Supreme Court considers cases of overlapping Aboriginal title

The Supreme Court of Canada this week will hear two cases that involve overlapping Aboriginal title, as courts across the country grapple with increasingly complex questions related to Indigenous land rights.

Both cases at the top court involve the Gitanyow First Nation, which is seeking to prove that it has Aboriginal rights and title to about 6,200 square kilometres of land in northwestern British Columbia.

The Gitanyow claim overlaps Nisga’a Nation land, which is covered by a modern treaty that provided governance and ownership rights over around 2,000 square kilometres. The Gitanyow land also overlaps an area that the Tsetsaut/Skii km Lax Ha Nation claim as their territory. The land is in the Nass River area, north of Prince Rupert.