The Indigenous Interpretive Panel project for Salt Spring Island began as an idea in 2018 at a meeting with local First Nation Elders at the Salt Spring Public Library. Consultations with local Elders officially began in 2019 with the CRD and Salt Spring Foundation both providing start-up funds. These early conversations importantly centred around relationship building with local Elder representatives. The Salt Spring Historical Society & Archives received a second generous grant from the Salt Spring Foundation and also reached out to local businesses to begin the work to bring both the structures and panels to life. There are four panels in Ganges, two single-sided panels near the creek outlet at the foot of Ganges Hill, and one double-sided panel at the end of the path that parallels the outflow of the creek. It’s important to note that this area is entirely comprised of fill and would originally have been a very large estuary and beach that stretched all the way over to what is now known as “Grace Point”. This area, and most of SYOWT/Shiyot – Ganges - was inhabited and utilized extensively before colonization began in the mid 1800’s on what became known as Salt Spring Island.

The quoted statements on the panels are from both Elders and Indigenous youth, leaders in their fields. All of the text has been translated by language knowledge keepers into Hul'qumi'num or SENĆOŦEN as appropriate to match the panel text. The art, as with the Fernwood panels, is central to the creative design and we thank the Indigenous artists for allowing us to feature these beautiful pieces.

We hope that you will visit the panels, learn from the words presented there, and as the Elders have instructed us, “educate yourselves”. Learning and understanding are first steps toward reconciliation.

Here are some photos of the relationship building that was and remains, a good part of the process. [Note: most of our consultation with W̱SÁNEĆ Elders took place during Covid and were conducted over Zoom calls.]