On 11 May 1987, the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en peoples of north-western British Columbia brought suit against the government of the province, seeking legal recognition of their ownership of their traditional homelands. After a highly publicised trial lasting four years, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Allan McEachern, delivered judgment on 8 March 1991. His decision denied that these indigenous peoples had proprietary rights to the lands in question, despite their continuous occupancy since before the coming of whites. Instead, the judge upheld a claim by the Crown, declaring ‘that the Plaintiffs had no right, title or interest in and to the Claim Area, and the resources thereon, thereover or thereunder’. The issue of Aboriginal land rights is a hotly contested one in settler societies such as Canada and Australia, in which contemporary understandings of the complexity of indigenous cultural traditions and colonial history conflict with vested economic interests in the land. Consequently, Chief Justice McEachern's judgment attracted much criticism for its outdated colonialist assumptions about race and culture, but it also garnered support from major social institutions. One of the most interesting manifestations of this support occurred when the provincial government published the decision in book form, under the title Reasons for Judgment: Delgamuukw v. The Queen, and distributed it widely throughout British Columbia.

All judgments are published, in the sense that the text is read out or handed down to the parties, is preserved as a transcript in the court archives and may well be reported in the press or in the official Law Reports.