Nuanced.
Where real conversations happen — with host Aaron Pete.
Nuanced.
201. Chief Gibby Jacob: Insights on Leadership, Land & Reconciliation
Squamish Nation Hereditary Chief Gibby Jacob to share unfiltered insights on leadership, reconciliation, land rights, cultural revitalization, and inspiring the next generation after 32 years on council with host Aaron Pete.
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If you don't know where you come from, how can you know where you want to go?
Aaron Pete:Reconciliation is often talked about as something that's needed. Do you think real progress is being made?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Money comes, money goes. We'll get land, because that'll always be there.
Aaron Pete:How do you digest what's going on with Canada and the United States?
Chief Gibby Jacob:What I know I don't own. I only know these things because the people allowed me to learn them.
Aaron Pete:Chief Gibby Jacobs, thank you so much for being willing to make the trip out and share your time. Would you mind first providing a brief introduction? Your time would?
Chief Gibby Jacob:you mind first providing a brief introduction. My English name is Chief Gibby Jacob and I'm from the Homolsticin Reserve Capilano is the white man's name for it and that is where Lionsgate Bridge dissects our reserve number five, which dissects our reserve number five. My ancestral name is Cockleton and I'm one of the hereditary chiefs from the Squamish Nation and have been one since 2009. And I only became the hereditary chief after my oldest sister passed and she was the first woman chief in our tribe and it was a tough one to follow her because she was just such a great, great person.
Chief Gibby Jacob:And I'm the youngest of nine children and two died before I was even born, One from rheumatic fever, a hole in the heart, and the other one, two months old, from pneumonia. And so I was the only one of my whole family who was born on the Comaltitussin Reserve. All the others, older ones, were all over in the next reserve, over Oslolo Mission Reserve. So I've lived all my 73 years within one block of where I live right now and I paid for and built my own home when I was 25 years old oh my gosh, and I'm pretty proud of that. I was the first one in the tribe and so that's where I'm from and I will never, ever leave there, Not even when I'm in the box, because they're going to put me in the ground there.
Aaron Pete:Beautiful. I'm wondering you've had such an illustrious career. Would you mind taking us back to the beginning and some of those early steps that brought you towards leadership?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Well, as a boy. You know I have always played sports and excelled at all of them and all team sports. You know I never played any individual sports other than just at turning 55, I started golf. I should have not started golf, it was fun. So, anyways, a lot of my teachings came from being a part of a team and you know that's all pretty much I knew from other than what my parents taught me about the values and principles you should live by.
Chief Gibby Jacob:So I played soccer at the highest level in the region. I played lacrosse at the highest level senior A lacrosse, junior A lacrosse. I played senior B for the North Shore Indians, which is my home team, and never played basketball because I'd have probably fallen out in the first two minutes, because I just like to hit people, and so a lot of my interactions with people really came from. You know, I was usually the captain or co-captain of the team. I always been one to just tell people what. I think. You're not playing good enough, you've got to try harder. We need you. So give them the rough stuff first, then tell them what you want from them at the end. So you're always providing that I need you, we need you. Discussion.
Aaron Pete:And where do you think that came from for you?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Oh well, my older brothers. You know my oldest brother, he's 88 now and he was always a captain of the team and you know I watched him as a young kid, you know, and how he interacted with everybody. Watched him as a young kid, you know, and how he interacted with everybody. He wasn't a, uh, the loudest guy, nor the bossiest guy, but he was, you know, tell you what he thinks and uh, so I think that's really where it came from. And uh, of course, my dad was always, you know, uh, king of the roost and you know, he always just said you got to do this, you got to do that. And so that's pretty much where I got my teachings from, is my siblings and my dad.
Aaron Pete:Right and leading up to chief. Was that clear from an early age? When did that start to solidify itself?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Going in 1980, 79, 80, I, along with some of my, decided that we were going to go from individual bands to become the Squamish Indian Band, because what was happening in the lower mainland is that the governments were complicit with railways and municipalities for infrastructure works. They were taking our land. So it was the easiest and least resistance because we weren't the lords of our land. You know it was a federal government. You know we still don't own our own land. You know you're a lawyer, right.
