Totem Pole of the Kitasoo/Xai'Xais in the Big House

The Kitasoo and Xai'Xais are two bands of First Nation people whose ancestors have lived for thousands of years within the vast Great Bear Rain Forest. In 1982 the 2 tribes joined together in Klemtu as a unified cohort to represent and lay claim to their provincial territory to Canada. No longer willing to allow their cultural and environmental resources to be extorted, their unification proved to the Canadian government that they were capable of managing their ancestral lands to the benefit of all that inhabit the primitive, pristine area and conserve those attributes so precious and delicate.

In 2000, a final Land and Resource Protection Management Plan clinched governmental recognition, allowing management of the land and its sustainable resources by the Kitasoo Xai' Xais people in conjunction with the British Columbia government.

Wrangling over policies still exists with the First Nation people fighting fiercely to protect the lands from logging and the bears from being hunted. Advances were made in April of 2016 when 12,000 miles or 85% of the land was deemed protected from logging though the Great bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act.

A second milestone was the defeat of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project in June of 2016, ensuring the safety of the B.C. coastline by eliminating the threat of tar sands oil shipping.

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