(Is)Land Acknowledgment
The Galiano Island Literary Festival (GLF) respectfully acknowledges that the island has been home to Coast Salish Indigenous Peoples, including the Lamalcha, Penelakut and other Hul'qumi'num' speaking peoples since time immemorial. These Nations hold deep cultural, linguistic and familial connections to the island and the waters that surround it. They remain the stewards of the island and its natural inhabitants today.
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Colonization and the arrival of European settlers brought significant, irrevocable changes to the island and its inhabitants. We recognize and accept our shared responsibility to actively participate in the process of decolonization, both on the island and in the broader literary community.
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GLF commits to conducting our work in a way that recognizes the complex history of these lands and waters, and which honours and upholds the culture and teachings of the Indigenous Peoples who have always lived on and cared for the island that we call Galiano.
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Photo Credit: Douglas Thistle-Walker
Galiano Island
Beautiful, peaceful and inspiring, Galiano Island is the perfect place to write and listen to writers share their stories.
Galiano Island is just a quick ferry ride away from Tsawwassen (from Vancouver on the lower mainland) or Swartz Bay. It is advisable to book via BC Ferries well in advance and there are no booking fees for the Southern Gulf Islands. You can also take a boat and tie up at one of our beautiful provincial wharfs.
As one the Canadian Southern Gulf Islands, Galiano is on the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The island is long and skinny 27.5 km long and 1.6 km wide at the most narrow, so Galiano has lots of great beaches. In the summer, the population of approximately one thousand five hundred islanders more than triples with seasonal residents and tourists.