Tsilhqotʼin

The Tsilhqut’in (also Chilcotin, Tsilqut'in, Tŝinlhqot’in, Chilkhodin, Tsilkótin, Tsilkotin) are a Northern Athabaskan First Nations people that live in British Columbia, Canada They are the most southern of the Athabaskan-speaking Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia.

The name Tsilhqut’in, also spelled Tŝinlhqot’in is the Chilcotin name for themselves "people of the red-ochre river" ("Chilko" meaning "red ochre river"). The name also refers to the Chilcotin region, the territory which they traditionally inhabited, and which still numerically dominate the Chilcotin Plateau. It consists of the inland lea of the coast ranges on the west side of the Fraser River. It is the name of the river draining that region. The Chilcotin district is mostly a wide, high plateau, stretching from the mountains to the Fraser, but also includes several fjord-like lakes which verge from the plateau into the base of the mountains, the largest of which is Chilko Lake. The Tsilhqot’in people live today in Alexandria, north of Williams Lake, British Columbia, and in a string of communities westward from Williams Lake on Highway 20. The access road was paved only in recent years.

History

The Tsilhqot’in first encountered Europeans trading goods in the 1780s and 1790s when British and American ships first came to the northwest coast seeking sea otter pelts. By 1808, a fur-trading company out of Montreal called the North West Company had established posts in the Carrier (Dene) territory just north of the Tsilhqot’in and trade began face to face and through Carrier intermediaries. A fur trade fort established by what had become the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821 at Fort Alexandria on the Fraser River, at the eastern limit of Tsilhqot’in territory, and which became their major source for European goods.

Smallpox

The isolated position of the Tsilhqot’in may have protected them from the first of the European smallpox epidemics which spread up from Mexico in the 1770s. Likewise, they may have been spared the smallpox epidemic of 1800 and the measles of the 1840s.

Communities

• Toosey [Tl’esqoxt’in]
• Stone [Yunesit’in]
• Anaham [Tl’etinqox]
• Redstone [Tsi Del Del]
• Ulkatcho at Anahim Lake (mixed Tsilhqot’in-Carrier community)

Aside from the aboriginal communities, there are only two small unincorporated towns in the whole region: Alexis Creek and Anahim Lake. Despite its small population and isolation, the region has produced a small but very readable literature mixing naturalism with native and settler cultures. The area is accessed by Highway 20, which runs from the port town of Bella Coola, at the head of a coastal fjord in the heart of the mountains, across the mountains and plateau to the city of Williams Lake, the principal town of the Cariboo District.

See also

• Chilcotin language
• Chilcotin War
• Carrier Chilcotin Tribal Council
• Tsilhqot'in Tribal Council

External links

• Tŝilhqot'in National Government
• Tsilhqot'in Nation
• Unjust Trial and Hanging of the Tsilhqot'in Warriors
• Tsilhqot’in Culture
• Tsilhqot’in Homeland by James Teit, 1909
• The Tsilhqot'in and Their Neighbours According to James Teit, 1909
• Tsîlhqot’in Food Supply According to James Teit, 1909
• Tsîlhqot’in Travel and Trade by James Teit, 1909
• Tsîlhqot’in Warfare by James Teit, 1909
• Tsilhqot'in National Government
• Tsilkotin Indian Tribe History

Bibliography

• Nemiah: The Unconquered Country by Terry Glavin
• Chilcotin Cowboy by Paul St. Pierre
• Smith and Other Events by Paul St. Pierre
• Caruso of Lonesome Lake by Ralph Edwards
• Chiwid by Sage Birchwater
• The Chilcotin War by Mel Rothenburger
• High Slack: Waddington's Gold Road and the Bute Inlet Massacre of 1864 by Judith Williams