Chief Robert Louie has spent anxious months watching as his people’s territory in BC’s Okanagan region has withered under weeks of unusually warm and sunny weather. Creeks that should have swollen with snowmelt this year carried little more than wisps of water, and last winter’s paltry snowpack melted fast, leaving the forests dry and primed to burn.
“I’m worried,” said Louie, Chief of the Westbank First Nation near Kelowna, BC. Like much of southern BC, the territory of the Sylix Okanagan, of which Westbank is one of seven First Nations, has seen record-low snowpacks this year. Their territory stretches throughout the Okanagan region into the Silkameen and Nicola valleys.
“I’m worried for the people when you have low snowpacks, you have dryness, and you don’t have water coming out of the creeks and rivers. We’re already fearful of the salmon [because] we had some very low returns last year and this year we’re expecting even more serious conditions … that’s very, very sad,” he said.
