The province has confirmed it will pave a three-kilometre stretch of Douglas Lake Road entering the Upper Nicola Band’s reserve nearly three years after committing to the project.

Back in August of 2013, representatives from the Upper Nicola Band and the Ministry of Transportation signed a memorandum of agreement to pave a section of the road that runs from the border of the band’s number three reserve, located at the west end of Douglas Lake, stopping at the bridge leading to the N’kwala school.

Upper Nicola Band Chief Harvey McLeod said the impasse that has stalled the road pavement has been resolved with the government, and the road work will begin in the spring.

“It was the land. It’s always been about the land,” McLeod said.

In exchange for transferring the lands required for the Douglas Lake Road right-of-way to the provincial government, the Upper Nicola Band will receive a portion of Crown land equal in size to the amount of land being taken.

The band requested and will receive a portion of land along Glimpse Lake which borders its number three reserve.

McLeod said the band wanted this land because it is lakefront property and has cultural significance.

“We just wanted to ensure that the land around that piece of property is protected and that we could enhance acquiring more control of the land around there would be better for our community,” McLeod said.

“Our people use that property up there a lot,” he said. “We have culture camps up there, we have language camps up there and a lot of our people walk there just to be.”

He said the band is currently in the process of adding this land to its reserve.

The size of the replacement land is 16.2 hectares.

The province obtains the three-kilometre dirt road stretch of reserve land for transportation purposes via an Indian Act transfer, the Ministry of Transportation explained via email.

“If the province no longer needs the Section 35 transfer for transportation purposes, the area would revert back to reserve lands,” the ministry stated.

The land transfer agreement was presented to the federal government back when the memorandum was signed, but it took until this past January for Ottawa to complete its due diligence and issue the federal order transferring the land.

The ministry stated that once the order was received, several steps, including registering the transaction, determining the nature and scope of the work and preparing tender documents, were required, preventing the roadwork from being completed in 2015.

Replacement of reserve lands transferred from the reserve is required by the federal government as part of the Indian Act.