Our History of ulkatcho First nation

Map of our traditional territory.

The Ulkatcho First Nation is one of four communities making up the Dakelh or Southern Carrier tribal nation in central British Columbia. The other Dakelh communities are Lhoosk’us Dene, Nazko, and Lhtalo Dene (formerly Red Bluff). The Ulkatcho community and offices are located in Anahim Lake.

In earlier times before British Columbia became colonized by Euro-Canadians, Ulkatcho Village was an important potlatching and trading centre at the junction of many trading trails heading north to Chezlatta, east to the Fraser River, west to the Central Coast, and north to the Chilcotin Plateau. The village consisted of a potlatch house and several temporary brush shelters on the shore of Gatcho Lake about 80 kilometres north of Anahim Lake.

There were similar potlatch houses in other parts of Ulkatcho territory. Mac Squinas said his grandfather Captain Harry Alexie told him about a potlatch house at Qualcho Lake, west of Ulkatcho Village.

Theresa Holte said her elders told her about the potlatch at Nagwuntl’oo in Anahim Lake. These potlatch houses were important gathering sites for Ulkatcho people to come together to celebrate and trade.

Our people

Most of the year Ulkatcho people lived in extended family groups isolated from each other as they moved about the country hunting and fishing and gathering the food and materials they needed for survival. Each family had its own fishing, hunting and trapping areas and winter quarters, usually near a lake abundant with fish.

There were also a number of gathering sites throughout the territory where people came from of their remote family homes to work together to hunt, fish and preserve food for the winter.

Ulkatcho families were extremely mobile and had the ability to pick up and move hundreds of kilometres across the country on very short notice when it was time to harvest the resources at a particular location. Throughout the year a family might travel from the Fraser River to the Central Coast, and from Chezlatta to the Potato Mountains in Tŝilhqot’in territory.

fat of the land

In the Dakelh language, Ulkatcho means “fat of the land”. This name came about because Gatcho Lake and nearby lakes were full of fish and the surrounding area was rich in game and fur bearing animals.

The elders say one of the important reasons people came together at Ulkatcho Village was to hunt caribou. A large group of people was needed for the success of the hunt. They worked together to build drift fences and herd the animals into a place where they could be killed and the meat cut up. The late Chief Jimmy Stillas said all the animals in a small herd would be killed and the meat shared among the whole community.

TANYA LAKES (TAINTEZLI or TANYEZ TEZDLI)

Tanya Lakes, known as Taintezli or Tanyez Tezdli in the Ulkatcho dialect, was another important gathering site along the Nuxalk-Dakelh Grease Trail west of Ulkatcho Village. The large camping grounds west of Tanya Lakes known as Taintezli (where the slow water of the lake becomes the fast water of the creek) was at the fork of the grease trails to Kimsquit and Bella Coola Valley. One fork followed Takia Creek to the Dean River, Salmon House Falls and Kimsquit, and the other trail went over the Rainbow Mountains to Bella Coola. Tanya Lakes and Salmon House Falls were important salmon fishing sites in Ulkatcho territory.

When the spring salmon and steelhead arrived in Takia Creek to spawn at Taintezli in August, many Ulkatcho families along with their Dakelh, Nuxalk and Tsilhqot’in neighbours camped there to catch and dry the fish. Several families had smokehouses at Taintesli. There were other smokehouses further down Takia Creek closer to where the big spring salmon were caught in the river, and smokehouses at Salmon House Falls on the Dean River.

These gatherings like the one at Taintesli were important social times. Traditional games like lahal and other competitions like running races, horseback races, wrestling matches, spear-throwing and shooting contests were held. Lahal was a serious gambling game and Chief Jimmy Stillas said sometimes a person lost their horse in a lahal game and had to walk home.

family ties

Ulkatcho people have family ties with neighbouring Dakelh communities of Chezlatta, Lhoosk’us Dene, Lhtalo Dene (Red Bluff) and Nazko. Also a significant number of Ulkatcho families are related to the Tŝilhqot’in and Nuxalk as well.

