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

DRAFT REPORT: Rights and Title Interests in the Columbia Valley Transmission Project Area
The first site that Thompson chose for a post was on Lake Windermere, but when this site was
found to be unsuitable, he travelled downstream to near where Toby Creek enters the Columbia
River, near the present Invermere. Here Thompson established “Kootanae House” and began
trading with the “Kootanae” people. 61 This site is across the river from the present Shuswap
Indian Reserve. Thompson does not suggest that any Aboriginal people lived in the immediate
environs of the new post, but people identified as “Kootenae” [Ktunaxa] were in the southern
Columbia Valley.
Thompson made several references to bands of Ktunaxa. On 28 July 1807, he referred to another
“small band of Kootanaes who are about a long day’s March off.” 62 In August, he was visited by
four tents of Kootanaes who had spent most of the summer “in the mountains among the
buffalo.” 63 Thompson also sent by means of the Ktunaxa “a small Present of Tobacco to the Lake
& Saleesh Indians.” As David Chance pointed out in his study, once Thompson was in the
country he learned about “another group to the southwest to whom they applied the terms
‘Lakes,’ ‘Arc Plattes,’and ‘Flatbows’.” 64 These terms refer to Ktunaxa bands, including the one
at the Columbia Lakes. 65 On 16 September, Thompson reports that “12 Lake Indian Men with
one Woman arrived: they have passed along the Kootanae River thro’ the Mountains.” 66 It is also
Ktunaxa people to whom Thompson refers when he writes on 27 August 1807, with respect to
the Peigans’ concern with the Company’s interruption of their trade monopoly:
About 2 PM, 12 Peagan young Men & 2 Women arrived—they are come
to see how we are situated. I had expected them long ago, & it must be
their Policy to be highly displeased with us for being here, as we thus
render all these Indians independent of them over whom from time
almost immemorial they have held in dependence or as enemies, &
destroyed them. They have it in their power to be very troublesome to us,
& even to cut us off... 67
61 Glover 1962, pp. xci-xcii; Belyea 1994, pp. 55ff.
62 Belyea 1994, page 57.
63 Belyea 1994, page 59.
64 The “Lakes” in this context are likely the Columbia Lakes people and the Flatbows or Arc Platte are the
“lower Kutenai” of the Kootenay River. See Chance 1981, page 7.
65 The Columbia Lake Ktunaxa should not be confused with the “Lakes” or “Sinixt” (with various
spellings) people of the Arrow Lakes who belong to a different ethnic group and speak an entirely different
language. See Dorothy Kennedy and Randy Bouchard (1998). Northern Okanagna, Lakes, and Colville. Handbook
of North American Indians, Vol. 12, Plateau (ed. by Deward E. Walker Jr.). Smithsonian Institution: Washington
D.C. Pp. 238-240. For a discussion of Upper Ktunaxa bands, see section 2.3.1 of this present report.
66 Belyea 1994, page 66.
67 Belyea 1994, page 62.
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