Forough Namjoo on Unmaking the Colonial Landscape of Kitsilano Beach

Forough Namjoo

• EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE FUTURES: UNMAKING THE COLONIAL LANDSCAPE OF KITSILANO BEACH

• Current and future risks, including extreme weather and SLR, are linked to colonial planning, design, and engineering practices

• Landscape design, once a symbol of colonial power, can now empower Indigenous communities, helping to serve cultural practices and traditions

• Landscapes and power

• Connections between landscape, power structures, and the urgent need for decolonization and adaptive climate change solutions

• Visual representations and narratives of Kitsilano’s transformations over time--transformation of Kitsilano beach over time, and how Indigenous peoples were displaced and connections to the land erased

• Timeline depicting series of events and transformations in the area during pre-colonial, colonial, and modern periods

• Forceful resettlement

• Development of Canadian Pacific Railway

• False Creek dredging, filling the swamplands

• Shoreline hardening and transition to recreation

• Opening up yacht club, pool

• Sea wall

• Ecological loss and climate change challenges

• King tide event (Jan. 2022)--renovation, repair of Kitsilano Pool due to pollution, flood damage

• Vanier Park- ecological loss

• Invasive species in area

• Guiding design principles to guide decision making (e.g., Northeast False Creek Park Design, Sea2City Design Challenge)

• Unique structured decision-making framework different from typical flood planning

• Key takeaways

• S2C:

• Decolonization and climate justice

• Integrate traditional knowledge

• Prioritise space for MST members’ cultural practices

• Promote reconciliation by reintroducing native plants

• Empower Indigenous cultures and their ties to land

• Integrating ecological restoration

• Restore and expand intertidal habitat

• Improve water quality and marine habitat

• Restore natural creek

• Climate adaptive design

• Initiate nature-based solutions

• Design for adaptability 

• Northeast False Creek Park Design

• Public spaces for all ages and abilities

• Water access, welcoming shore

• Equitable access

• Welcoming spaces for all

• Traditional practices

• Visibility on the land

• Revitalise Indigenous language

• Guiding principles: stewardship, inclusivity and accessibility, ecological health, climate adaptation

• Kitsilano Pool

• Initially filled by tidal flow with sandy bottom

• Because of sewage pollution, and storm damage, costly renovations

• The seawall, designed to protect the park and pool from flooding, facing increased vulnerability with SLR

• Alternative future proposals for Kitsilano Beach

• Vegetated terraces with tidal pool= nature based solution; integrated into landscape; opportunities for shoreline access in both high and low tide; medicinal herb garden--space to revitalise cultural practices and language 

• Alternative future of Hadden Park

• Constructed wetlands and estuary benches--more engineered approach

• Beaver habitat and shellfish garden--more NBS

• Alternative future of Vanier Park

• Marsh toe revetment with oysters

• Food forest and planted rip-rip

• Key findings:

• Alternative shoreline futures based on principles of accessibility, inclusivity, Indigenous stewardship, ecological health, and CCA. The proposed designs incorporated traditional ecological practices and a combination of softer approaches and contemporary green infrastructure technologies

• The interventions aimed to present a justice-oriented approach to coastal adaptation, prioritising the needs, identifies, and livelihoods of Host Nations who do not currently see themselves represented and reflected in the design of the area.

• Transformative potential of landscape architecture when approaches through a decolonial lens

• Comment from Angela: About the pool - we are also seeing failure b/c of the shifting sands below and changes in water levels which cause problematic hydrostatic pressure which = cracking of the pool. It's not just the storm surge - although that's significant. The pool was designed, as you state in 1931, without any consideration for long term use.

• You mention one of the desired outcomes is to allow Indigenous people access to the land to engage in cultural practices. What would the strategy be for that within all this landscape design?

• Cultural pavilions, places for carving canoes, Indigenous plant nursery, food gardens (e.g., root plants), integrating water activities (e.g., canoe landing)

• Incorporating this kind of design strategy, the hope is to incorporate Indigenous traditions and provide a multi-generational, educational settings that can be transferred to next generation and shows presence on the land

Moving Forward (Nick Weber, Rudy Reimer)

• ‘What has happened’

• ‘Risks associated with Archaeology Sites Located within the Squamish Territory along the Shoreline’

• Rudy’s email: rudyr@sfu.ca

Notes:

• Reactive way of dealing with archaeology (i.e. responding to developments that are about to occur) vs. research represents a proactive way (i.e. looking at where new archeology sites might be)

• Projected SLR in next 50 years: how can we be proactive now and look at strategies for how to cope with how SLR will affect archaeology sites within Squamish territory

• Starting to develop a plan to begin to deal with SLR in Squamish Nation waters

• Surveying for sites that may have been missed in previous assessments, etc. But through archaeology, paleoenvironmental studies, Squamish oral history, we have an understanding of ancient settlement patterns, sea level patterns, etc.

