Reflecting on his childhood in Saltair, an unincorporated community between Chemainus and Ladysmith, Doug Fenton admits that, while he enjoyed growing up on the rural shorelines of Vancouver Island, he struggled in the transition to high school.
Chemainus isn’t exactly the big city, and high school is a half-decade struggle for everyone, but it was also quite a striking departure from the natural rhythms of his youth. So Doug was happy to move on and pursue adventures elsewhere, including university in Vancouver, and then paramedic training with the BC Ambulance Service.
At the advanced levels within a handful of years, Doug joined the air ambulance team in Vancouver; in the early 1990s he transferred to BC’s interior, which would become his home for the next 15 years. Over time, age begat wisdom; speaking about his childhood community during the middle chapters of his life, Doug says, “I would come back and visit, and I started to realize that this is actually the place that feels like home.”
In his early 50’s, as Doug was completing a Master of Arts degree in Environmental Practice, with a focus in Sustainable Development and Indigenous traditional knowledge, an opportunity to return to his roots presented itself—the family cabin on Thetis Island needed some love and care, or it would be lost forever. It was already a time of change in Doug’s life, and as he considered the various options, one thing became abundantly clear. “I wanted to figure out how to actually live sustainably, and being in the Shuswap was a fantastic place for that,” Doug recalls. “Moving to the Gulf Islands poses even more of a challenge to live sustainably. So I decided to take it on.”
In revisiting his sense of place in the community, Doug would also eventually run in the Islands Trust local election on Thetis. As Trustee, he would attend the inaugural Rural Islands Economic Forum held on Pender Island in 2019.
“I was part of those early conversations,” Doug says, reflecting today on discussions that precipitated the establishment of RIEP. “And I was blown away by the level of First Nations engagement. It was earnest and it was actual participation.”
This level of engagement with Indigenous communities brought Doug back to some of his earliest feelings about his own sense community, a sort of alienation that only now began to make some sense.
“My question in my community was, 'What happened to the First Nations?' In high school, there were one or two people from the community, but by the time they were 15, they were gone. That was something I had to explore, and that's what I began to learn about the Sixties Scoop. When I came back, Penelakut and settler elders were part of my Master's interview process. I learned about Preedy Harbour’s sad history of colonial impacts—that the construction of the ferry's far terminal disrespected the Penelakut Tribe’s ancestral burial grounds. We've got some seriously challenging issues.”
Doug continues to talk to Penelakut elders (“my focus is to try to help build bridges between colonial land stewards and the Penelakut Tribe”), and sees RIEP as presenting an opportunity to continue this work—with elders, and learning from our collective past—perhaps even to scale it across the rural islands network. Because to Doug, it also has relevance from a particularly personal place.
“Part of what I learned from Penelakut elders was that my mum's an elder as well. She’s 85 and on her own, so I spend more time with her, and treat her as a respected elder in my family. In our colonial systems, we don't respect our elders in the same way. So this is an opportunity, and it's just opened doors for me. My mom's been on a journey too—she's also learned a lot about the Sixties Scoop and Indigenous culture. She's interested and engaged, and it's been a really cool opportunity to spend some time in her final few years. “
Today, as an environmental consultant, Doug has recreated not only a sense of belonging in both his family and community of origin, he has also found a place within the broader network of rural island communities in BC to stand behind his values and interests, and share his knowledge with others seeking the same types of connections.
“RIEP is an opportunity—it's not me or you saying ‘x y or z’ - it's a process that's being followed, and a standard that's being set that provides leadership,” says Doug. “It's a truly collaborative group of people, all asking ‘How do we get businesses to actually become regenerative? How do we actively build those bridges with First Nations, hand in hand?”
I honestly believe RIEP should be the leader in that mission.”
Photos: (R-L) Doug Fenton with his mother Rondeau Fenton and Elder Ray Charlie of Penelakut Tribe. Photo credits: Elder Ray Charlie (group photo), and Keith Cuddeback via Flickr (Boat Basin, Thetis Island).
“RIEP is an opportunity...it's a truly collaborative group of people, all asking ‘How do we get businesses to actually become regenerative? How do we actively build those bridges with First Nations, hand in hand?'” - Doug Fenton, Environmental Professional & Advisor
