The First Nation with the least reserve land per person in British Columbia has reclaimed a swath of ancestral territory on Vancouver Island once fenced off for the federal military.

The 80 hectares of land, known traditionally as te’tuxwtun , or Mount Benson, was taken from Snuneymuxw First Nation by the government in the mid-1800s and used by the Department of National Defence. It later became the Nanaimo Indian Hospital from 1946 to 1967 — a site where many Indigenous people suffered under Canada’s forced assimilation policies.

“Snuneymuxw never surrendered our land,” Mike Wyse, chief of the nation, told Canada’s National Observer . “We signed a treaty that we had our understanding, but our understanding of the English language wasn’t as clear as it is today. Once we signed,

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