Ben-Alex Dupris

Inhabitants

For millennia, Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain their traditional land management practices. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land. As the climate crisis escalates these time-tested practices of North America's original inhabitants are becoming increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.

Older Than the Crown

Older Than The Crown follows the trial of Sinixt tribal member Rick Desautel who in 2010 was charged with hunting as a non-resident and without a proper permit in Canada. Rick harvested an elk on the ancestral land of the Sinixt people in Vallican, British Columbia, Canada. To the Sinixt, hunting on ancestral land is an aboriginal right gifted to them by Creator. It’s a right that has legally been denied to the Sinixt people since 1956 when the Canadian government unjustly declared them extinct in Canada, despite the nearly 3,000 members existing on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State. Now with the Desautel Hunting Case, the Sinixt people have a chance to not only bring light to their unjust extinction by the Canadian government but also to abolish the declaration completely.