A woman who has been tending what she calls a “sacred fire” in Stanley Park is pushing back against a local First Nations leader who has questioned her claim to the area.
Brenda Silvey calls herself a matriarch of the land, and her supporters say they’ve been holding ceremony with support from hereditary leaders.
She has kept the fire alight near the park’s totem poles for more than a month to protest the Vancouver Park Board’s operation to remove dead and dying looper moth-affected trees.
Over the weekend, Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow challenged Silvey’s presence, telling Global News the Musqueam have no matriarchs or hereditary chiefs.
“It’s very upsetting … for an individual to come into our territory and use those terms is not very much appreciated by our community,” he said.
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“Musqueam doesn’t have a matriarch history, we have matriarch families but not as a community and having sacred fires, we don’t have sacred fires.”
On Monday, Silvey slammed Sparrow for his comments.
“That’s slander, what Wayne Sparrow said, slander, and I don’t appreciate him knocking my family down, Slivey family, cause they belonged here, they lived here, my great grandfather was born on Brockton Point beach,” she said.
Silvey says she is a descendant of Joe Silvey, also known as “Portuguese Joe,” and early settler in the area who had two Indigenous wives. The first was a Musequeam/Squamish woman who died young, while the second was from the Sechelt First Nation. Sparrow believes Silvey is a descendant of the Sunshine Coast family, with no Indigenous claim to Stanley Park.
“Look, I’ve got my statue here and I’ve got my name here,” Silvey said, pointing to a statue of Portuguese Joe and his wives Khaltinaht and Kwatleematt.
“I think people should do more research, and I think Wayne Sparrow, he should do some research before he talks. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
Last week, the Vancouver Park Board ordered Silvey and her group to leave the site, handing them a compliance notice listing a dozen bylaw infractions including lighting a fire and setting up structures in the park.
On Monday, Silvey and her group packed up their camp — though it remains unclear if they might return.
The tree-clearing operation, meanwhile, is finished for now but is slated to resume next fall.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.