When Melanie Mark was elected just over a year ago as the B.C. NDP MLA in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, it caught the attention of indigenous people across the province.

Mark traces her lineage back to the Nisga'a, Gitxsan, Cree, and Ojibway First Nations.

Then on National Aboriginal Day last year, the B.C NDP posted a video on YouTube reminding voters that it elected the first indigenous MLA (Frank Calder), the second indigenous MLA (Larry Guno), and recognized aboriginal title when the party came to power in 1991.

The video also noted that an NDP premier, Glen Clark, signed the first modern treaty with a First Nation (the Nisga'a) and that Carole James was the first woman of aboriginal heritage to be elected to the B.C. legislature.

In 1996, the B.C. NDP narrowly won the provincial election with the help of indigenous voters. And it looks like NDP Leader John Horgan is employing a similar strategy in 2017.

One of the party's oft-played ads on television shows Horgan tossing a basketball to an indigenous youth, who dribbles the ball forward before completing a nifty lay-up.

But the B.C. Liberals have not sat by idly and give free rein to the NDP as they did in 1996.

This time, the B.C. Liberals have fielded three indigenous candidates with high profiles in their communities: Wanda Good (Stikine), Ellis Ross (Skeena), and Dallas Smith (North Island).

And today, Good released a radio ad in the Gitskan language to try to woo indigenous voters.

"I'm proud to be born and raised in the Gitanyow community. I'm grateful for the teachings passed to me by my extended family and I want to do my part in continuing to work with our community, stand up for our region, and share the language,” Good, deputy chief councillor of the Gitanyow First Nation, said in a B.C. Liberal news release. “This is an opportunity for me to engage with our First Nations community, especially our elders who preserved our language and our young people who want to learn.”

In the late 1990s, the Gitanyow had an overlapping land claim with the Nisga'a and bitterly opposed that first modern treaty negotiated by the federal Liberal and provincial NDP governments. Some of the plaintiffs in a Gitanyow court challenge in the late 1990s were Good's relatives.

In 2015, the Gitanyow hereditary chiefs filed an application in court to try to force the B.C. Liberal government to adhere to the Nisga'a Final Agreement Act and set limits on moose harvests in the Nass Valley. They objected to the Nisga'a being allowed to do this, allegedly without direction from the province.

Good is a former TransCanada Corporation employee and a descendant of Gitanyow hereditary chiefs.

Ross has been a chief of the Haisla Council and is a long-time advocate for liquefied natural-gas development.

Smith was deeply involved in negiations to preserve much of the Great Bear Rainforest, which was Christy Clark's greatest environmental achievement as premier.