Kwakwaka'wakw Settlements, 1775-1920: A Geographical Analysis and Gazetteer

Joseph Leydon teaches geography at the University of Toronto.

Robert Galois has produced a fascinating book. It traces the changing
demography and settlement patterns of the Kwakwaka’wakw from the
period of first contact with Europeans up to 1920. He employs sources
such as ethnographic studies, the records of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
colonial records, census data, missionary accounts, documentation from
the Department of Indian Affairs, and private journals to provide a
detailed and unique study.

The Kwakwaka’wakw, who lived on what is now northern Vancouver Island
and the adjacent mainland of British Columbia, were drawn into the
European trading network through the fur trade. As with all Native
groups, their lives changed drastically following contact. As Galois
argues, we have too readily viewed the contact period through the
colonizers’ eyes, and we have failed to recognize the wealth of
culture and lifestyles of those who predate our existence in this
country. Over the past decades, non-Natives have been forced to
re-examine the colonial past and to ask questions about the contact
period and recognize the upheaval that followed. This book is in part a
result of this questioning.

The first part of the book outlines the Natives’ encounter with
Europeans, and the changes and adjustments wrought by this meeting. The
second, larger part is a gazetteer of Kwakwaka’wakw settlement sites,
and is organized around regional groupings of tribes. Demographic and
settlement information is presented for each

tribe; numerous maps illustrate settlement and territorial changes; and
origin myths in English and Kwak’wala (the language of the
Kwakwaka’wakw) are provided. It is the gazetteer that makes the book
unique.

This is a very specialized book. The general reader will find part one,
the introductory sections to each tribe, and the narratives of interest,
but the greatest benefit will be gained by the student of British
Columbia’s Native peoples.