Arts briefs: ‘Beyond Extinction: A Sinixt Resurgence’ tells the stories of a people declared extinct

This story is part of a feature that first appeared in print in Revelstoke Mountaineer Magazine’s July 2022 issue. Read the entire e-edition here:

In 1956, an order was passed by the government of Canada declaring the Arrow Lakes Band to be extinct under the Indian Act. It’s difficult to comprehend how a people — now referred to as the Sinixt — could be classified this way, but filmmaker Ali Kazimi endeavours to tell the story with his film Beyond Extinction: a Sinixt Resurgence.

The film documents three decades of the struggle through the experiences of Sinixt matriarchs Marilyn James, Eva Orr and Alvina Lum. Kazimi was invited and granted intimate access to the community as they repatriated the remains of ancestors held in museums, fought against logging in their traditional territories, revived ceremonies, conveyed oral histories and battled erasure by the Canadian government.

The film begins with the experience of a Sinixt man, who faced deportation from Canada because he was born on Sinixt land on the American side of the border. The Sinixt people have been fighting for recognition by governments that have made it difficult for them to access their traditional territory since it crosses the international border between Canada and the United States. Most of the traditional territory lies in the southeast interior of British Columbia, with a small percentage in Washington state.

Kazimi combines observational footage, contemporary interviews, oral histories, survival stories and archives to chronicle experiences that aren’t well-known. The story that Kazimi manages to tell in 100 minutes of film, is a complex and important one as the fight against the classification of the Sinixt people as extinct continues to this day. The Sinixt people come up against Canada’s immigration laws, environmental laws and hunting rights as they continue to struggle to be recognized and exercise their traditional practices.