Good morning.

There are parts of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barbara Young’s pivotal ruling in favour of the Cowichan Tribes’ land claim that vividly reveal a harrowing provincial past of skulduggery and violence.

There is the paternalistic and colonial effort by James Douglas, the first governor of the colony of British Columbia, to assure the Cowichan Tribes that if they refrained from harassing the settlers, the Crown would treat them with “justice and humanity.” (He made plain the settlers were coming anyway.)

There is the bloody ferocity of the Cowichan, including the penchant of some war chiefs for killing adversaries from different Indigenous groups, cutting off their heads to hang from their canoes while enslaving the remaining women and children. (A census from 1846 included in the court record indicates the Cowichan were made up of some 9,427 individuals, 2,866 of them slaves.)

And there is the deception and self-dealing of Col. Richard Moody, lieutenant governor of the colony who was appointed to oversee the selling of land in the new colony to settlers. He was expressly instructed to avoid dispersing Indigenous lands. But starting in 1863, he used an agent to surreptitiously purchase for himself land on the Fraser River that included a Cowichan fishing village that was to have been set aside for them.

Over the next 162 years, that land would become some of the most valuable in the province, with all three levels of government managing infrastructure and handing out fee-simple property rights to a succession of owners and enterprises.

Justice Young’s 863-page ruling and her conclusion that the Cowichan’s title to the land had never been extinguished and co-exists – but predominates – fee-simple title have set off a flurry of reaction ranging from alarm to bewilderment.

As David Ebner reported, the land is occupied by an array of owners. Part of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and other industrial operations are there. There’s a golf course and private homes with small farms, along with a span of infrastructure such as roads and dikes.

In a Globe and Mail analysis of property assessments, land and buildings in the area are worth more than $1.3-billion.

Companies such as Canadian Tire, Euro Asia Transload and Westport Intermodal have operations on the land.

Kash Heed, a Richmond city councillor and former provincial solicitor-general, said uncertainty has stoked anxiety among some owners in the area.

“They’re in a world of, ‘We’re not sure what’s going to happen to our property,’” said Heed. “Which they feel they rightfully own.”

Cowichan Tribes Chief Cindy Daniels said last week the Cowichan’s goal is to “recover and restore our village and surrounding lands, re-establish our permanent residence and river access, re-establish our cultural practices including those that support food security and sustainability, realize economic development and re-establish the truth of our history in that region.”

Private ownership is “valid until such a time as a court may determine otherwise or until the conflicting interests are otherwise resolved through negotiation,” Justice Young wrote.

How that is figured out is “not a matter for this court to address.”

For now, some are in wait-and-see mode. Harry Hogler, a local resident and co-owner of the Country Meadows Golf Course, told The Canadian Press he wasn’t worried about the court ruling but declined an interview.

But after more than 500 days of hearings in the B.C. Supreme Court, the case is destined to have many more days at the B.C. Court of Appeal and likely the Supreme Court of Canada. The B.C. government has already said it will appeal.

Ultimately, writes Globe columnist Gary Mason, the case could have an impact on provincial affairs for decades.

“The ripple effect could be dizzying. The sum of money it may take to negotiate a settlement with the Cowichan Tribes is staggering to consider, especially for a B.C. government that is racking up debt at a historic rate.”

But columnist Andrew Coyne argues overwrought declarations by some critics of the ruling are ignoring that the judge’s reasoning is in keeping with successive court rulings gradually expanding and colouring in the definition of aboriginal title.

“The sale of these lands was not only in violation, at least in spirit, of Douglas’s solemn promises, and not only in violation of his order setting aside the lands as a reserve: It was flatly illegal,” he writes.

“Is it inconvenient to have to acknowledge all this now, more than 150 years later? Yes it is. It would have been inconvenient to governments in the 19th century to have to abide by the promises they had made. But they put their own convenience first, and as such passed on the inconvenience to future generations.”

Geoff Plant, a former provincial attorney-general who worked on treaty negotiations and is a lawyer for one of the defendants against the Cowichan, said the best path forward is a negotiated settlement.

This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.