• The approach we dont want is to impact these sites more than we have to. We want to create a baseline of data to try to plan for climate change. 

• Instead of excavating these sites, nowadays adopted approaches from other disciplines (e.g., intact stratigraphic samples out of these sites to figure out the vertical and horizontal extent of sites, derive radiocarbon dates, sample animal remains, stable isotopes, ancient DNA, etc.) = understanding of ancient Squamish Nation management practices for these resources, but also can derive things like temperature that give us an understanding of ancient environments

• Multiple approaches (expanding on historical and modern datasets)= valuable to have deep time perspective

• Archaeonaut vessel will be used once it is seaworthy

• Cultural deposits 2 metres deep= if SLR rises 1 metre, these sites would be threatened

• We only have a glimpse into the past/heritage through physical remains, as it is. 

• Sites that demonstrate intense occupation over time are valuable to the nation for heritage, as well as to archaeologists to provide evidence into what was happening in the past. But these sites are also highly threatened by SLR

• Recovering artefacts can shed insights into social stratification, complex societal organisation

• Some sites are located right on the intertidal zone where SLR will completely inundate and submerge them. Others are located on the edge and will be impacted by wave action, storm surges, etc. Wave cut notches undermine soils leading to erosion. Ancestral remains begin eroding out, leading to disturbances in burial sites. Beach scatters may be remnants of larger sites that have already been impacted in one way or another due to industrial activity, ancient environmental fluctuations, etc.

• Site visibility with SLR will decrease (e.g., stone fish traps already in intertidal zone)

• What to do? Up to the Nation; important to start the conversation.

• Protecting them?

• Letting them go back into the natural environment?

• Investigating them?

• Maplewood Flats intertidal fish trap site was buried by a seismic event 1300-1400 years ago. Dredging uncovered this site = environmental monitoring

• Not objects, but features that are evidence of widespread Indigenous use of these areas (e.g., canoe marks on landscape)

• Every major shoreline area in Squamish territory is susceptible to SLR

• Almost 10% of known sites in Squamish territory is susceptible to SLR, but the entire shoreline has not yet been surveyed (likely many sites that are still unknown may be affected)

• What is the best strategy to protect sites right along the shoreline that are susceptible to coastal erosion and SLR?

• Conversation begins and ends with what the Nation wants.

• Instinct is to protect the site and shore up against erosion, but perhaps the Nation prefers another approach. 

• Many archaeological sites are within urban areas that are already looking at protective approaches, so preservation can go hand in hand

• Communities may desire that the artefacts erode out, part of the traditional process of transformation

• Context-specific, depends on what it is. Is it closer to where people are living? Are there not just physical threats, but also spiritual, etc.? Belcarra--there has been a lot of effort to build riprap which has been fairly successful in that location, but some erosion is inevitable.

• Issues with trying to deal with this on a reactive basis--thoughts about how to support a less reactive approach? What needs to change?

• Instinct is to switch into a research or strategy-building mode. Ask the questions like, what do we want to do with this? We know that sea levels will rise and sites will be threatened. Do we want to take a protective strategy (infrastructure to protect physical integrity of these sites) or are we okay with these sites naturally eroding? But given that, even though we are going to let sites erode naturally back into the environment, do we want to conduct research to gain information before the site is lost to us?

• Other work Squamish Nation has done in the past--land use plan that was aimed at the terrestrial part of territory due to industrial logging going on in the last intact parts of old growth. A lot of what stemmed out of that was looking at cumulative impacts

• In discussions moving forward, take a similar stance. Not about one single cut log or expansion of one marine industry. Need to frame by looking at cumulative impacts. First Nations have a lot of leverage to bring forward the cumulative impacts, both politically and legally 

• Research funding to be more proactive, develop a better plan moving forward

Wild Archaeology on APTN: https://www.aptntv.ca/wildarchaeology/