A Kitselas Elder whose work on self-governance and treaties expanded beyond the northwest to the national stage died Oct. 10. Mel Bevan was 82.
As an administrator with a number of First Nations, including the Kitselas First Nation, as Kitselas chief councillor, and as a chief treaty negotiator for the Kitselas, Bevan cast an experienced and critical eye on life for First Nations within Canada and what needed to change.
Only through treaties providing the resources and continuity within political and administrative structures can First Nations thrive, he said.
“All of the work I’ve done over the years, all the things we’ve managed to do, the big problem is trying to make it permanent,” Bevan said in a 2020 interview with The Terrace Standard.
“Native people are not part of the fabric of Canada. We’re outside the fabric of Canada. So if you get a sympathetic government you can get things like social housing or law centres, things like that. But if the government turns unsympathetic, it just disappears and that happens to everything.”
“The only thing that actually stays permanent is people on reserves that suffer from this.”
Born in 1941, Bevan began working at what is now Skeena Sawmills, beginning as a labourer and advancing to a position as shift supervisor.
As a young participant in Kitselas First Nations affairs, Bevan was instrumental in the drive to build up its membership.
It stands at more than 700 people today.
He worked within the National Assembly of First Nations and was a policy advisor for the federal Department of Indian Affairs.
Within the northwest, Bevan helped establish two law centres, was a key participant in the start-up of CFNR (Canada’s First Nations Radio) and helped establish Muks-Kum-Ol Housing, the agency that provided some of the first Indigenous housing in Terrace.
Culturally, Bevan, whose Tsimshian name was Sha-Gann, worked to record and preserve Sm’algyax, the Tsimshian language.
“People got strapped [at school] if they spoke their language, but we always spoke it at home,” he said in the 2020 interview.
As a chief negotiator for the Kitselas First Nation, Bevan was instrumental in the talks leading up a treaty agreement in principle.
In addition to self-governing and taxation provisions, the agreement in principle called for 36,158 hectares of land mostly east of Terrace and $34.7 million (to be adjusted for inflation) for the Kitselas.
First released in 2012, the agreement was voted upon by Kitselas members in 2013 and signed officially between the Kitselas First Nation and the federal and provincial governments in 2015.
As negotiator, Bevan was one of two Kitselas signatories to the agreement. The other was Joe Bevan, the chief councillor at the time.
The 2013 vote among the Kitselas had 149 out of 226 voters approving of the agreement with 76 rejecting it.
Since then, the three parties have been working on the final wording of a treaty agreement which will also be subject to approval by Kitselas members.
Negotiators are said to be ready to give approval to a final document soon. It must then be approved by Kitselas members in a vote and approved by the provincial legislature and federal parliament.
The Union of BC Indian Chiefs released a statement of condolence Oct. 13, calling Bevan a powerful advocate.
“His strength, resilience, and advocacy will continue to live on in the many lives he touched, and we thank the Bevan family and Kitselas community for sharing Chief Mel Bevan and his powerful voice with us for these many years,” the statement said.
Alex Rose, a consultant and author of three books on Indigenous issues, remembered Bevan as a voracious reader, especially of books about constitutions.
Bevan’s conviction that Indigenous people need to be involved in resource industries was featured in a chapter in Rose’s First Dollars: Bold Indigenous Entrepreneurs Reinventing Canada’s Economy.
“But he also had a wry sense of humour and understated irony — tools he used to move interminable meetings along,” said Rose.
Bevan also turned to writing to recount his decades of experience in politics and in management.
In Silent Voices: Rule by Policy on Canada’s Indian Reserves, published in 2021, Bevan heavily criticized the band council system of government imposed by the federal government as inefficient and lacking in authority.