This compact book records a quest for understanding, to find the story
behind the Snayackstx (Sinixt) First Nation. Known in the United States
as the Arrow Lakes Indians of the Colville Confederated Tribes, the
tribe lived along the upper Columbia River and its tributaries for
thousands of years. In a story unique to First Nations in Canada, the
Canadian federal government declared them "extinct" in 1956, eliminating
with the stroke of a pen this tribe's ability to legally access 80 per
cent of their trans-boundary traditional territory.
Part travelogue, part cultural history, the book details the culture,
place names, practices, and landscape features of this lost tribe of
British Columbia, through a contemporary lens that presents all readers
with an opportunity to participate in reconciliation.