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Not an Empty Landscape – The Sinixt

Snxwntkwitkw (sin-when-tu-queet-qu).
Swift River.
Columbia River.

The Sn̓ʕayckstx (sin aitch kst h), or Sinixt people lived on the river now known as the Columbia and its tributaries for thousands of years.

Imagine standing on the west bank of the Columbia River across from present-day Revelstoke, the area now known as Big Eddy. The year is 1800, prior to the coming of the first European explorers. You are in the winter village at Skxikntn (sku-hee-kin). Several families live in the village.

The families have returned from their seasonal rounds to maintain and gather berries and plant crops. The hunters had a successful hunt and now there is plenty of salmon, caribou, and bear meat to last throughout the winter. The women smoke the meat and prepare the hides and furs. Nothing goes to waste. Bones, grease, and sinew all have their uses.

Black-and-white photograph of two Indigenous men in a canoe on the water. People in European dress are standing on the shore of the Arrow Lakes. Pelts are piled up under another canoe on the shore.

Sinixt on Arrow Lakes, ca. 1895. City of Vancouver Archives, reference code: AM753-S1-F2-: CVA 256-02.55, Edward Bros. Album.

Winter is coming – a time to rest, and to tell stories and songs to the children, to make sure that the teachings would not be lost.

Within a few years, David Thompson and his crew of explorers would come through Sinixt territory. Everything was soon to change. By the mid-1900s, few people living in the area had any knowledge of the Sinixt or their connection to this region. They were displaced physically, and their stories were erased from settler history.

Shelly Boyd Interview – Connection to the Water (captions available in both French and English). Enjoy this video with an English transcript.

This black-and-white photograph shows an Indigenous woman standing in front of an enlarged archival photograph of an Indigenous woman in a canoe with bows sloping down to the water. Both woman have long black hair, braided.

Shelly Boyd, Sinixt/Arrow Lakes facilitator for Colville Confederated Tribes, in front of mural at the Hume Hotel in Nelson, B.C., ca. 2015. Photo courtesy of Shelly Boyd. Photographer: Nancy Michele.

 

Columbia River Treaty “We are Not Extinct” – Displacement of the Sinixt