Right now, I haven't had the opportunity yet to speak to any of the federal people about getting a chance to move or finding safer land, for that matter.
When we look at the lands that are within the Shackan Indian Band, we have IR#11, IR#12 and IR#13. IR#12 is pretty much like a valley. It's a three-sided valley, so it goes in two different directions. It's a triangular valley. In the middle of that triangle is where they have IR#12. It's not a very big piece of land, but it's also on the side of the hill where there's basically no sunshine. It's a tight little valley.
The other parcel of land that IR#13 is on is at an elevation of 4,500 feet. It would be a challenge to live there, maintain the roads and get power and infrastructure to it to even maintain a place to live.
In IR#11, the valley of the Nicola Valley, the river bottom is what has sustained us since the reserve was developed in the years of Sprott. When we look at trying to get some land that's more feasible for.... We went from probably 30 people way back in the day to 130 now. The thing is, though, as pandemics hit and the IRs.... Different things like that have challenged a lot of our bands throughout Canada. Maintaining our membership has also been challenging, but the amount of land we have to sustain us is very little.
Thank you.