Repatriation (Dave Schaepe)

[Dave Schaepe]: The Sq’éwlets community has -- with the current chief of council -- have in the past couple of years been involved in, again, repatriation and particularly ancestral remains from the Museum of Vancouver in Vancouver. And three -- the remains of three individuals -- actually, one at the Lab of Archaeology at UBC, and two from the Museum of Vancouver being returned physically. So the participation in that process, too, is, you know, it's connected to archaeology, it's connected to the heritage -- very individually to the remains of individuals who lived here in the past.

[Scene from repatriation ceremony inside of Museum of Vancouver, followed by a procession carrying ancestral remains in bentwood boxes out of the Museum of Vancouver].

To reunite and consider how to do the things properly in terms of treatment of very sensitive things, particularly those two individuals from those mounds are going to be soon taking their next step with community input as to what exactly to do with them for their final resting place.

So in the meantime, though, information was gathered and gained through analyses and with community oversight so that it's complementary information, it's useful information about who those individuals are and that's used to inform the community about the process for taking care of them.

[Scene outside of the Museum of Vancouver, at the conclusion of the repatriation ceremony]

[Naxaxalhts’i ‘Sonny’ McHalsie]: We are going to continue our journey now back home how. So our hands go up to our Musqueam brothers helping us with the work here as well and also to the Museum of Vancouver. Everyone is invited to join us as well. We are going to bring our ancestors home to Chilliwack. We are going to share a lunch.

So hopefully if any of you can make it, you are welcome to come and join us as well. We are asking our pallbearers, drummers, cedar brushers to finish our work when we get home. So our work isn't done here yet today.