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Osoyoos Indian Band pictographs destroyed by vandals

“It’s really disheartening to see someone deface a part of our heritage that has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years,” said Osoyoos Indian Band councillor Nathan McGinnis shortly after leaving an OIB meeting Monday afternoon. “My heart feels sad. It’s more sad than angry.”

McGinnis, OIB Chief Clarence Louie and many others around the world were shocked to learn Monday that someone had destroyed a First Nations pictograph over the weekend. Racist profanity was found written across a large rock at location east of Osoyoos Lake.

<who> Photo Credit: Osoyoos Indian Band </who> Vandals destroyed pictographs on OIB land over weekend.

“One of our patrols was in the Rattlesnake Point area Saturday,” explained McGinnis, who supervises the operations and maintenance departments at OIB. “They noticed it just by driving by and looking. Later that day a couple of Band members were going to visit the site and saw what had happened.

“It’s that this piece is irreplaceable, I mean, you can’t go back in time and do anything to fix it because they actually spray painted over it.”

The cowardly act has forced the Osoyoos Indian Band into being proactive in protecting its historic sites.

“We may have to put a chain link fence around our pictographs. There’s at least three other pictograph sites I know of,” said McGinnis. “It’s kind of unfortunate we may have to cover them up like that. We’ll have a key made for community members that want to do their ceremonies and for people who want to visit the pictographs.”

McGinnis said the Band has yet to go to the Osoyoos RCMP Detachment, but will soon.

“We haven’t got that far yet, but we definitely are going to talk to the RCMP, because one of our Band members came and talked to us,” advised McGinnis. “It’s a criminal offense. We will definitely be pursuing charges, but the likelihood of that is probably not much.

“But there’s no cameras and nothing close we can view. It’s down at the south end of our reserve, which most people don’t visit.”

<who> Photo Credit: OIB </who> OIB councilor Nathan McGinnis

McGinnis says he has been inundated with phone calls through the day from media outlets wanting to find out details.

“I really like that this is spreading like wildfire. I’m going to be on the phone with CBC shortly. The more we can get out there, the more people can take a step back, and think, ‘Wow, the racism in a lot of large US cities is also around small towns, like Oliver. Racism has been here a long time and it’s going to continue to be here for a lot of years.

“But we’ll get through it and we’ll take steps to prevent this from happening again.”



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