Aaron Pete:Yes, I have a legal background.
Chief Gibby Jacob:Yeah, yeah, so you know that we don't own our land. It's held for the use and benefit of the Indians, yeah, and so we really didn't have a say. So we lost a heck of a lot of land and thousands of acres. Squamish Valley, you know two reserves, 1,200 acres, that's. Pacific Great Eastern Railway was a part of that taking. It's the first place that their lines hit the water, their rail lines hit the water. So wherever the first place is, they want to put a port there. So actually the first name of the town of Squamish they call it Squamish now is Newport, because that's what they wanted to put there. That's why they wanted our lands. They told us you know, you can sell it to us or we'll expropriate it and we'll give you what we want to give you.
Chief Gibby Jacob:That was the nature of their negotiations back in the day, and so, knowing the history fairly decently, of my people, all the things that were happening and part of the governance change was in relation to we have to go another level. And so a bunch of us young folks I was about 30 at the time said we had a meeting of our people, called a general meeting. We put a resolution forward that stated we want to change from this system which is a chief, becomes a counselor for life. You know, I went to a few meetings and I watched the proceedings and you know there was quite a few fairly old men there and they were napping half the time. So I thought there's something wrong with this picture. You know, we need some vitality in here. You know, we need some youth who are going to be dedicated to the people and, uh, you know the needs of our people not that they weren't I'm not saying they weren't but uh, you know, we just needed a different direction to to look and travel, and so we made that change and uh, uh.
Chief Gibby Jacob:So, you know, just going from my sports background to a leadership position, you know, I just basically took all of those things that I, all those lessons, yeah, and when I speak outside of our community and in my community, I tell people you hear through here your ears, process it through your mind those things that become important to you, what somebody says to you, they become a part of your truth. Where does that land your heart Exactly? So that's what you tell others. You know, that's what you teach others, whoever. You know it doesn't matter what color age. You know I love talking to the little kids because they're probably more attentive than old timers who are sitting there with their iPads and iPhones and you know missing half of what you're saying.
Chief Gibby Jacob:So, anyways, I ran for council and I was on council for 32 consecutive years and, yeah, one of the longest serving of the more contemporary ones. A couple were longer, but I loved being there. I loved doing the work because I knew why I was there. My role was to be there on behalf of the people. It was always that for me, there's no glory in being a chief or a counselor. Most of the time you're getting you know what on, but future generations will be able to look back and say those guys did pretty darn good, just the, just the way I do when I look back at the old concerts of the day way back when that, well, that was a smart move, you know, amalgamating number one, you know, into the Squamish Indian Band. You know that was probably the most strategic move out of any that has come to our people, and so I think my path was set from an early age.
Chief Gibby Jacob:To answer part of your question was you know how did you start to think about being a chief, just from my athletics, you know, and being a leader at that level and you know, not everybody could be treated the same. You know there were some prima donnas and then there was just some good players and there was good people and not so good players but good people. So you had to. You know massage, so many different types of things and people. So, and my oldest sister.
Chief Gibby Jacob:I lost two sisters in six months from brain aneurysms and my sister, who was just two years older than me. She was the second one who passed. My oldest sister, who was a chief, was the first one and my mom had I think it was five of us kids left and she called us all together and she said you know, I love you all so much. You know I love you equally. And I said, mom, I thought I was the best one being the baby anyway. She said you guys are gonna decide who's gonna be the next chief. I'm not choosing between you, so you know you guys make the decision work it out amongst yourselves, pardon, work it out amongst yourselves yeah, yeah.
