Denise O'Connor looks at the remains of her home that burned down when a wildfire destroyed the village in 2021, in Lytton, B.C., on June 15, 2022.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Residents of Lytton, B.C., say costly and protracted archeological work is preventing them from rebuilding, more than 2½ years after a wildfire levelled their village.
It’s the latest time-consuming obstacle in a series that has also included debris removal, soil remediation and rewriting building bylaws to future-proof the townsite against climate change. Frustrated community members plan to rally in protest on Wednesday – 840 days since the disaster. In the summer of 2021, Lytton had broken the record for hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada for three consecutive days, reaching 49.6 C before the fire swept through.
“We feel like Lytton has become an archaeology project, not a rebuild project,” read a notice from residents about the rally, shared to social media last week by Mayor Denise O’Connor.
Experts estimate the Nlaka’pamux people first settled in the area, then called Kumsheen, more than 10,000 years ago, using it as an important meeting place between coastal and Interior bands. Built partially on an ancient archeological site and burial ground, the entire village is protected under B.C.’s Heritage Conservation Act.
Peter Miles, president of the Lytton and District Chamber of Commerce, said community members agree the village is an important heritage site but argue the archeology work has become unreasonable.
“We need it to be done in a manner that also protects the rights of property owners and community members,” he said in an interview, calling for the provincial government to “step in and stop this continuing and unacceptable delay.”
In March, 2022, Lytton’s village council had awarded a six-month contract worth $486,000 to the consulting firm AEW for archeological and heritage monitoring while debris removal and remediation work took place. The B.C. government funded the contract, which was later renewed, and used an umbrella permit approach under its Archaeology Branch so that the village’s 220 homeowners wouldn’t have to seek out permits individually.
Nineteen months later, AEW’s work continues and some homeowners seeking to break ground say they’re being hit with additional archeology fees that are not covered by the province or insurance. At a Sept. 14 community meeting, resident and former councillor Lilliane Graie said that when she sought to dig a trench six feet deep, AEW quoted her $1,686 a day for two monitors.
“We are backed into an absolute hard place,” Ms. Graie said. “I’m sorry, having two guys stand around watch my construction guys dig a hole, and get paid $800-plus a day for it?”
Ms. Graie added that she was told only 70 centimetres of dirt that had already been monitored for anything archeologically significant would be permitted to be cleared first, with the remaining 1.8 metres out in 10-centimetre increments.
B.C.’s Ministry of Forests did not answer specific questions about residents’ concerns about the lengthy process, the cost to individual homeowners or how much AEW had received to date. The minister, Bruce Ralston, said the province continues to work with the Village of Lytton, which is leading recovery efforts.
Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council member communities formed AEW in 2017. Nadine Hoehne, senior agreement implementation manager with the NNTC, said the assertion that archeology has delayed the rebuild process “is a false narrative based on misinformation,” as this work has been done concurrently with recovery, remediation and backfilling.
Some of that work was delayed by the widespread flooding caused by an atmospheric river in November, 2021, and the “foot-dragging” of insurance companies, she said.
“Although the archaeological monitoring certainly made the remediation more complex, the monitoring was concurrent with the remediation, and the machines were never idle,” Ms. Hoehne wrote in an e-mail to The Globe.
More than 7,000 stone artifacts have been recovered, including spear and dart points, arrowheads and hand mauls, she said. Property owners have the option of hiring another qualified archeological consultant and heritage monitor, Ms. Hoehne said, but they would need to meet the Archaeology Branch’s qualifications.
In a letter sent to Premier David Eby and other B.C. government officials, Mr. Miles and Bernie Fandrich, chair of the chamber’s steering committee on recovery and rebuild, outlined their concerns with AEW’s costs and practices and asked the province to step in.
Rosalin Miles, a member of the Lytton First Nation and Mr. Miles’s wife, called for transparency and accountability.
“It is so sad,” she said in an interview. “Not having a home is traumatic. There isn’t that compassion for all of the families who served in our communities, to be homeless still, to be going into another winter without being able to break ground.”