W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council’s (W̱LC’s) Sea Garden Restoration Project continued to make an impact through the end of 2025, sparking a revitalization of traditional knowledge, garnering the attention of international media, and moving the needle towards greater food security for W̱SÁNEĆ and neighbouring communities.

For thousands of years, W̱SÁNEĆ have built, tended to, and relied upon clam garden sites throughout W̱SÁNEĆ’s traditional territory.

Long before the advent of modern tools, W̱SÁNEĆ of all ages came together to maintain this critical food source by hand. While women prepared food and the home, men worked together to build a sea wall of large rocks – the key mechanism for creating clam garden sites. Children and teenagers, too, helped build sea walls by gathering and placing smaller rocks within the wall’s structure.

Once the wall was in place, a soft, flat, and nutrient-rich habitat for clams gradually formed, thanks to the sediment deposited during high tide. These areas became shared oyster and clam harvesting sites for W̱SÁNEĆ and relatives from southern Vancouver Island and were even home to several village sites for annual harvesting.

For the last several years, W̱LC and Parks Canada have partnered on the Sea Garden Restoration Project: a first-of-its-kind initiative to restore ancient clam garden sites in W̱SÁNEĆ’s traditional territory, both as a means of improving food security for current and future generations and to provide opportunities for the intergenerational transfer of traditional knowledge.

At the centre of the Project is the restoration of the 800-meter clam garden wall at Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring Island, an initiative done under W̱SÁNEĆ supervision and in partnership with the Salt Spring Conservancy. There, Project members are performing water quality and wave measuring tests, testing clam species for biotoxins, and even hosting summer camps – creating an opportunity for youth to learn about ancient clam garden sites. In the evenings during low tide, the Project also hosts clam harvesting at the wall. Project members had a meeting with the Conservancy on November 15th, 2025 to move this initiative forward.

The wall at Fulford Harbour is particularly notable because of its impressive age. With the help of divers, studies of rising ocean levels, and carbon dating, scientists confirmed the wall is approximately 4,500 years old. To continue ensuring its functionality over time, W̱SÁNEĆ have built several walls – one on top of the other – as the ocean level rises. Together, the stacked, ancient walls create the impression of an underwater staircase beginning in the depths of the ocean.

W̱LC Knowledge Weaver ĆILTEN (Phil Tom) describes the Fulford Harbour wall as a “heritage marker” for W̱SÁNEĆ. In his words, “we don’t have pyramids, we don’t have Mayan temples – we don’t have many of those things that lasted over many lifetimes,” so it’s significant to “have history proving that our people were here that long ago.”

Beyond Fulford Harbour, the Project’s work extends to clam garden sites throughout W̱SÁNEĆ’s traditional territory. Sites include, for example, Owl Island, Portland Island, the 450-year-old Russel Island clam garden wall, and Cabbage Island. Project members complete a variety of work across the sites, all with the goal of restoration and revitalization.

Project members, for example, work with Vancouver Island University (VIU) to conduct extensive biotoxin testing on the clams living at each site to ensure the clams are safe to eat. While historically W̱SÁNEĆ relied on traditional knowledge to assess the health of clams – such as, for example, looking to see whether birds were in the area and eating clams, and assessing whether the beach looked generally healthy – rises in population and pollution have made it difficult to accurately assess the health of clams without testing in a laboratory. In ĆILTEN’s words, “you go to beaches that don’t look like they should have any kind of pollution, but when you test the clams, the biotoxins are still high.”

So far, results of testing show that 50% of tested clams contain biotoxins. Because biotoxins have detrimental health effects both in the short term and the long term, beaches where high levels of biotoxins are discovered are closed to the public.

In addition to testing for safety, Project members harvest safe clams to share with the greater community. Harvesting took place throughout November and December. Project members recently harvested butter clams on Owl Island, for example – a location historically shared by W̱SÁNEĆ and relatives from Cowichan and Penelakut – and distributed them to W̱SÁNEĆ Elders. Project members also recently partnered with Malahat First Nation to harvest Manila clams on Saturna Island and visited Isabela Islet to collect Manila and butter clams. Clam harvesting takes place late in the evening. On one recent outing to gather sea urchin, Project members arrived at 1:20AM for low tide and didn’t head home until around 3:30AM.

To ensure the entire community understands the importance of these initiatives, Project members engage in ongoing community education. Recently, Project members held Pauquachin First Nation Youth Program and Pauquachin Marine Team events at Portland Island. This supported Pauquachin’s work creating and maintaining a sea wall below their home village on the Saanich Peninsula.

Nestled between these large initiatives are constant efforts to clean the beaches and restore the walls. Project members remove seaweed and turn beach sediment to improve the health of the clams and engage in consistent water quality testing.

All these efforts collectively contribute to the health of beach life, improve sustainability of shellfish, bolster food security for W̱SÁNEĆ, serve as an acknowledgement of the Ancestors’ work, and celebrate and share W̱SÁNEĆ’s history.

Heading into 2026, the Project team plans to continue clam garden education initiatives, keep restoring clam garden sites, and engage in ongoing harvesting and distribution. The Project team also looks forward to collaborating with various media outlets to share news of the Project with the broader community.

One special upcoming media event is the release of an interview by Carl Olsen on Aboriginal Peoples Television. This interview – which was filmed in summer of 2025 – will discuss Olsen’s knowledge of clam garden sites and is set to release sometime in 2026.

Additionally, the television station PBS plans to visit in the third weekend of March to work on a piece about the Fulford Harbour wall. PBS plans to speak to W̱SÁNEĆ groups participating in the restoration of the Fulford Harbour wall, including W̱LC, as well as neighboring communities.

W̱LC looks forward to continuing this important work to honor the Ancestors, educate current and future generations, and restore a vital source of food security for all W̱SÁNEĆ.

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