Chief Gibby Jacob:And my oldest brother said you're it pointed at me and he says you're the logical one to be the chief. You're working for the people. My next brother he's 85 now, 86 soon. He just said, yeah, I agree. And then my two sisters I had left at the time just said yeah, we agree, so that was in 2009.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, Can I ask, just looking at where we've come and seeing from the beginning, do you think real progress is being made? Reconciliation is often talked about as something that's needed, something governments need to do better on, something that people need to do better on. Do you feel like we've made a lot of progress since when you started on this journey?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Yeah, when I first got on council, you know we were trying to develop some land in West Vancouver. It says you guys are a part of our municipality and you know we flipped that. No, no, no, you're in our traditional territory. You know you're junior government, you're nothing more than a junior government. You got no say over our land. And uh, what they said was well, you sure you can develop, but you can only develop what we say you can develop. And uh, I watched the senior leaders, like late Chief Joe Mathias I don't know if you ever met him, he was probably the most brilliant guy that I've ever known, or one of them anyways and some of the other senior guys had been there a long time. They just went up one side of the mirror and down the other and they were going to do it of the mariner down the other, and we're going to do it. You know what they tried to do was use the infrastructure against us, saying we're not going to let you tie into the water systems, the sewage systems.
Chief Gibby Jacob:You know All of that stuff and we just said, well, we'll build our own. You know we'll develop so much we'll be able to afford our own. You know we don't need you, never needed you to start with. You guys just came about because of the provincial government, otherwise you guys wouldn't even be here if Squamish had its way. So, anyways, we went down that road and it was a pretty interesting time, you know. But during my time and being at the most senior level in my side of the nation operations, I think we did nine agreements.
Aaron Pete:Municipal type service agreements.
Chief Gibby Jacob:Municipal regional, because we've got three regions in our traditional territory Sunshine Coast, squamish-lillooet Regional District, and then we've got the Vancouver Greater Vancouver Regional District at the time. So we did all of them. It took us about a year and a bit to get them all done and we had to really be cautious about not giving something that you know others go. How come you gave them that? Yeah, like spoiled kids, right.
Aaron Pete:So do you think those relationships are like? There's a different to me, there's a different energy to how people come to the table than than, perhaps, in those early days. Is that true?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Well, I think there's more education that has gone to municipal. People are running for municipal and provincial governments, right yeah, and that's thanks mostly to the Supreme Court of Canada. And that's thanks mostly to the Supreme Court of Canada. You know it's hundreds of successful lawsuits that have been filed from this province. This is the most litigious province in Canada. We've won more lawsuits here than all of the other provinces combined. And you know we're just going to take. You know you can only do what we're going to tell you you can do, and that continues today. You know that continues today.
Aaron Pete:I love your thoughts on that. This is an issue that I'm still trying to work through. I don't know if you've heard about Bills 14 and 15 from the provincial government that propose a different approach to trying to push forward on major infrastructure projects. I haven't heard it. No, the BCAFN the BC Assembly of First Nations has come out strongly against it and pushed back against David Eby and the work going on at the provincial level. And it's a tough issue for me to square, because the Premier of BC, david Eby, argues we're under a lot of pressure because of these tariffs, so we have to push forward on building our own economy and separating ourselves to a certain extent from the United States.
Aaron Pete:The BCAFN and Regional Chief, terry Teejee, argues you can't do that at the expense of First Nations engagement and consultation with us. And Premier Eby argues that's not the plan. This just gives us the tools to move forward and I'm trying to figure out what that balance is. Do I take a provincial approach and understand that the tariffs are going to have huge impacts on not just Indigenous people but across all businesses and across every British Colombian? Or do I side and focus more on how this impacts First Nation communities specifically? And I'm trying to find the balance. How do you recommend?
Chief Gibby Jacob:we think about these types of issues. That's a tough one because they got so many cards, right, yeah, but in a very simplistic view. You know, okay, you know, if you guys are going to push ahead with it, we want 50%. We want to protect our culture, our lands, our language. You know all of the sacred spots that they continue to dig up. We want these things as a good faith, right, you know? If you can't do that, then what are we talking about? You taking everything, we get nothing. Yeah, you know that would be my starting salvo. That. Then what are we talking about? You taking everything, we get nothing. Yeah, you know that's, uh, that would be my starting salvo. You know, if I was sitting in negotiations, right, you know, and, uh, you know, I, I don't think they'd ever give that, you know, yeah, but you start high and work down, right, yeah how do you digest what's going on with Canada and the United States right now?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Same old, same old. We're not in the game and I don't know if we'll ever get in that game, much to my chagrin, as I always ask myself what is our leverage? What leverage do we have? We have rights, title, inherent rights, inherent title. We push for my nation, we push for land. Just for you want to make a deal, it's going to cost you and money, money comes, money goes.
