Chilliwack-Agassiz a hot spot for aboriginal business – Vancouver Sun

The Fraser Valley is home to swaths of land owned by several First Nations and many aboriginal businesses here get considerable support from non-profit groups such as the Sto:lo Community Futures, says Bryan Gallagher, who has been doing his PhD on indigenous entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business.

These are run by community volunteers and not only provide businesses with funding, but also key contacts for finding customers, he says.

“It acts as an advocate in the community more so than what these businesses would find if they were in Vancouver or Richmond.”

In part, this has spawned a mini-cluster of First Nations-owned businesses in the eastern Fraser Valley. Almost 80 of the 300 First Nations-owned businesses that a new B.C. government-funded project is tracking in the Lower Mainland and south coast are found in Chilliwack and Agassiz alone. The Sto:lo Community Futures itself estimates there are over 150 aboriginal businesses in the wider surrounding area.