One of the names given to the the Ulkatchot’en by their Dakelh neighbours was Nechowt’en which means “Dakelh people mixed with Tŝilhqot’in”.

Famous Nuxalk game guide and grizzly bear hunter Clayton Mack, whose first wife, Cecelia “Doll” Capoose, was an Ulkatcho woman from Abuntlet, once described Anahim Lake as the place where Indigenous people from different backgrounds “mixed and lived”. This diversity can be seen as one of the strengths of the Ulkatcho community. Ulkatchot’en people embrace many traditions and points of view and develop their own unique cultural perspective from these choices.

NAGWUNTL’OO

At the time of first contact with Euro-Canadian society, the village of Nagwuntl’oo stood on the south shore of Little Anahim Lake. Chief ʔAnahim was the leader of this community. Like many Ulkatcho families, ʔAnahim was related to the Nuxalk at Nus’qulst (Noosgulch). During the smallpox epidemic of 1862, many people at Nagwuntl’oo died from the disease. After the Chilcotin War of 1864, Chief ʔAnahim moved east to Alexis Creek for better growing conditions, while other members of the Tsilhgot’in community remained in the West Chilcotin. These Tŝilhqot’in families, including the Sulin, Guichon and Hunlins, remained at Nimpo Lake, Morrison Meadow, Towdystan, Bluff and One Eye Lake.

Theresa Holte said her grandmother told her stories about the potlatch house at Nagwuntl’oo. “Way before my grampa (Domas Squinas), they used to have feather dances at Nagwuntl’oo potlatch house. They would play the drum and sing. Feathers used to fly up. It was way before the war broke out between the Tŝilhqot’in and the Waddington survey men. They used to set fish traps in the lake at Anahim Point.”

anahim lake

After Chief ʔAnahim moved east, Chief Domas Squinas established his home at Anahim Lake. He built a ranch there with his wife Christine from Chezlatta, and they raised their family of three boys, Louie, Donald and Thomas, and daughter Belonic (Veronica). Their closest neighbours were Antone Capoose at Abuntlet Lake and the Tsilhqot’in families to the EastAs the West Chilcotin became settled by non-indigenous homesteaders and ranchers in the early 1900s, other Ulkatcho families moved to Anahim Lake to take advantage of job opportunities and schooling for their children. When the Canadian government established the reserve system to set land aside for indigenous people in the Chilcotin, the Squinas ranch at Anahim Lake became a reserve for the whole Ulkatcho community.

ULKATCHO SETTLEMENT IN ANAHIM LAKE

There are several reasons why Ulkatcho families moved from Ulkatcho Village to Anahim Lake.

