Talaysay Campo, left, runs Talaysay Tours, which teaches guests about the cultural and ecological significance of Stanley Park in Vancouver. Their work is part of a wider movement of Indigenous stewardship reshaping conservation across the country.Supplied
Mike Willie’s work on the Broughton Archipelago and the Great Bear Rainforest in northern British Columbia begins with a responsibility rather than an itinerary: protecting the lands and waters his community has relied on for generations. What started as a practical boat service to help residents in and out of remote Kingcome Inlet eventually evolved into Sea Wolf Adventures – but its foundation has always been stewardship.
“I did a four-night traditional fast in the forest [in 2012],” he says. “It was just me, alone, in the wilderness, and I asked myself: ‘How do I stay connected to this place?’”
That question continues to shape how he approaches his tours today, where education about territory and the impacts on it is central.
“Along the tour we’re educating our guests from a perspective that we own this land and we own this water,” Mr. Willie says. He emphasizes that understanding the land also means understanding the pressures on it, from industrial activity to the declining salmon runs his team is now working to restore. The salmon stewardship fee, which Sea Wolf adds to the price of their tours, supports this work.
“We do have a salmon stewardship fee that guests are required to pay, and that allows us to continue with our salmon enhancement projects.” The goal, he says, is to help “kick start their rivers again,” supporting food security for First Nations communities and the species that depend on the runs. “We look at them as family and so reviving the salmon is like looking after your family.”
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The view of the land as a relative – and the responsibility that comes with it – is echoed by Talaysay Campo, co-founder of Talaysay Tours in Vancouver. While her work is hundreds of kilometres away, the underlying principle aligns closely with Mr. Willie’s: protection through teaching and connection.
Ms. Campo grew up on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, immersed in the environment of her Shíshálh Nation homelands. Her mother founded Talaysay Tours in 2001, offering cultural kayak tours before shifting to walking tours in Stanley Park because of increasing boat traffic. Today, those tours focus on Indigenous knowledge, medicines, technologies and histories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
“Everyone is equal when it comes to this environment and I think that’s one thing we’re trying to share,” Ms. Campo says. Like Mr. Willie, she sees education as a form of land stewardship – a way to help visitors understand the place they’re standing on. “When people walk through Stanley Park, they see it as a park, but to us, it’s so much more. It’s a place to check in with our relatives and to make sure that the land is taken care of.”
She has seen demand rise, particularly after the pandemic, as more people seek wellness, nature connection and deeper context.
“I feel like a lot of people are overwhelmed by big cities right now,” she says, noting that knowledge, medicine and sustenance exist “right in our backyard.”
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The work of both leaders intersects with the research of Professor Deborah McGregor, an Anishinaabe scholar from Whitefish River First Nation and a professor in the faculty of science at the University of Calgary. Her work centres on Indigenous knowledge systems, climate justice and sustainability – and explains why businesses such as Sea Wolf Adventures and Talaysay Tours are increasingly significant.
“Most species at risk are found in First Nations,” Dr. McGregor says. Indigenous knowledge, she adds, holds solutions that complement other scientific systems. “There’s multiple knowledge systems as well that also need to be respected along with Indigenous knowledge systems.”
She highlights the role of youth as well – an area that resonates with both Ms. Campo’s and Mr. Willie’s experience training younger generations to engage with land-based work.
“Young people today aren’t working in isolation,” Dr. McGregor says. They are networked, collaborative, and more willing to imagine new approaches despite the scale of environmental challenges. “You need people to think outside the box. You need people to imagine something different and work really hard to achieve that.”
Across their respective regions and fields, Mr. Willie, Ms. Campo and Dr. McGregor represent different expressions of the same shift: using business, research and cultural knowledge to restore relationships between people and place.
Indigenous-led tourism remains a small but growing sector in Canada, with British Columbia accounting for more than one-fifth of the country’s businesses. “I’m very grateful for the province we live in with regards to our cultural revitalization,” Ms. Campo says. Still, she adds, “We’d love to see that number go a bit higher.”
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Dr. McGregor notes that public interest is rising. Change, she says, increasingly comes from communities, organizations and individuals rather than waiting for the government to lead.
“You start to reach out and branch out to other folks that make up society who are also willing to learn and care about some of the same things. And I think that’s helpful in terms of initiating change.”
Mr. Willie believes that acknowledging the rights of First Nations is essential for all sectors moving forward. “Whether you’ve got a house or a business operating, you’re in someone’s traditional territory,” he says. Recognizing that, he adds, creates “a much smoother and more in harmony” path toward reconciliation.
Partnerships matter too. “If you’re Indigenous and new to the business world, that partnership could be reconciliation,” he says.
For Ms. Campo, the work ultimately comes back to repairing the relationship with land itself. Too often, she explains, land is treated as a price point rather than a relative with inherent value. Through her tours, she hopes to show that value – and reclaim the story of the territory.
“Our government tried to write our story for us and we’re trying to rewrite that by starting from the beginning,” she says. “We are the land and the land is us. That means when we take care of this land, we take care of this territory and we’re taking care of everyone who is a part of it.”