The Uslahan Social Society was established in 2007 as a registered non-profit society to work with community members who live on the Squamish reserves in North Vancouver. Our goals have grown and evolved as the society has matured over the past 8 eight years. The society dissolved a few years ago, and recently was replaced by the See-emia Cultural Studies Society. We renamed the society after a Ma
triarch of the Nahanee family, See-emia who is a grand daughter of X’atsalenexw / Khatsalanough. She married 2 Hawaiian men in the late 1800’s and together they built Kanaka
Ranch. This was located at the shorelines of Coal Harbour and Stanley Park, and it extended from the current site of where Denman and Georgia Streets are located, through to Lost Lagoon. She and her family planted an orchard and had some farm animals on this site. We are a group of community members who honour the indigenous food systems of our ancestors and we are striving to help connect our communities to the land through land based learning, celebrating each season with cultural events and activities, as well as promoting Permaculture teaching with the community members who are interested in helping us to restore our indigenous food systems and ecology. We work through Harmony Garden in West Vancouver, located on our ancestral village of X’emelcht’sn- which means “Where the salmon tumble“ - because our village is located next to the Capilano River and prior to contact the river was overflowing with sustenance in form of different varieties of salmon, river trout, and steelhead. Today the Cleveland Dam that was built in the 1950’s has resulted in devastating ecological damage that has killed off most of the waterlife. The salmon are now currently less than a 1/4 of the size that they once were and most of the environment has been destroyed in the surrounding area that was once an ancient forests. SCSS Mission Statement::
Our Mission is to provide our community members with dignified access to culturally appropriate foods and traditional medicines, and to help our community members to socialize and interact through cultural events that focus on our traditional foods and medicines. We hope to create community engagement opportunities that include, but are not limited to artistic and cultural events that involve the Skwxwu7mesh peoples from all of our traditional lands and waterways, as well as inviting communities that co-exist and live in our surrounding villages and cultural spaces. We, as a community believe in opening our doors to any and all community members who find their way into our garden programming, and that it is our honour to encourage a climate of social interactivity in ways that foster community engagement and cultural pride.