Chief Gibby Jacob:My nation at the time we were burning about 70 million a year. So I said well, you know, I told my team, I said I want land, we'll get land because that'll always be there. You know we don't have to go scrounging for land to house our people. You know it's all reserves. I don't know how big the reserves are around here, but ours are pretty small. Yeah, my reserve, capilano, is the biggest one and uh squamish is lower mainland and it's only 525 acres. And we got bigger ones uh up in uh squamish valley, but uh, just about all of them are in the one one to 200 year flood plain and you guys have faced that here from the Fraser right, exactly. So for me I'd always say that you know, if there's gonna be a deal made, you take one acre, we want 10 or 100, whatever it is. So don't give up ever on the land, because it belongs to you anyways and you know, if you gotta negotiate it, you gotta negotiate.
Chief Gibby Jacob:We bought land that was fee-simple land. We looked at the makeup of our land and most of it was in 45 degrees or more and you can't build anything on that. So when there was available acreage and we could put it in as part of an agreement, the province would pay for it. We'd get the land. All we're doing is renting certainty. You know, and that's an important thing to remember Tell them you know your time. When this is over, whatever this is, we want that land back. So it was always a reversionary interest that we put in there. Important thing interesting.
Aaron Pete:The other piece I wanted to ask about we're hearing more and more from the federal and provincial government about trying to create economic opportunities and trying to grow our way out of a lot of the spending that I think is taking place both provincially and federally. You were involved in bears layer and I think that provides a lot of the spending that I think is taking place both provincially and federally. You were involved in Bears Lair and I think that provides a lot of inspiration to young people. Would you mind sharing the history of that?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Bears Lair. Well, my friend Gina, gina Jackson from Sechelt. She's such a great lady, very, very bright, and I didn't have a heck of a lot to do, to tell you the truth. But she asked me to attend a number of times to talk to the people who were getting nominated for the awards. You know people who are people, right, and you get nervous, you get scared. I could tell they were all scared when I first walked in there. There was about six of them and I looked at them. I said what are you scared of? They said I don't know. Well, why are you scared if I don't know? Right, if you don't know what's going to happen, you know, just let it roll, roll with it. That's all I've ever done.
Chief Gibby Jacob:I spoke in front of over 2 billion people at the transfer of the flag in Turin, from Turin to Worcester, vancouver, right, and I was so ill I got a virus. I was so ill, I got a virus the day we landed, I just totally didn't feel good at all and I just wanted to come home. I had to stay because I was doing the speaking part in the transfer, welcoming the world to our territory, right, yeah, and did it our traditional way, the Coast Salish way. We had a coin in a cardboard box it was part of the whole transfer and so I asked everybody to take that coin out. This is symbolic of us inviting you to our territory and our country for the games. I didn't say it all like that, but basically that was the gist of it.
Chief Gibby Jacob:And the only ones who responded were the Maori from Aotearoa, new Zealand. They came to our house in Squamish and there's probably about 75, 80 of them, and we welcomed them with a song and their tradition's a lot like ours. So they responded they did the hongi. I don't know if you know what that is. I don't know when they rub noses. Oh, wow, yeah. And a lot of our people got up and, you know, didn't know what was going on, you know, yeah, but yeah, so was I scared. I couldn't even see the guy standing next to me. There were five of us chiefs on stage, but there were so many lights like this this is nothing compared to that, you know, just beaming down on you. Lights like this, this is nothing compared to that Just beaming down on you. So, you know, I didn't even feel a thing, you know, I just wanted to get it over and go lay down. I was just so sick.
