Accession consists of records created and/or maintained by the Pacific Regional Office of the Department of Justice.
The majority of the accession contains records arising from the Delgamuukw case, which confirmed the existence of aboriginal title (that is, aboriginal rights to land itself, rather than rights of usage of that land). The case began in 1984 when the Gitxsan Nation and the Wet'suwet'en Nation began a lawsuit against the Province of British Columbia, claiming rights to 133 individual territories in northwestern British Columbia. While the specific claim to the land was not decided, the judges of the Supreme Court did make statements about aboriginal rights and title that indicate how the courts are to consider future cases of this nature. The case also stated that courts must be willing to give some weight to oral history when determining the existence of aboriginal title.
The accession also includes 0.3 m of records arising from the Pasco case, in which the Oregon Jack Creek band sought to protect aboriginal fisheries along the Thompson and Fraser Rivers by preventing the twinning of a Canadian National Railways line.
The accession includes, but is not limited to records relating to: proceedings at trial; law indices; evidence; appellate review of findings; law collection, including case law, counterclaims, reasons for judgment, production of documents, privilege, legal research, Dominion Land Acts, expropriation, compensation, Provincial power to extinguish treaty rights, Section 88 of the Indian Act, federal Crown's fiduciary duty to Indians, interveners, aboriginal rights in B.C., case judgments, and law articles; general historical collection, including journals of Colonial Legislatures, Treaty 8, post confederation documents, colonial documents, Terms of Union, and history of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia; documents re: Claxton et al v. Saanichton Marina Ltd.; instrument records and statutes; joint book of authorities; colonial dispatches; appeal books and supplementary appeal books; trial final argument materials (plaintiff's final argument); Attorney General of British Columbia document references in summary of argument; wills covering trap lines and hunting grounds; extracts from genealogies; territories references; employment histories; original correspondence, including subject specific correspondence, anthropological index, requests for research, and summaries of interviews; appeal correspondence; petitions and fisheries memos; references regarding territories, boundaries, chiefs, feast system, and laws; reports of researchers; treaties negotiated by Canada; registered trap line index; proof of documents and other evidentiary questions and issues raised at trial; Attorney General of Canada documents; privileged material extracted from the cross examinations on territorial affidavits; megamemos; histories of witnesses and critiques of expert reports; Transport Canada report re: Grand Trunk Pacific Railway; original expert reports; research aids, including trap line index, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada records regarding effort to protect trapping, collection of interviews, and documents regarding fishing sites; reserve land register (individual land holdings); reserve general register (leases and surrenders on reserve); trial exhibits; extra copies of joint books of authorities; territorial affidavit cross examinations; anthropological material, including experts references, Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en languages, Delgamuukw claim area, and opinion regarding nature of Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en economy; Attorney General of Canada reference books (revised factum); and Attorney General of Canada original listed documents (especially estate and trap line records).
