Our History

The kʷikʷəƛ̓əm people recognize that the Creator and the Transformers created the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm people to be the keepers of our ancestral territory of the Coquitlam Watershed and to protect and safeguard it for future generations. Through oral tradition, family knowledge, place names, and archaeological sites, the land carries our history. Through times of plenty and turmoil, we have always occupied, stewarded, and relied on our ancestral lands.

For thousands of years Kwikwetlem people have enjoyed the bounty of the Coquitlam Watershed and beyond. We moved seasonally from points high and low to follow plant and animal cycles. We obtained all our food, medicine, and materials for tools, shelter, and clothing, ceremonial needs from the natural world.

Many dozens of known archaeological sites reflect our history on the land. Each site is an important record on the activities of our ancestors. Archaeological sites at Coquitlam Lake are amongst the oldest in the Lower Mainland, providing evidence of the arrival of First Peoples more than 10,000 years ago.

Ongoing research at sites across Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam document history through the millennia as our ancestors formed permanent and seasonal villages, ceremonial places, resource camps and processing locations across the Coquitlam and Pitt Watersheds. Our ancestral villages at the mouth of the Coquitlam River contain archaeological deposits several thousands of years old. Hundreds more archaeological sites remain undocumented.

kʷikʷəƛ̓əm maintain two reserves along the lower Coquitlam River, each established in the mid-1800’s as part of colonial reserve formation. Both reserves were set aside because they were occupied villages at settler arrival. These two reserves are called, slakəyánc (Coquitlam I.R. 1) and setɬamékmən (Coquitlam I.R. 2). These reserves are a tiny percentage of the Nation’s overall territory.

Over the past century and a half, kʷikʷəƛ̓əm history is inextricably linked to colonial practices. Our community has witnessed our lands developed for industry, commercialization and as a place to live. Throughout this time kʷikʷəƛ̓əm have consistently lobbied governments, Royal Commissions, Indian Agents, municipalities, and other decision makers to secure our community interests – to increase the Nations access and control over ancestral lands, to secure opportunities to hunt and fish without restriction, to gain economic parity alongside our neighbours, to safeguard the lands, waters and living beings of our territory from pollution and ongoing degradation.

Among the most significant colonial impacts in our history was the creation of the Coquitlam Dam in 1904. In 1899, Chief Johnnie of the Kwikwetlem Nation wrote to the federal government’s Inspector of Fisheries for British Columbia urging them not to dam the Coquitlam River, explaining that his people’s survival was directly dependent upon the survival of the salmon of the Coquitlam River.

His letter was ignored, the lake was dammed, and the sockeye salmon run reduced in number to almost total extinction.

As is true of all Indigenous communities in Canada, Kwikwetlem have survived the devastating impacts of colonization. Disease epidemics, displacement from traditional lands, disruptions to traditional forms of governance, widespread losses of habitats and natural life, outlawing of ceremonial and spiritual gatherings, the wide-ranging traumas of residential school, and all the concomitant negative social effects of intergenerational trauma has limited the community’s ability to sustain itself.

Today, our community is working to decolonize and to heal from our past.

We raise our hands to those who journey with us in the spirit of reconciliation and in recognition of the challenges faced by colonial history.

As we develop as a strong self-governing Nation, we look to develop strong partnerships with those who embrace the principles of UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigeous People (UNDRIP) and are working to build a safe, secure, and prosperous future for all our families and communities.

Cultural Heritage Archive

The kʷikʷəƛ̓əm Cultural Heritage Archives is a collection of digital and documentary records that preserve and celebrate the community’s knowledge and connections to territorial lands.

Return to top