Aaron Pete:What does it mean to you to be able to see, from my perspective, to be able to see Indigenous people start to flourish? We're starting to see the culture start to be revitalized, the language start to be revitalized and people being able to be immersed in it and grow in a way that I imagine 50 years ago would have been unimaginable. To where we are today powwows being attended at records numbers. What does that mean to you?
Chief Gibby Jacob:What it means to me is people are in need spiritually. You know, if you look at medicine wheel, you know physically, spiritually, emotionally, and you know people are just looking for you know where do I find, where do I find these things? And it doesn't matter what color you are, you for you know. Where do I find these things, it doesn't matter what color you are, people are in need. There's more spirituality needed today than ever. If you look at what the bankrupt USA, they got nothing left Fighting each other. I'm afraid they're going to have a civil war down there one day. But anyways, that bothers me.
Aaron Pete:Absolutely One of my last couple questions Are you aware of the book Grave Error?
Chief Gibby Jacob:No.
Aaron Pete:Okay, it's a book written by True North Media in regards to questioning some of the new claims about unmarked graves and it's a very difficult conversation. I've interviewed the people who's helped put that book together to get an understanding of where they were coming from, and their basic presupposition is that some of the claims are being a bit exaggerated and that they haven't actually found the bones in Tecumseh Loops, and that that's their contention is that they did radar of the ground but they didn't go and dig up those bodies. They don't have the bones to be able to demonstrate that. And the counterpoint from my understanding with Takam Loops is we're talking to our community, we're trying to work that out internally. Do we upset their bodies? Do we do that digging? And that's a complicated question for those communities to decide and I'm just wondering if you have any advice or wisdom on how we approach that difficult conversation.
Chief Gibby Jacob:First big problem I've seen in this whole thing is all of those kids weren't from those villages. I had family who went to that school in the 50s. You know you can't get to everybody. You know who may have had a family member go to that school and as we roll away from that time more and more people pass and whatever knowledge they had goes with them. So it was a couple of those huge issues for me. You know who has a right to say the chiefs and the membership from Tekemploops.
Chief Gibby Jacob:I don't know, that's kind of a rhetorical question, but for me we always fought in Squamish against anybody doing anything anywhere near a graveyard. If we knew what was going on, or burials, we wouldn't stop them. And sometimes they just continue to keep going. And I got so angry that one of the provincial guys we were meeting with I said you know what I'm going to do. I said you guys won't stop. I'm going to go in that big cemetery on 41st and Fraser. I'm just going to dig somebody up. I don't care who it is, I don't know them, I don't know the family. So that's what I'm going to do because you guys are doing it to us. You can't do that Exactly, Neither can you guys, so stop it. Stop it, they did, they just.
Aaron Pete:You framed it in an important way. You got to hit them where it hurts. My last question for you is we're seeing a lot of growth and a lot of young people wanting to take on leadership positions. What advice do you have for young people starting to take those leadership positions on?
Chief Gibby Jacob:I would say talk to the vets you know the people who've done it in the past and find out the pros and cons of being in the leadership position, because most young people don't understand that you're taking on a legal responsibility. You personally are actually liable for the decisions you make on behalf of your people, and you know I mean not just the legal side of it. If you don't know where you come from, how can you know where you want to go? So you've got to understand the past in order to move towards the future, and so that's the important thing for me. We've got an election coming up in September 25th, for we had a council that authorized our custom election system to be revamped. So the guy who got the mandate, he just went further and further and further afield and passed what the mandate was, and it created a referendum on election law. And with your legal training, you know changing a policy directive as opposed to trying to change a law is a totally different kettle of fish, and they made it so difficult. It was a 147-page document and I'm a pretty intelligent guy, but when I was going through it I holy crap. I said I can't understand most of this stuff. She'd go 10 pages in. Then it refers you back to section 1A, bracket C, bracket small 2. And you look at it, I forgot what I was over here. You know our people narrow majority approved it.
