About
Our Mission
Guided by respected Elders, Language Speakers and Knowledge Keepers, the hulitun suli society breathes life into the hearts of all people. Our focus is in healing through intergenerational knowledge transfer, cultural revitalization, living in reciprocity with the Land and adopting an ancestral Coast Salish worldview to create strong, healthy, vibrant, modern and prosperous communities.
We are a 100% Indigenous led non-profit society. Formed in May of 2024 after conversations between Elders, educators and Knowledge Keepers highlighted the urgent need to have Elders provide Land-based cultural programming at home in Coast Salish communities rather than spending their time employed outside of the community to provide for their families financially. It is imperative that our communities benefit from the knowledge that these Elders have, passing it on to the next generation.
Our programs provide community members of all ages with free access to cultural activities such as language, canoe carving, cedar bark weaving, traditional foods, song, and story. The programs reflect seasonal teachings and run year round. Programs are delivered by a team of Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, Educators and Elders. The purpose of the programs is to facilitate community based healing, strengthen and build relationships, heal family systems, and to foster intergenerational knowledge transfer through cultural revitalization.
For the Community
We facilitate healing and reconnection to language, culture, community, and all our relations through connection of the heart, mind and spirit with the Land, sea, rivers and mountains.
Through an ancestral Coast Salish worldview, we connect people with culture, facilitating traditional art, language, ritual, medicine, song, story, land management, food sovereignty and other revitalization initiatives.
In Hul’qumi’num, the language of this Land, suli means our internal spirit, our spiritual health, our soul. Hulitun Suli means awakening our suli and bringing it to life. We encourage implicit learning about our relationship to the Land helping people move away from a sense of entitlement to a sense of respect for and reciprocity with the Land. This process is inherently linked to learning about one’s ancestral being through Hul’qumi’num language and culture. Through this work those who have lost their suli will find it again.
We support food security and sovereignty, sharing traditional foods, ancestral ways of caring for the Land and harvesting methods. We support language revitalisation, sharing Hul’q’umi’num, the language of this Land. This work is about strengthening ancestral roles and responsibilities. We are accountable to the Land, protecting all our relations through ancestral ways of knowing and being.
We serve communities across Coast Salish territories – our current focus is in Stz’uminus and Snaw-naw-as.
Our Goals
To operate and maintain centres of cultural resurgence across Coast Salish territories that offer meaningful programming and services that reconnect our people with ancestral customs, rituals, and traditions; strengthening identity, community, and intergenerational knowledge.
To enhance education by creating and leading culturally appropriate land, ocean & river-based programs for youth, families and community members; fostering respect, understanding, and a shared sense of responsibility.
To foster meaningful dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples that encourages a deeper understanding of the relationships that govern our world – land, waters, territory, history, and responsibility; and inspires collective action toward reconciliation, equity, and sustainable futures.
Our Board of Directors
Squtxulenuhw George Seymour
My Christian name is George Wayne Seymour. I proudly walk this life with my grandfather, Tom Semu, and my father Victor Tom Seymour, the last hereditary leader of the Shcuminus people. I was invited to my father’s death bed and there he handed his chieftainship and name to myself, as my grandfather did to him.
I acquired my Master’s in our Hul’qumi’num language from Simon Fraser university. I’m a speaker of my language, and a teacher of our language in British Columbia’s School District 68. My previous job was teaching language at Cowichan School District for about 9 years. I’m a carver of masks and other kinds of art. I am a drum maker, and plan to teach other arts and crafts to youth including cedar bark harvesting, weaving, making full size paddles and storytelling.
Tsumqwutun Lawrence Mitchell
‘een’thu tsumqwutun,
Greetings I am tsumqwutun, born and raised on Vancouver Island, living in snuwnuwus, Coast Salish territory. Striving to raise my children through our hul’q’umi’num’ language, and the teachings that have shaped our world for generations.
My life is all about expression; telling stories, wood carving, painting, digital art, videography, singing, drumming and dancing. Also curating experiences for others to open up to a magic that has existed here since the beginning of time.
I dedicate my life to the work of the people, by learning who I am, and moving our ways of being through the realms of the modern world. I spend everyday finding ways to give back, and share everything I’ve learned.
I am a grandfather of 3, a father of 4, a son, a brother and an uncle to many. Sometimes I teach at elementary schools, sometimes at high schools and other days at daycares. I have been working with children and youth for over 20 years, and after achieving my Masters in Indigenous Language & Linguistics I have an even deeper focus on the hul’qumi’num language.
Ted Cadwallader
Originally from the Kwagiulth village of Tsaxis on the north end of Vancouver Island, Ted has lived and worked in Coast Salish territory for the past 55 years. He is a retired teacher with a passion for language revitalization and learning to be a good relative on hul’q’umi’num’qun lands.