International boundary issues in the Northeast on the US/Canada line in Mohawk country are not the same as in the central Okanagan of the Pacific Northwest; while there are common issues, the complexities of individual communities get lost in a general approach to Northern border issues. To learn from and expand on previous research, I am specifically investigating the influence and interference of the 49^th parallel demarcated international boundary line on the current preservation and complexities of identities, cultural and language revitalization/preservation/construction of northern and southern Okanagan people.

Using first-person narratives primarily through film, a personal website, and supporting text I will illustrate how individuals within our communities see and resist these impacts. Making visible specifics in the nsyilx ^wc[schwa]n (speakers/people of the Okanagan language) homelands and how the implications of assimilation, colonization, traditional migration, individual indigeneities, tourism, militarization, and local Indigenous economic development have and are impacting our views of ourselves and the labeling of the problems of the Northern boundary line as “not an issue” is a continued battle in this bi-national controlled Okanagan territory.