Chief Gibby Jacob:As time rolled along, a lot of things became apparent. You know the guy who ran for chair and this is a chair elected by the people. Nobody knew that, nobody ran against him, so he got in by acclamation and just made a mess of things. So our people just kept getting angry and they would come talk to me because they knew I was on council for all those years and I'm a hereditary chief. My responsibilities, even though I'm not on council, you know to be responsive to the people and their needs, right, yeah, so I wasn't really involved in the beginning to change this stuff.
Chief Gibby Jacob:But the Matrix, you know they come and talk to me about it. They say you've got to lead this thing. You know You're the only guy. And I said no, no, no, no, that's a wrong move. I said what people will think is oh, that Gibby's just after power again. And you know I did my 32 years, 40, including an employee. Right? I said Matrix, you've got to roll with us. I'm going to stand beside you every step of the way and everything that I know is tactics and you know those things. I said I'm there because I want to change this thing too, but I'm the wrong person to look at running with this thing and be the face of it right. But the reason I'm telling you about the selection and be the face of it right, right. But the reason I'm telling you about this election, I thought about it, thought about it, and there's so many young people that our elders don't know. I don't know them all. There's family members who came back from Bill C-31, and their kids are now coming back.
Chief Gibby Jacob:Right came back from Bill C-31, and their kids are now coming back. Right? So if you don't know anybody, you know you're not going to get any votes. And there's some running. I don't know why they're running, because I don't know them, you know. But I went and I secured Chief Joe Mathias Center. I don't know if you've ever been there or not. No, I haven't. It's on my village, homolstusen, and I secured a morning there and what's going to happen is I'm going to invite all the candidates in to come with whatever you know, come to meet with whatever elders show up, so that you know it's going to be very informal.
Chief Gibby Jacob:Hi, my name is, you know my family, my family, is this right, and I always think that. One of my other things I always use in the speech is you can see this hand in one of three ways. This is where we all want to get to right Exactly, all want to get to right exactly so you know that's. I really want our elders to have a a sound reason for voting for anybody, not just because you're my nephew or you know that doesn't make any sense anymore. Because we're a billion, we're going to be a billion dollar business. Wow, we can't have people in there who have no qualifications on anything.
Aaron Pete:We just went through the exact same thing, where we actually hosted an all-candidates meeting. People posted online why they were running, what they were going to do differently or what they were going to bring to the table, had people run on real platforms of what action they were going to take, and it was just so heartwarming to me, because that's how we grow. You need to be able to say what you're going to do. Then you get your three-year or four-year term and you come back. Did you deliver on what you said you were going to do, instead of going it's this family or it's that family, or I only vote for my cousins or I only vote for those people. Measurables yeah, that makes it very hard to grow, because then people aren't being held accountable for the actions they're taking and did you show up to the meetings?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Of course We've got a number of counselors that don't even show up to meetings, Exactly, and it's so horrible. We've gone from face-to-face when I was there. Now they're allowed to be on TV screens Online. Yeah, oh my.
Aaron Pete:God, yeah, you've got to be here in the room.
Chief Gibby Jacob:You've got to be those after-meeting the room. You gotta be, you know, those after meeting conversations. Yeah, exactly. And then, uh, if the chair didn't like, didn't like, you you'd. You know, you only got a couple minutes to speak and then you got no chance to reply after that. Exactly you know what. What a waste, you know. But uh, anyways, the other thing I did was, uh, and I haven't booked a room yet, but after that meeting with the elders, I'm going to book another morning or maybe a whole day at Chief Joe's.
Chief Gibby Jacob:Get some of our senior retired counselors and leaders, matriarchs, come to a session with all of the candidates and give them the Squamish 101. Beautiful, and this is where we were. This was amalgamation, this was before amalgamation. You know, this is how we got to where we are. We've done a chronology. When I was running the show in my office, we did a chronology from amalgamation to then. It gets about 10, 11 years ago. We ended up, but you know, could add another page on now.
