| Summary: | I offer some tentative thoughts on Sto:lo relations with the forest and, in turn, suggest how those
relations may inform Sto:lo views on identity and culture. While highlighting the variety and
complexity of Sto:lo attitudes toward the forest, I pay particular attention to those that appear
contradictory. In so doing, I suggest that such "contradictions" are instead necessary
antagonisms that spring from the constantly changing pressures to which the Sto:lo have been
subjected, as well as from the ways in which they have struggled to cope with such pressures.
More specifically, in pointing to Sto:lo attitudes towards forest work and forest conservation, I
suggest that the Sto:lo have been forced and even encouraged to make claims to their identity
that do not, and need not, conform with what is considered "traditional." In this way, my
discussion is structured around the relationship between a sense of Sto:lo identity and the notion
of cultural continuity, while aimed at highlighting the material as well as the intellectual realities
behind that relationship.
In a broader context, my discussion is aimed at reinforcing the need for more flexible
examinations of Native identity; those that will highlight what it means to live in a modern
Native culture, and what it means to be vulnerable to power.
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