Alex Maiassi

A few weeks ago, reporter Alex Maiassi and I headed to Canada to meet a leader of a small nation.

Now, the land that we were standing on used to be a Squamish village.

It was called Sinak.

Chief Gibby's ancestors once lived here back in the 1800s.

Because the land that Sanak was sitting on, it was right next to a fast-growing seaport, a seaport that would eventually become a major city, Vancouver.

But the Squamish kept fighting for Sanak.

In 1977, the Squamish nation sued the Canadian government.

The legal battle took decades, and in 2003, they were able to get some of this land back, about 10 and a half acres.

I'm Alex Mayassi.

And I'm Jeff Guo.

In most cities in North America, regulations put limits on how high or how quickly you can build.

But Sanak is the sovereign territory of the Squamish nation.

They are not bound by these regulations.

they can build in a way that almost no one else can.

And right away, Chief Gibby knew what he wanted.

So Chief Gibby's dream was to turn these 10.5 acres into a dependable money-making machine.

So as Chief Gibby remembers it, this is the plan the team came up with.

They would build a few mid-rise apartment buildings.

They'd be like a dozen stories tall with a total of maybe 1,500 units.

So a fairly typical modest size development.