Evidence on the Adequacy of First Nations Consultation - BC Hydro ...

The above summary of the traditional districts within the Ktunaxa territory in British Columbia
indicates that the proposed CVT line lies in the Land of the Eagle.
Newcomers to the Kootenays noted that the Ktunaxa spoke the same language throughout this area,
but one very different to that of surrounding tribes. Despite this, they saw evident differences in their
material economy, enough to generate the distinctions of Upper Kootenay, centred around the Upper
Columbia and Upper Kootenai valleys, and the Lower Kootenay whose focus lay more to the south
and west nearer Kootenay Lake and the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers.
Ktunaxa appears to be a language isolate, essentially unrelated to surrounding languages. Some
scholars have suggested that there are special elements in the language that appear to connect it with
only the Algonquin language group to the east, which interestingly includes their traditional enemies
the Blackfeet. Others have suggested that it has a different type of connection with Salish languages.
The linguist Matthew Dryer assessed these possible connections and concluded that the similarities
with Algonquin languages which he describes as “quirky features” are highly specific and likely due
to later contact, not a common “genetic” inheritance. 9 He finds the connection of Ktunaxa to
Salishan languages less convincing, pointing out that more general typological similarities indicate a
common inheritance is possible but not very useful since that connection would actually apply to
most tribes in the Pacific Northwest.
This situation has interesting parallels in Europe, for example, in the Hungarian and Basque
languages. Both are language isolates, and both are spoken by people who have seen vast migrations
of people moving around them through the past several millennia but have retained their ancient
languages, probably because of their homeland’s mountainous geography. Similarly, a likely
explanation for the isolate nature of the Ktunaxa language is that these people have been in their
mountainous Kootenay enclave for at least several millennia, while the evolution and movement of
other language groups has swirled around them. As the Royal Engineer and Surveyor Charles
Wilson observed in the 1850s, this tribe “is entirely isolated, and has had far less intercourse with the
whites than any other surrounding tribe."
6. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENTS RELATING TO KTUNAXA PRESENCE
Archaeological evidence also suggests that the ancestors of present-day Ktunaxa have inhabited the
Columbia Plateau for many thousands of years. Archaeologist Wayne Choquette has noted that
archaeological sites throughout the Columbia Plateau in the period 5,000 to 2,500 years ago contain
implements made of the distinctive grey-green argillite found in the Kootenay Lake area: 10
The abundant representation of the distinctive Kootenay Argillite in archaeological sites around
Creston, in northern Idaho, and as far up the Kootenay River as the Libby, Montana vicinity makes it
clear that the north arm of Kootenay Lake was an important part of the aboriginal seasonal round. This
appears to have been especially the case between about 5000 and 2500 years ago when Kootenay
Argillite attained its highest proportions in upriver artefact assemblages. In other parts of the region,
this time period is characterized by a greater orientation to the resources of aquatic and riparian habitats
by the resident human populations…
9 Dryer, Matthew S. Kutenai, Algonquian, and the Pacific Northwest from an Areal Perspective
10 Choquette, 2005, pp. 13-15
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