Acknowledgment
This guide was created and developed by a settler, who is an uninvited guest on the unceded, ancestral, and ongoing territory of the Syilx Peoples. If there is material that should be on this guide, or material that not should not be but is, please let me know. This guide is a work in progress and requires continual learning to improve and develop. Contact details are below.
Have a suggestion, comment, idea for it? Please let me know!
Getting Started
The University of British Columbia Okanagan campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan People. This guide is a starting point for resources and research strategies on your journey of strengthening knowledge of the relationship between UBC, its community members, and the Syilx Okanagan Nation and people.
This guide is a work in progress.
- Okanagan Nation Territory Map"The Syilx Okanagan People’s territory is a diverse and beautiful landscape of deserts and lakes, alpine forests and endangered grasslands. It extends over approximately 69,000 square kilometers. The northern area of this territory was close to the area of Mica Creek, just north of modern day Revelstoke, BC, and the eastern boundary was between Kaslo and Kootenay Lakes. The southern boundary extended to the vicinity of Wilbur, Washington and the western border extended into the Nicola Valley."
- Sncewips Heritage Museum"The Sncewips Heritage Museum began as a repository after Westbank First Nation achieved self-government in 2005. As our collection grew, we transitioned to the public sphere by opening our doors as a museum on June 14th, 2014. Five years later, we launched our much anticipated move and re-opened our space on February 1st, 2020. Through all of its changes, our museum continues to provide a protected place for sqilxʷ culture and heritage.
Our museum allows the public to experience the collections, histories, and oral stories of the syilx people from a sqilxʷ perspective."
Featured Resources
- Letter to Sir Wilfred Laurier from the Chiefs of the Shuswap, Okanagan and Couteau Tribes of British Columbia. Presented at Kamloops^ B.C. August 25,1910Essential reading on learning about the modern history of the Okanagan Peoples in what is now known as the interior of British Columbia.
Q'Sapi by Call Number: E99.O35 Q82 2008ISBN: 9781894778640Publication Date: 2008-06-30There are many individual voices, male and female, old and young, scattered about me. These voices expressed themselves in two languages, Okanagan and English. Okanagan was unwritten for the most part. But more often than not, as if by some magnetic pull of oral tradition, the individual tribal voices unconsciously blended together with the English voice, like braided strands of thread, into one voice, story, song and prayer. That thread stretched, unbroken to the pre-time and origin, that still lived in the mystery and power of the Okanagan language; their spoken word even translated into English as it had been for well over decades before I was born. The echo of that tribal voice, in Okanagan or English, never disappears or fades from my ear, not even in the longest silences of the people or in my absences from them. —Arnie Louie
We Get Our Living Like Milk from the Land by Call Number: E99.O35 W4 1993ISBN: 091944136XPublication Date: 1994-01-03We Get Our Living Like Milk from the Land is the first historical overview of the Okanagan Nation. It starts with the Creation Story, moves through the first contact of colonization and ends in the present.
We Are the People by Call Number: E99.O35 K68 2012ISBN: 9781894778664Publication Date: 2010-08-01A collection of original legends told in a strong rhythmic language, this new revised edition of Kou-Skelowh/We Are the Peoplefeatures the Okanagan language and uses stories to teach readers about the values of sharing, self-sacrifice and reverence for life in all forms.
Mourning Dove by Call Number: E99.S21 M68 1990ISBN: 0803231199Publication Date: 1990-03-01Mourning Dove was the pen name of Christine Quintasket, a member of the Colville Federated Tribes of eastern Washington State. She was the author of Cogewea, The Half-Blood (one of the first novels to be published by a Native American woman) and Coyote Stories, both reprinted as Bison Books. Jay Miller, formerly assistant director and editor at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, Newberry Library, Chicago, now is an independent scholar and writer in Seattle. He is the compiler of Earthmaker: Tribal Stories from Native North America.
Featured Videos
- Okanagan Song: LIVING LEGENDS: BECAUSE OUR LAND IS BEAUTIFUL"The Okanagan Song, created by Delphine Derickson (Westbank First Nation) and Herman Edward (Lower Similkameen Indian Band), is shared by all People of Okanagan Nation. It is an anthem sung in honour and acknowledges a profound responsibility to care for the land."
This is sung by Delphine Derickson and Pat Raphael of the Westbank First Nation
- Okanagan Nation YouTube ChannelCheck out videos posted about the Okanagan Nation and their work.
Member Bands
- Syilx Okanagan Nation AllianceWebsite for the Syilx Okanagan Nation Alliance. "The Syilx People of the Okanagan Nation are a trans-boundary tribe separated at the 49th parallel by the border between Canada and the United States. Our Nation is comprised of seven member communities in the Southern Interior of British Columbia: Okanagan Indian Band, Osoyoos Indian Band, Penticton Indian Band, Upper Nicola Band, Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands, and Westbank First Nation; and in Northern Washington State, the Colville Confederated Tribes. Our members share the same land, nsyilxcən language, culture, and customs. We are a distinct and sovereign Nation."
- Okanagan Indian BandThe website for the Okanagan Indian Band one of the eight member Band communities of the Okanagan Nation Alliance.
Residential Schools
In the Okanagan, the Syilx children we attended residential school went to either the Kamloops Indian Residential School or the St. Eugene's Indian Residential School in Cranbrook (Okanagan Nation Alliance, n.d., para. 3).
The Okanagan Nation Alliance has a number of webpages about Indian Residential Schools and the impacts specifically to the Syilx community.
The Okanagan Nation Alliance has produced a video whose purpose "is to educate people about what residential school meant for the Syilx people. First and foremost, this provides an opportunity for people to learn about the history of how residential school played out in their local community, and address intergenerational impacts while at the same time pointing to the hope for the future that lies in ongoing efforts to redress the impact of residential school and strengthen Syilx family systems."