Stories from the Heart: Where Our Story Begins
Remembering the Ts’msyen People of British Columbia, 1700–1900
Stories from the Heart: Where Our Story Begins
Remembering the Ts’msyen People of British Columbia, 1700–1900
There are some stories that we read in books.
There are others that seem to live somewhere deeper.
They live in the names our grandparents carried. They live in the places where our people fished, hunted, gathered berries, built their homes and raised their children. They live in the songs, the dances, the carvings and the stories handed down from one generation to another.
And sometimes, if we are quiet enough, we can almost hear them.
This is one of those stories.
It is the story of the Ts’msyen people of British Columbia—the people whose homeland stretched along the rivers, islands, coastlines and forests of what is now called northwestern British Columbia.
It is a story that reaches far beyond the arrival of Europeans.
It is a story of a people who already had a society, a government, an economy, a language, laws, traditions, art and a deep understanding of the land and sea long before anyone from Europe ever set foot on our shores.
And perhaps most importantly, it is a story about people who endured enormous change without losing the memory of who they were.
Before the Ships Came
When I think about our ancestors living along the coast of British Columbia in the 1700s, I don’t picture a people waiting for history to arrive.
I picture people already living full lives.
There were villages along the waterways.
There were canoes moving across the coastal waters.
There were fishermen watching the rivers for salmon.
There were families preparing food for the coming winter.
There were hunters in the forests and mountains.
There were women gathering berries, shellfish and plants.
There were carvers working cedar.
There were Elders telling stories.
And there were children listening.
The land provided almost everything our people needed.
The rivers provided salmon.
The ocean provided fish, shellfish and marine mammals.
The forests provided cedar, berries, game and materials for homes, clothing, tools and canoes.
The seasons dictated the rhythm of life.
Our ancestors understood that the resources of the land and water had to be respected. They knew when the salmon would return, when the eulachon would arrive, when berries would ripen and when it was time to prepare for winter.
The land was not simply where they lived.
The land was part of who they were.
The Four Clans
At the center of Ts’msyen society were the four clans.
Raven.
Eagle.
Wolf.
Killer Whale.
These were not simply symbols.
They were identities.
They connected people to their mothers, their houses, their ancestors, their names, their stories and their responsibilities.
Ts’msyen society was matrilineal, meaning a person’s clan came through their mother.
That meant a child was born into something much larger than an individual family.
They were born into a history.
They inherited relationships.
They inherited responsibilities.
They inherited stories.
They inherited names.
And they inherited the obligation to carry those things forward.
I think there is something powerful in that.
In today’s world, we often talk about what we own.
Our ancestors understood something different.
They understood what we were responsible for carrying.
The House
The word “house” can sound simple to us today.
But a Ts’msyen house was much more than a building.
It represented a lineage.
A family.
A history.
A place in society.
A collection of names and crests.
A connection to territories and resources.
The house was one of the places where knowledge lived.
Imagine sitting inside a great cedar house with your family around you.
Outside, the rain is falling.
Inside, the fire is burning.
An Elder begins to speak.
And what follows isn’t simply a bedtime story.
It is history.
It is law.
It is identity.
It is a reminder of where the people came from and who they are supposed to be.
That is one of the things I find most beautiful about Ts’msyen culture.
Our history was never meant to live only in books.
It lived in people.
Adawx — The Stories That Carry History
One of the most important Ts’msyen concepts is adawx, the telling of history through traditional narratives.
These stories carried knowledge from one generation to another.
And when we understand that, we begin to see our traditional stories differently.
They weren’t simply legends.
They weren’t merely entertainment.
They carried the memory of the people.
A story could tell where a family came from.
It could explain a relationship with a place.
It could establish a connection to a crest.
It could explain a name.
It could preserve an important event.
It could teach a lesson.
And it could remind the next generation:
This is who we are.
That responsibility was enormous.
Because when an Elder died, the community could lose more than a person.
It could lose a story.
It could lose a name.
It could lose knowledge about a place.
It could lose a piece of history that existed nowhere else.
That makes the Elders of our communities some of the most important historians we have ever had.
The Ocean Was Our Highway
It is easy to look backward through modern eyes and imagine isolated villages.
But our ancestors were not isolated.
They traveled.
They traded.
They visited neighboring communities.
They formed alliances.
They negotiated.
They competed.
They married.
They exchanged goods and knowledge.
The canoe was one of the greatest technologies of the Northwest Coast.
A canoe could carry people, food, tools, trade goods and ceremonial objects.
It connected communities.
It connected families.
It connected territories.
And it connected the coast with the interior.
One of the most important trade commodities was eulachon grease.
Eulachon were small fish, but their importance was enormous.
They could be processed into a rich oil that was used as food and became an important trade commodity.
Our people knew how to preserve food, store it and move it.
This wasn’t a simple subsistence economy.
It was a sophisticated economic system built around the resources of the land and water.
The Food of Our Ancestors
Food tells us a great deal about a people.