1. FLOODING THE NECHAKO – In 1952 the BC government built the Kenny Dam on the Nechako River and this flooded the traditional hunting and trapping grounds of some Ulkatcho families. More significantly the high water of the Ootsa Lake reservoir also blocked off ancient travel routes between Ulkatcho and Chezlatta where many Ulkatcho people had family ties.
2. THE BELLA COOLA ROAD - In 1953 a road was built through the Coast Mountains linking Anahim Lake to the Bella Coola Valley. Before the road was built, the main route to Bella Coola Valley from Ulkatcho Village and the people living Down River north of Anahim Lake, was the Nuxalk-Dakelh Grease Trail. Once the road was established, this mountain trail was used less and less.
3. MANDATORY SCHOOLING - The Canadian government passed a law in the 1800s that all Indigenous children should attend school. In 1872 St Joseph’s Mission residential school was established near Williams Lake. Ulkatcho people lived so far off the beaten track that few of their children were forced to attend the mission school until much later.
   In the 1940s the Ulkatcho people built a school at Ulkatcho Village and a home for a teacher. A teacher was hired and there are many funny stories how the children terrorized the teacher, and he only lasted two years. Then a school was built in Anahim Lake and a dormitory was built for Ulkatcho children to stay in so their parents could continued supporting their families trapping, feeding livestock and living their traditional lifestyle down river. Once the children finished Grade 7 in Anahim Lake, they would be sent to St Joseph’s Mission residential school in Williams Lake to finish their schooling.
   Shifting the school from Ulkatcho Village to Anahim Lake was a significant change for the Ulkatcho people. When kids were going to school at Ulkatcho Village they could still participate in normal Ulkatcho cultural practices.
   Henry Jack said there were seven or eight boys and seven or eight girls going to school there. “We would all go some place together. We’d go up to Nalbuck (Malaput) Lake and go fishing. There was an “Indian” boat there (several logs tied together to make a raft). We took turns going out and checking the net. We’d build a big campfire, sit around the campfire, catch some fish...cook some fish.”
   He said Salhkus (Mrs Chantyman) used to set a net there. “The kids would always help her pack the fish back to the village.”
4. WHITE SETTLEMENT AND JOB OPPORTUNITIES NEAR ANAHIM LAKE – In the early 1900s non-Indigenous settlers started taking up land around Anahim Lake. Ranchers needed help with haying and building fences and many Ulkatcho familes took contracts to do this work.
5. SICKNESS AT ULKATCHO VILLAGE – In the late 1940s many people got sick with TB (tuberculosis) and died at Ulkatcho Village. Mary Joe Cahoose remembered when three people died in one day. Some elders thought the water at Ulkatcho Village was contaminated, so few people wanted to live there anymore.

ULKATCHO VILLAGE – A BRIEF HISTORY

Long before first contact with White (Euro-Canadian) society in 1793, Ulkatcho Village was an important trading and gathering centre in the heart of Ulkatcho territory. The Culla Culla House was the only permanent structure there when Alexander Mackenzie passed through on his journey to the Central Coast, and he described the Culla Culla House in his journal.

Eighty-three years later the Culla Culla House was still standing when surveyor George Dawson took the only known photograph of it in 1876. The artwork of Nuxalk designs can clearly be seen in the photograph, and shows the influence of the coastal Nuxalk on Ulkatcho culture. When people gathered there they would stay in temporary brush shelters.

In 1897 Oblate priest Father Francois Marie Thomas started travelling throughout the Chilcotin and Blackwater country converting the Tŝilhqot’in and Dakelh people to the Roman Catholic faith. He got his converts to build churches in the various villages so he could hold priest time there once a year.

Under Father Thomas’s direction a church was built at Ulkatcho Village. Mac Squinas says it was the women and one man who built the church. “They cut all the boards using a whipsaw.”

People used to take a sleigh and go up to Burns Lake from Ulkatcho Village. “They bought all kinds of fancy lumber and shingles,” said Mac Squinas. “They used to freight big things like cook stoves to Tetachuck Lake by boat, then take them by sleigh from Tetachuck to Ulkatcho.”

Each family had their own house at Ulkatcho Village. The Johnny family, Cahoose family, Alexie family, Captain Harry’s family, Sill family and Charlie West family.

Mac Squinas said Charlie West and Captain Harry used to talk about the Culla Culla House, but there were only log cabins and lumber houses at Ulkatcho Village by the time Mac was born in 1923.

BESBUT’A (ANAHIM PEAK)

One of the dominant features around Anahim Lake is Besbut’a or Anahim Peak. In the Ulkatcho Dakelh dialect, Besbut’a means “Obsidian Hill”.

Obsidian (bes) or volcanic glass is a rare substance that was highly prized by old-time indigenous societies. Anahim Peak is one of only two locations in British Columbia where obsidian can be found. The other source is in northwestern British Columbia at Mount Adziza near Telegraph Creek.

Obsidian from Besbut’a was traded as far away as Alberta.

There are many stories about disputes over this valuable resource and the cunning ways different tribal groups utilized to get their hands on it. Perhaps more than anything else, the obsidian from Besbut’a put Anahim Lake and Nagwuntl’oo on the map.