Desautel: Lakes Tribe and Court

desautel: Desautel, a member of the Lakes Tribe in Washington state, argued in provincial court that he was exercising his constitutional right to hunt for ceremonial purposes, according to The Chronicle Herald. The Lakes Tribe was described in court as a successor group to the Sinixt people, who lived, hunted and gathered in B.C.'s Kootenay region prior to first contact with European settlers. Richard Desautel was charged under the Wildlife Act with hunting without a licence and hunting big game while not a resident of B.C. after he shot and killed an elk near Castlegar in 2010. The provincial court acquitted the man in March, but the Crown appealed to the higher court, arguing that Desautel is not an Aboriginal person of Canada and not entitled to rights under the constitution. For the Sinixt, that declaration has weighed on the collective psyche for generations, Underhill said. Desautel's lawyer, Mark Underhill, said the argument goes back to a 1956 declaration by the federal government that said the people of the small First Nation in the Kootenays were extinct. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.