For the Ts’msyen, food was tied directly to the seasons.
Salmon was central.
Eulachon was important.
Herring, halibut, shellfish and other seafood were harvested.
Seaweed was gathered.
Berries were collected.
Game was hunted.
And food was preserved for the winter.
Fish could be dried and smoked.
Other foods were preserved in ways that allowed families to survive the long winter months.
Nothing was simply about eating today.
It was about preparing for tomorrow.
There is a lesson in that for us.
Our ancestors understood that abundance was not something to waste.
It was something to respect.
Cedar and the Hands of the Carver
Then there is the art.
When I look at traditional Ts’msyen carving, I don’t see decoration.
I see communication.
A carved figure could tell a story.
A crest could identify a family.
A mask could become part of a ceremonial performance.
A frontlet could communicate rank and identity.
A house post could stand as a physical reminder of lineage.
A canoe could carry the identity of its people across the water.
Cedar was transformed into objects that could outlive the hands that made them.
The carver wasn’t simply making something beautiful.
The carver was putting memory into wood.
That is one reason Northwest Coast art is so powerful.
The art carries information.
The figures carry meaning.
The animals aren’t random.
The designs aren’t random.
The stories aren’t random.
They belong to people.
They belong to houses.
They belong to history.
Sm’algyax — A Language of Memory
And then there is the language.
Sm’algyax.
A language carries much more than words.
It carries a way of seeing.
A place name can tell us something about geography.
A person’s name can carry history.
A word can contain an idea that may take an entire sentence to explain in English.
When a language disappears, we don’t simply lose vocabulary.
We lose pieces of the worldview contained within that language.
That is why the work being done today to strengthen Sm’algyax matters so much.
Every word spoken by a child is important.
Every Elder teaching a word is important.
Every song remembered is important.
Every family that uses the language is carrying something forward.
The language is not simply something from the past.
It belongs to the future.
Then the Ships Came
By the late 1700s, European traders were beginning to enter the waters of the Northwest Coast.
But it is important to remember what they were entering.
They weren’t arriving in an empty wilderness.
They were entering a world of established nations.
They were entering existing trade networks.
They were entering territories with their own laws and leaders.
They were entering communities that already understood diplomacy and commerce.
The Europeans brought new goods.
They also brought new pressures.
The sea otter trade became increasingly important.
European traders wanted furs.
Ts’msyen people understood the value of trade and adapted to the changing economy.
Our ancestors were not simply spectators.
They negotiated.
They traded.
They made decisions.
They tried to protect their families and their communities in a rapidly changing world.
Fort Simpson
The establishment of Fort Simpson by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1830s changed the landscape of the region.
The trading post became an important center of commerce.
It also changed the traditional patterns of movement and settlement.
Lax Kw’alaams—known for much of the colonial period as Port Simpson—became one of the major centers of Ts’msyen life.
Trade increased.
European influence increased.
Missionaries arrived.
New diseases spread.
And the old world began colliding with the new one.
The nineteenth century would bring some of the greatest changes our people had ever experienced.
The Epidemics
There are parts of history that are difficult to write about.
The epidemics are among them.
Smallpox and other diseases swept through Indigenous communities along the Northwest Coast.
People died in devastating numbers.
And the loss was not simply measured by population.
When a family lost an Elder, it could lose knowledge.
When a village lost its storytellers, it could lose history.
When children were orphaned, the chain of knowledge was broken.
We have to remember those people as individuals.
They were not statistics.
They were someone’s grandmother.
Someone’s grandfather.
Someone’s mother.
Someone’s child.
Someone who knew the songs.
Someone who knew the fishing places.
Someone who knew the names.
Someone who carried a story that may never have been written down.
William Duncan and Metlakatla
Then came William Duncan.
Duncan arrived at Fort Simpson in 1857.
His arrival marked the beginning of another major chapter in Ts’msyen history.
In 1862, he established a Christian settlement at Metlakatla.
Many Ts’msyen people followed him.
There is a tendency to tell this story too simply.
It wasn’t simple.
The people were living through epidemics, political changes, economic transformation and enormous pressure from the outside world.
Christianity became part of that changing world.
Some embraced it.
Others resisted it.
And many people were trying to navigate a complicated middle ground.
Metlakatla became a remarkable community.
But the story of Metlakatla cannot be separated from the larger history of the Ts’msyen people.
It was one chapter in a much older story.
The Journey to Alaska
Then, in 1887, another extraordinary chapter began.
More than 800 Ts’msyen people left British Columbia and traveled north to establish what became New Metlakatla on Annette Island in Alaska.
That journey is remembered today through Founders’ Day.
For those of us connected to Metlakatla, Alaska, August 7 is more than a date on the calendar.
It is a reminder.
A reminder that our community’s story did not begin in 1887.
Our story traveled with those people.
It came across the water.
It carried names.
It carried memories.
It carried families.
It carried traditions.
And it carried a history that reached back generations before the journey south.
