(Lheidli T’enneh Territory, Prince George, BC ) — The BC Assembly of First Nations remembers Sim’ooget Delgamuukw (Earl Muldon) and honours his enduring legacy as a First Nations leader, world-renowned artist, and cultural activist.
“My most heartfelt condolences go out to Earl’s family, Wilp Delgamuukw, the Gitxsan Nation, and all who knew and loved him,” says Regional Chief Terry Teegee. “Our First Nations and our country as a whole are better for his many contributions.”
In 1997, Earl stood alongside other Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Chiefs in the historic Supreme Court case Delgamuukw v. British Columbia. This landmark ruling set a precedent for Indigenous rights and title in Canada. For the first time in BC history, the Supreme Court recognized that Indigenous title constituted an ancestral right protected by Section 35. The Delgamuukw decision influenced other significant court cases about Indigenous rights and title, including the Tsilqot’in case (2014).
Earl was also a celebrated artist whose widely exhibited works included totem poles, house fronts, masks, bentwood boxes, spoons, rattles, paintings, and gold and silver jewellery. As a master carver in the Northwest Coast tradition, Earl had undertaken some of the most extensive commissions for Indigenous art in North America.
In 2009, Earl received a BC Lifetime Achievement Award for Aboriginal Art, and in 2010, he was named to the Order of Canada.
“If you take a bucket of water out of the Skeena River, the Skeena keeps on flowing. Our rights still flow, and they will flow forever.” –Delgamuukw (Earl Muldon), 1993