James Teit Slept Here

November 01, 2018

James Teit Slept Here

We are among the Nlaka’pamux now - the “people of the canyon.” They have been here for 10,000 years, and the area is now home to over a dozen Nlaka’pamux First Nation bands whose tiny reserves run up and down the canyon but encompass only a fraction of their traditional territory. It is a majestically beautiful area, and very different from the rainforest ecosystem typical of Vancouver Island and coastal BC where we have been. Our drive here echoed the report of a travel columnist who had taken the “Rocky Mountaineer” train up through the area: “The green is replaced by dusty shades of brown and gold with perilously steep cliffs hugging the (Fraser) river…. The scenery is mesmerizing: dry rocky canyons of red rock, deep forests of pine and old-time bridges … brilliant yellow flowers on the dusty chaparral along the river.”

James Teit, then 19, would have made the same trip we did but in 1884 from Scotland. We learned that he later used the same cabin where we are staying as a work/writing space while living in the bungalow behind us. This is in the village of Spences Bridge (population 100-200 mostly retired). It feels good to be here, an area that became a center of First Nations resistance to settler colonialism in the 1^st quarter of last century. And it is good to feel Teit’s presence because he spent a good part of his life living among, working with and supporting the Nlaka’pamux. A plaque honoring him has been erected in the town, at the Chief Tetlenitsa Memorial Outdoor Theatre.

Besides Teit’s acclaimed ethnographic work documenting and preserving First Nations culture and language (including thousands of photographs and nine books), he also fought for and supported the aboriginals as they sought to defend their land rights and lives in the face of a colonial onslaught. He married a First Nations woman, Antuk, rode the hills with the men for hunting and social/political/cultural gatherings, and became fluent in several First Nations languages. He has been called the first and perhaps the greatest white activist for aboriginal rights in BC.

First Nations chiefs referred to Teit as their “hand,” and he regularly accompanied the chiefs on numerous lobbying visits to the colonialist leaders, helped prepare formal statements, and participated in numerous rallies against the expropriation of their land, for better schools, health care and compensation for railway rights of way. He successfully fought to ban conscription for the natives unless they were accorded their basic land and other rights as citizens. As a socialist and member of the Canadian Socialist Party, he well understood the forces arrayed against the First Nations – “who ever heard of any modern capitalist class fighting for democracy.”

Teit died in 1922 at the age of 58, and is buried nearby. His death was a blow to aboriginal rights. As one contemporary put it: “The organization of the Interior Indians fell apart after Teit’s death. Not altogether, but it was never the same again.”