A People Who Were Told to Forget
The nineteenth century brought another painful reality.
Colonial authorities increasingly attempted to suppress Indigenous cultural practices.
The potlatch was prohibited.
Ceremonial practices were targeted.
Traditional cultural expressions were discouraged.
Children were eventually subjected to institutions designed to separate them from their families, languages and cultures.
There were tremendous pressures to make Indigenous people forget who they were.
But something happened that those policies could never completely accomplish.
People remembered.
They whispered the words.
They remembered the names.
They kept the stories.
They carved.
They sang.
They danced.
They taught their children.
And they carried the memory forward.
The Fire Was Never Extinguished
When I look at Ts’msyen history, I don’t want to tell only a story of suffering.
Yes, there was suffering.
There was disease.
There was loss.
There was cultural suppression.
There was displacement.
There were things taken from our people.
But that isn’t the whole story.
The other part of the story is resilience.
The clans are still here.
The families are still here.
The names are still here.
The art is still here.
The language is still here.
The songs are still here.
The food traditions are still here.
The people are still here.
And that may be the most important story of all.
What Our Ancestors Left Us
Our ancestors left us more than artifacts.
They left us instructions.
Respect the land.
Respect the water.
Respect the Elders.
Remember where you came from.
Know your family.
Know your responsibilities.
Take care of one another.
Don’t waste what the Creator has provided.
Teach the children.
Remember the names.
And never forget who you are.
Those lessons still matter.
Perhaps they matter more now than ever.
Looking Back So We Can Move Forward
When I look back at the Ts’msyen people of British Columbia between the 1700s and 1900s, I don’t see a people frozen in the past.
I see a people adapting.
I see fishermen.
Hunters.
Carvers.
Mothers.
Fathers.
Chiefs.
Elders.
Children.
Storytellers.
Travelers.
Traders.
Survivors.
I see people trying to make sense of a changing world while holding tightly to the things that mattered most.
And I think about the generations that came after them.
Our grandparents.
Our parents.
Our own generation.
And the children who are coming next.
We are the continuation of that story.
The story didn’t end when the Europeans arrived.
It didn’t end with the epidemics.
It didn’t end when the potlatch was banned.
It didn’t end when our people left British Columbia for Alaska.
It didn’t end when children were punished for speaking their language.
The story continued.
It continues today.
Stories From the Heart
Maybe that is why I believe history matters so much.
Because history isn’t only about dates.
It is about people.
It is about remembering those whose names may never appear in a textbook.
It is about knowing that when we stand along the water today, our ancestors stood there too.
When we watch the salmon return, we are watching the same cycle they watched.
When we hear Sm’algyax spoken, we are hearing a language that survived generations of pressure.
When we see a carving, we are seeing something more than cedar and paint.
We are seeing memory.
And when our families gather together, laugh together, eat together and tell stories together, we are participating in something much older than any of us.
That is the part of our history that I want to remember.
Not only what was taken from us.
But what remained.
Not only what we lost.
But what we carried.
Not only where we came from.
But where we are going.
Because the story of the Ts’msyen people is still being written.
And we are holding the pen.
Our ancestors carried the story this far.
Now it is our turn to carry it forward.
A few research notes for the post
I deliberately kept the article personal and readable rather than academic, while grounding the historical framework in sources that include the American Museum of Natural History, Royal BC Museum materials, and Ts’msyen/Sm’algyax educational resources. The AMNH material is particularly useful because it incorporates contemporary Ts’msyen voices and explains the four matrilineal clans, potlatch, names, crests and the 1887 migration to Alaska. (American Museum of Natural History)
The Royal BC Museum also documents the extensive historical record assembled from Tsimshian knowledge, including material collected by William Beynon, while its educational resources identify the Tsimshian Language Series as being based on adaawx and covering Ts’msyen social systems, trade, European contact, Fort Simpson, clans and houses. (Royal BC Museum)
For the photographs, I would favor museum/archive images over generic modern stock photography wherever possible. One especially interesting historical image is the photograph of Tsimshian carver Eli Tait from around 1923 in the University of Washington/Library of Congress collection.
This could become the opening piece in a much larger Stories from the Heart series, with the next installment going much deeper into the four clans, the individual Ts’msyen tribes and villages, hereditary chiefs, house groups, traditional territories, and the stories of Raven, Eagle, Wolf and Killer Whale.
Final Thought
As I look back at the long road our people have traveled, I am reminded that heritage is not something we leave behind in the past. It lives in us. It is in the names we carry, the stories our Elders told, the language we continue to learn, the foods we prepare, the art we create, and the waters and lands that still call us home.
Our ancestors faced tremendous change, but they continued to carry something forward that no government, disease, or passing generation could completely take away—the knowledge of who they were.
And perhaps that is our responsibility today.
Not simply to remember.
But to carry the story forward.
A Quote to Close
“We are not the end of our ancestors’ story. We are the next chapter.”
Notes from Alex 
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