
• Talaysay Tours offering Indigenous cultural and eco-tourism experiences in and around Vancouver, Squamish and the Sunshine Coast.
• Skwachàys Lodge , a downtown Vancouver luxury hotel, art gallery and store operating as a social enterprise and supporting Indigenous artists.

Take a Closer Look: UNESCO World Heritage List 

This list, evolving from 1972 World Heritage Convention, identifies outstanding significant sites across the globe, linking the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The convention sets out the duties of governments in identifying potential sites and their role in protecting and preserving them. The list features an interactive map and an alphabetical list. To explore the more than 1,100 properties on the list, including 20 sites in Canada, visit the UNESCO World Heritage List .

The village of SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay (formerly Ninstints or Nan Sdins) is a prominent example of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada, located on a small island off the west coast of Haida Gwaii.

While ITBC members are too numerous to detail here, one BC First Nation is often in the spotlight for its significant tourism and economic development activity, thanks to its physical and cultural assets and positive leadership. Let’s take a closer look at this example.

Osoyoos Indian Band

The Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) is located in the Interior of BC. A main goal of the OIB has been to move from dependency to a sustainable economy like that which existed before contact (Centre for First Nations Governance, 2013).

Take a Closer Look: Centre for First Nations Governance Success Stories

The Centre for First Nations Governance is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing self-governance support to First Nations communities across Canada. It helps with planning, governance, the establishment of laws, and nation-rebuilding efforts. Its website features success stories, in video format, that highlight these efforts. For more information, visit the Centre for First Nations Governance website for Success Stories.

Okanagan First Nations once travelled widely to fish, gather, and hunt. Each year, the first harvests of roots, berries, fish, and game were celebrated during ceremonies honouring the food chiefs who provided for the people. During the winter, people returned to permanent winter villages. The names of many of the settlements in the Okanagan Valley — Osoyoos, Keremeos, Penticton and Kelowna — come from Indigenous words for these settled areas and attest to the long history of the Syilx people on this land.

Forty-five years ago, the OIB was bankrupt and living off government social assistance. In 1988, it sought to turn the tide on this history and created the Osoyoos Indian Band Development Corporation (OIBDC). Through focused leadership and initiative, the band has been able to develop agriculture, eco-tourism, and commercial, industrial, and residential developments on its 32,200 acre reserve lands. It does have the good fortune to be located in one of Canada’s premier agricultural and tourism regions; however, it has also taken a determined and well-crafted effort to become an example of Indigenous economic success.

The OIBDC manages a number of tourism-related businesses including the Nk’Mip Campground and RV Park, Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. In addition, the OIBDC have several prominent tourism-related partnerships, including with Baldy Mt. Ski Resort, Nk’Mip Cellars, Spirit Ridge Resort, and others (OIB, 2020). The area attracts about 400,000 visitors per year, and at peak tourist season there is essentially full employment among the more than 470 members of the Osoyoos reserve.

In addition to the core businesses and partnerships, many secondary businesses have formed. For example, the award-winning Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre promotes conservation efforts for desert wildlife and has also helped to create several spinoff businesses, including a landscaping business, a greenhouse for indigenous plants, a website development business, and a community arts and crafts market (LinkBC, 2012).

The organization responsible for developing and marketing Indigenous tourism experiences in B.C. in a strategic way. Marketing stakeholder members are over 51% owned and operated by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.

Often a start-up or small operation that might qualify for a listing in a tourism directory but is not ready for more complex promotions (like cooperative marketing); may not have a predictable business cycle or offerings.

A business that goes beyond visitor readiness to demonstrate strengths in customer service, marketing, pricing and payments policies, response times and reservations systems, and so on.

The highest level of market readiness, with sophisticated travel distribution trade channels, to attract out-of-town visitors and highly reliable service standards, particularly with groups.

An Indigenous tourism workshop focusing on hospitality service delivery and the special importance of the host, guest, and place relationship.

Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC - 2nd Edition Copyright © 2015, 2020, 2021 by Morgan Westcott and Wendy Anderson, Eds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book