At the time of European Contact, Pender Island was inhabited by Coast Salish peoples speaking the North Straits Salish language. There is an Indian reserve at Hay Point on South Pender Island, which is home to members of the Tsawout and Tseycum First Nations. Carbon dating of artifacts in shell middens near Belden Cove identify an Indian village site that has been more or less continuously inhabited for five millennia. The Poets Cove Resort was built on an ancient First Nations village site. The provincial government's 2007 settlement with the Tsawwassen First Nation included hunting and fishing rights on and around Pender Island—an arrangement to which the Sencot'en Alliance objected, saying those rights are theirs under the 1852 Douglas Treaty.