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

DRAFT REPORT: Rights and Title Interests in the Columbia Valley Transmission Project Area
hunting grounds, although it seems they did not have permanent
settlements there until about 70 years ago [c. 1840]. 174
While Teit considered the Kinbasket community to be mostly from the North Thompson,
surveyor Walter Moberly of the Columbia River Exploring Expedition was told by Chief
Kinbasket, himself, that his people came from Little Shuswap Lake. Mobertly met with Chief
Kinbasket 175 on September 1 st , 1866 at “Kinbasket’s fishing station” located near Spillamacheen,
south of Golden. Concerning his meeting with Chief Kinbasket, Moberly wrote:
These Indians are a portion of the Shuswap tribe (from Little Shuswap
Lake), and settled here about 20 years ago [c. 1846]. . . .The following
information I obtained from Kinbaskit, the chief of the Shuswaps, who is
the most intelligent Indian I have met with, and from what I saw of the
country both before and after he left me, has a thorough knowledge of the
country from Wild Horse Creek to the Boat Encampment, and thence to
Colville… 176
Hence, Moberly learned directly from Chief Kinbasket that his people arrived in the mid-1840s
and that he was familiar with the country at least as far north as the Boat Encampment and as far
down the Columbia River as Kettle Falls (Washington State). It is our opinion that Chief
Kinbasket’s statement directly to Moberly is very credible.
At the time of the first visit of the Columbia River Exploration party in October 1865, Kinbasket
was described as “nearly always encamped about the headwaters of the Columbia” where he had
“made a horse trail from the mouth of Toby Creek.” 177 On 29 th August 1866, Moberly followed a
trail along the east side of the upper Columbia Lake [now known as Columbia Lake]. He notes in
his journal that about a mile beyond the north end of this lake he encountered “ a large
174 James Teit (1910-1913). Notes to Maps of the Pacific Northwest. American Philosophical Society
Library, Philadelphia. Boas Collection 372, Roll 4, No. 1, Item 59 (copy held by the BC Archives, Victoria. Add.
Mss. 1425, Microfilm A-239).
175 This seems to be the father of Chief Pierre Kinbasket (b. 1835). Moses Kinbasket [said to have been
born in 1860 according to the 1911 census ( http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1911/pdf/e001937872.pdf)] stated that
his grandfather “Peter Kinbasket” died when he was four years old. The census likely rounded this man’s birth date
and Mr Kinbasket could be mistaken about how old he was when this death occurred.
176 Walter Moberly (1866), In, British Columbia (1869). Columbia River Exploration, 1866: Reports and
Journals Relating to the Government Exploration of the Country Lying Between the Shuswap and Okanagan Lakes
and the Rocky Mountains. Government Printing Office: Victoria BC. Journal of the second year’s work…[28 March
1866-13 September 1866. Pp. 17-18].
177 James Turnbull (1865), In, British Columbia (1866). Columbia River Exploration, 1865-6: Reports and
Journals Relating to the Government Exploration of the Country Lying Between the Shuswap and Okanagan Lakes
and the Rocky Mountains. Government Printing Office: Victoria BC. Mr. Turnbull’s Journal [20 July 1865-29
November 1865]. Page 32.
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