Bridge River Indian Band
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The Bridge River Indian Band is one of the seven member bands of the Lillooet Tribal Council. Their reserves and community are located on the lower Bridge River, which enters the Fraser River about 150 miles northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, on the northern end of the town of Lillooet.
Early documents and before formalized St'at'imcets spelling was defined various spellings were used Nxo'isten, Hoystein, and more recently 'Xwisten. The band's official website uses a variant of the proper St'at'imcets name Nxwísten ("Xwisten") in its domain name.
The Bridge River Reserves are some of the largest by area in British Columbia, and date from the days of the chief of the Bridge River people's licensing and taxing of hydraulic miners on the Bridge River in the 1870s and '80s, and one of the few cases where the wishes of the local chief went unopposed by land claims commissioner Peter O'Reilly. The mining activity, which washed away at the river's steep, sandy banks with huge hoses and scoured the riverbed, hurt the salmon runs in the river, and these were further damaged and virtually wiped out by the construction of the Bridge River Power Project in the 1940s and '50s.
The Xwisten people are one of the three reserve communities which directly surrounding Lillooet and many of their community have had an important role in the history of the native political movements in BC.
[edit] External links
- Bridge River Indian Band website
- Profile of the Bridge River Indian Band by the Government of Canada's Department of Indian and Northern Affairs
| First Nations of the Lillooet Tribal Council |
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Bridge River Indian Band | Cayoose Creek Band | Fountain Indian Band | Lil'wat First Nation | Seton Lake Indian Band | T'it'q'et First Nation | Ts'kw'aylaxw First Nation |
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