Delgamuukw v. British Columbia

Fifty-one hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en nations, suing individually and on behalf of their Houses, claimed ownership of and jurisdiction over roughly 58,000 square kilometers of land in northwestern British Columbia, divided for purposes of the litigation into 133 separate territories. British Columbia counterclaimed for a declaration that the claimants had no right or interest in the territory, or alternatively that their only available remedy was a claim for compensation against the federal government. At trial, the claimants relied heavily on oral histories and on a feast-hall tradition in which Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en people recount their histories and identify their territories, evidence the trial judge largely declined to credit in ruling that the claimants' Aboriginal title had been extinguished.