Chief Gibby Jacob:We're just money isn't everything, you know, I mean. I mean we've got a lot now, you know, and half the time people don't know because they don't understand how to read a statement. Right, you know where the money's going, yeah, and then they kind of put it into graph forms so much is going here, so much is going there. It doesn't tell you anything, yeah, except that the money's gone. Yeah, and no accountability that way. Yeah, that's one of my words to you is, you know, as a chief, you know people are going to be looking to you for the big leadership, you know, and if you're true to what you say you want to do, they'll have you in there forever. If you want to stay there, right, yeah. But if they figure out, oh, this guy just lying blowing smoke, you know you won't be there very long, agreed, and so that's an important thing.
Chief Gibby Jacob:You know, I was always at every meeting, you know, even though people were going to give me crap, yeah, that's fine. You know, I get that, we all get that every meeting, you know. And one of our ladies got in council and we were getting non-confidence and this is a meeting-to-meeting thing, right, we just get non-confidence. So I just like water off a duck's back for me, right. And I seen her hand go up and I looked over. She's a couple years older than me. I wondered what she's going to say. Why can't we just be friends. I just watched her laugh. Oh, she blinked. So I told her after I said we're going to get this every meeting. I said don't let it get to you, don't let it consume you. They're not your enemies, they're your family. They're just blowing steam. I said end of the meeting, everybody will be fine again. So I've gone through that, I don't know how many times, but it just is what it is. That's the way of our world in Squamish.
Aaron Pete:Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being willing to share your insights. I look to individuals like yourself for inspiration and for wisdom, and I'm just so grateful to have been able to share this time with you. Would you mind telling people how they can follow your work?
Chief Gibby Jacob:I'm doing a limited series documentary Amazing, it's called Back to the Fire. We have a website, backtothefirenet. It's really about traditional teachings, leadership and the teachings that you know people got. I understand Stephen Point was here before and you know got I understand Stephen Point was here before and you know he's just such a great man, and his wife as well. And where do you start from? You know, none of us were ever rich. You know my parents both my parents worked. My father had a massive stroke when he was 47, I think Just about killed him, but he came back. My mother worked in a fish cannery and that's the background we came from. Everybody worked. My brothers and sisters, all of them worked, and so Beautiful, and so how can people find that?
Chief Gibby Jacob:Well, you can go online. It's not out in public yet. We went to CBC and to APTN to see if they'd give us a broadcast license. Both of them declined. Wow, yeah, I mean, the guy who we interviewed was Chief Bobby Joseph. Wow, dr Chief Peter Joseph. Wow, dr Chief Peter Joseph, right, yeah, anyways, they refused and they said oh, it's a great project, but not what we're looking for. Oh, no, so we've got the Squamish one, we've probably about 80% done that one.
Chief Gibby Jacob:And Tunaka Kinbasket, the Cranbrook tribe, yeah, a couple of lady friends of mine One was a chief up there, sophie Pierre for a long time. Catherine Denise, still a lead negotiator for the tribe, yeah, and so I phoned them up, you know, and told them what the project was all about and he said we're in, perfect. And Stephen, I just talked to him on the way here, yeah, yeah, siam Yep, and told him because he's one of the other ones I tapped and on the shoulder a friend a long time, him and his wife, and I said we're still working on this yet and I said we're trying to get funding to finish these two. But if I can get more, you know, you're next in my mind who I want to video for your life story and things that you want to share, things that I have in here. I told my staff I told them I'm retiring At 65, I've been around a long time.
Chief Gibby Jacob:I said my health isn't 100%, so you know what I have left. I got a small family and I want to spend my time with my family. I said but here it is. I said you know where I live, you know my phone number. You need me for anything. You come and just ask me. I said, because what I know I don't own. I said I only know these things because the people allowed me to learn them, and so some of them phone me, you know, and ask me some historical questions and thoughts about direction, and I got a pretty strategic mind Agreed, yeah.
Aaron Pete:Well, thank you so much for being willing to join today. It's been an absolute honor.
Chief Gibby Jacob:Yeah, pleasure, pleasure to meet you and good luck being a chief. See you, see you, see you.
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