The tems swiya Museum of the shíshálh Nation has become a focal point for the ongoing remembrance of a historical event that is simultaneously an illustration of colonialism’s harms, and the endurance of birthright inhabitants of the Sechelt Peninsula.
On February 11, 1925, the four primary clans of the shíshálh people united to become recognized as the Sechelt Indian Band under Canadian law. Each of the clans — sxixus, xenichen, ts’unay, and tewankw — was formerly based in a specific region of the extensive homelands, or swiya.
The collective population, which numbered in the thousands at the start of the 19th century, shrank to less than 200 by the year 1902. The culprit? Endemic diseases like smallpox. Predatory government policies — the Indian Act and its ban on potlatches, among regulations — further subdued a Coast Salish nation that had thrived for thousands of years before European contact.
By 1925, St. Augustine’s residential school in Sechelt had been operating for more than two decades. Its Roman Catholic administrators urged a geographic consolidation of shíshálh citizens who then lived in areas as distant as Jervis Inlet and Lang Bay. Each clan maintained a distinct cultural identity and leadership structure.
Faced with a shifting landscape, shíshálh leaders considered amalgamation — on their own terms. “They came together as a people, through our clans and our ancestors, during that difficult time,” said Candace Campo, whose ancestral name is xets’emits’a. “They had a lot of discussion, debate and dialogue on how they would approach it. There are other [Indigenous] nations which are comprised through tribes and villages… and not all their villages amalgamated together, so there is some diversity in how [such challenges] were responded to, historically.”
Four months ago, on February 11, shíshálh Nation members gathered for a feast to mark a century as a united entity. Even confectionery told the story: a cake inscribed with the word ḵemtsut (amalgamation day) featured a photograph of ancestors in a traditional canoe. Another orange-bordered cake honoured the matriarchs.
Fittingly, such a canoe in the newly overhauled Tems Swiya Museum now symbolizes the Nation’s coming together.
“One of my ideas that I envisioned being in here,” explained curator Irvin Louis, “is utilizing one of the canoes, and putting the four hereditary chiefs’ pictures in there. For each of the four, I’ll be using raw, natural wool to weave blankets — natural how they were back then for their people. I don’t really like to switch up things from their time to our time.”
Louis will finish the blankets over a three-week period by spinning his own wool, recalling the woven blankets made from the wool of the now-extinct woolly dog. (Researchers from the American Museum of Natural History found that the breed’s decline was directly related to colonialism.)
The amalgamation of 1925 set the shíshálh Nation on a path toward self-government, which was finally achieved in 1986 under the leadership of elected chief Stan Dixon. (The residential school had finally closed in 1975.)
“In 1925, we amalgamated for the reason that the missionaries thought we needed to be brought together and learn Christianity,” said hiwus Calvin Craigan last month after a public screening of the documentary s-yéwyáw: Awaken.
The film depicts a resurgence of the shíshálh canoe tradition under the leadership of rememberer xwu’p’a’lich Barbara Higgins (late Elder to shíshálh traditional wellness coordinator — and one of the film’s producers — Kwamanchi, Alfonso Salinas). “I don’t know if it’s a day to celebrate,” added Craigan. “For me, it really isn’t, because we were taken away from our villages and forced to live here in Sechelt.”
For cultural leaders like Campo, the challenge of 2025 — beyond the act of commemoration — is to gather strength for future generations.
“When you’re responsible for raising the next generation, it’s a fine balance between communicating the real history and fostering a safe environment for them to step into their roles to serve community and build a life for themselves,” she said.
The shíshálh education department has developed curriculum resources about place names in the swiya, the clans, and each clans’ historic responsibilities.
In 1990, in his book The Story of the Sechelt Nation, historian Lester Peterson described an “erosion of aboriginal culture,” referring to “descendants of that shattered people, looking constantly to both past and future.” Peterson did not live to see the rise of the syiyaya Reconciliation Movement, or the development of the shíshálh Nation into one of Canada’s foremost cultural and economic powerhouses.
“As a shíshálh person,” said Campo, “when I look at our ancestors and all the efforts they made to transition and to cope with massive population loss and the residential schools, I have a deep gratitude. We now live in a community with a lot of diversity, a lot of settlers, and we are all responsible for building a sustainable future for the next generation.”
