Bella Coola territory provided its inhabitants with a plentiful supply of food and other resources. The Bella Coola hunted and gathered in unison with the seasons and had a very wide variety of foods in their diet. In this way, they were able to limit their impact on any one food source and their footprint on the environment around them. Fish was the main Bella Coola food, with salmon being the most important and eulachons second due to their abundance and value as a trade item. There were complex rites governing the handling, butchering, and cooking of the first chinook salmon as well as the first eulachon run. During other times of the year the Bella Coola would have gathered herring and their eggs, halibut, flounder, and various species of perch and sole and rockfish from the water. They also dug for clams and mussels in certain ares, and hunted sea mammals such as hair seals and sea lions as well as occasionally would make the most out of a beached whale. While Land mammals where also hunted, only certain men had the ancestral prerogatives to be professional hunters. The most important of the land mammals was the mountain goat. It flesh was smoked for winter, its wool was used for blankets, and its fat was used externally for ointment as well as internally as the base for a number of medicines. Plant foods where numerous and varied on the seasons as well. Over 135 plant species were traditionally used for food, materials, and medicines. Some plants where gathered in the spring, such as young sprouts of fire weed, thimbleberry, salmon berry, and stinging nettle, which were all very important food sources. In the summer the cambium layer of the western hemlock tree was scrapped off, which was also a major food plant. And in the fall, or sometimes in the spring, the roots of wild clover, cinquefoil, and fritillary where collected. These plants would be eaten fresh or steamed and berries were also sometimes cooked into a thick sauce and poured into a mold to be air tied for winter use.
The Nuxalkmc were the first farmers in the valley. They were introduced to potatoes, squash, corn and fruits by explorers and settlers. Nuxalk potatoes were famous with other First Nations peoples. The Nuxalk village at old town on the north side of the river provided exceptional growing sites and abundant gardens. When Indian reserves were being created in BC the Nuxalkmc requested a large piece of land for growing and selling potatoes and vegetables. However, when the reservation boundaries were drawn up, the chief at the time wasn’t consulted. The rest of the best farm land in the valley was acquired by Norwegian settlers . . . In a relatively short span of time access to and the availability of traditional foods greatly decreased due to private property, logging, and over fishing. Over the years the number of people able to make a living by farming, logging and fishing decreased. For the past seven years, ooligans, a fish of cultural and nutritional importance for the Nuxalkmc, have not returned in their traditional numbers (Inner Central Coast Economic Recovery Plan, 2003).
The Nuxalk worldview holds that Tatau, the Creator, took them from the heavens and put us in ancestral Nuxalk territory. Family ancestors came to the earth in various animal cloaks- the eagle, killer whale, grizzly bear, raven, and others. We are the caretakers of our lands and are part of them. They validate these claims through their songs, dances, names and titles, which have been handed down to them since the first ancestors descended to Nuxalk territory. Nuxalk views on the environment are tied to the responsibilities of being a Nuxalk citizen.
Nuxalk Ancestral Territory has been under considerable stress since the time of colonialism. Industrial logging and fishing have contributed to a severely over-harvested and depleted ecosystem, which has reached a critical state of existence, such as the streambeds for both eulachons and salmon that have been choked out. This has led many to strongly oppose logging in their valleys and rainforests as well as fish farming because it destroys marine ecosystems and has a devastating effect on their indigenous salmon stocks and their other traditional staple food the ooligans. They also oppose trophy hunting of the Grizzly bear, mining, and any other activities that destroy their environments and violate Nuxalk sovereignty.
As late Nuxalk elder Elsie Jacobs said…
“You can put on your dancing blanket and say that you’re proud to be from the house of the grizzly bear, or you can put on your dancing blanket and say that your grandfather was a raven, or you can say that you are proud to be a killer whale… but what is happening to the grizzly bear? To the raven? To the killerwhale? They’re getting kicked out of their house… what are you doing about it? And you put on your blanket and say you’re proud? I don’t think so. It doesn’t work that way.”
Sturtevant, William C., and Wayne P. Suttles. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 7, Smithsonian Institution, 1990.
“Welcome to the Nuxalk Nation Website.” Nuxalk Nation, nuxalknation.ca/.
“Preserving our way of life.” Nuxalk Smayusta, nuxalk.net
Northwest Coast Indians: Nuxalk (Bella Coola) 