Photograph Courtesy of the Sto:lo Resource and Research Management Centre. The Geographic Information System Department’s map of So’lh Temewx- Sto:lo Traditional Territory.
The history of Canada and the relationship between mainstream Canada and indigenous peoples often focuses on the settler narrative or comes from a Western perspective. So, why do we need to shift our attention to the histories and stories of Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island? The twentieth-century, Canadian historian Margaret Macmillan’s book, History’s People: Personalities and the Past, examines the relationship between biography history and people. MacMillan shares,
To understand the people of the past, we must start by respecting the fact that they had their own values and ways of seeing the world. They were shaped by different political structures; their ideas came from different sources than our own. Sometimes we have to work hard to understand their thinking.
It can be a challenge for non-Indigenous people to engage with past and contemporary Indigenous histories and cultures. For Stó:lō people, it is our challenge to continually refuse the erasure of Stó:lō history. In conjunction, on the importance of knowing history, is to draw upon the Stó:lō lens. In Canadian ethnohistorian, Dr. Keith Thor Carlson’s You Are Asked to Witness- The Sto:lo in Canada’s Pacific History, “ introduces to readers to the Sto:lo history, culture and spirituality. Carlson explains that Stó:lō elders share the Halq’emeylem translation of s’téxem, as “people who lost or forgotten their history” (90).
To learn about the histories and stories of Stó:lō individuals from the Stó:lō community, we need to begin by explaining who we are as Stó:lō people. The Stó:lō people are the first peoples of So’lh Temexw in the Fraser Valley, in British Columbia. Our tribal name, ‘Stó:lō’ is a Halq’emeylem word meaning, ‘river’, thus, we are known as people of the river, or salmon people because our main traditional food staple is salmon. As Elder Eddie Gardner explains, “[t]he history of Sto:lo cannot be written without presenting [our] special relationship to wild salmon and cedar trees” (7). Stó:lō has it tribes including, Ts’elxwéyeqw, Pilat and Tait has an ancestral and intrinsic relationship with sol’h temewx. Our tribal language is upriver Halq’emeylem language; with a handful of fluent speakers, today; most well known is, Siyamiyateliyout, Elizabeth Phillips. The Sto:lo territory comprises of about twenty-four First Nation Bands situated from Kwantlen, British Columbia to Yale, British Columbia.
So, please join me as we glimpse into the life of Stó:lō people, through the eyes of K’hhalseten.
References
Carlson, Keith Thor, 2000. You Are Asked To Witness. Stó:lō Heritage Trust. p.90.
Eddie Gardner. “Sto:lo, Salmon, an Cedar- A Sacred Relationship,”. The Footprint Press. Issue 8. p.7
Macmillian, Margaret, 2015. History’s People: Personalities and the Past, House of Anansi. p.7.
Schaepe, David M. 2017. Being Ts’elxwéyeqw : First Peoples’ Voices and History from the Chilliwack-Fraser Valley, British Columbia. Harbour Publishing
Media Sources
Geographic Information System Departments. Map of Sol’h Temexw- Sto:lo Traditional Territory. Sto:lo
Resource and Research Management Centre. http://www.srrmcentre.com/gis
Suggested Additional Readings
Archibald, Jo-ann. 2001. Remembering the Sacred Time of Elders : 25th Annual Gathering of First Nations Elders : Silver Anniversary Souvenir Book. Coqualeetza Cultural Education Centre.
First People, 2018. First People’s Map of BC. maps.fpcc.ca
Stó:lō Agency. https://www.stolonation.bc.ca/
Stó:lō Past & Present. Coqualeetza Cultural Education Centre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G2_zuWTj64
Wells, Oliver, Brent Douglas Galloway, Ralph Maud, and Marie Weeden. 1987. The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors. Deslibris: Books Collection. Talon Books.