Tsilhqotin

Introduction

The Tsilhqot’in (also Chilcotin, Tsilhqut’in, Tsinlhqot’in, Chilkhodin, Tsilkótin, Tsilkotin) are a Northern Athabaskan First Nations people that live in British Columbia, Canada. They are the most southern of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples in British Columbia.

The name Tsilhqot’in, also spelled Tsinlhqot’in is the Chilcotin name for themselves “people of the red-ochre river” (“Chilko” meaning “red ochre river”). The name also refers to the Chilcotin region, the territory which they traditionally inhabited, and which still numerically dominate the Chilcotin Plateau. It consists of the inland lea of the coast ranges on the west side of the Fraser River. It is the name of the river draining that region. The Chilcotin district is mostly a wide, high plateau, stretching from the mountains to the Fraser, but also includes several fjord-like lakes which verge from the plateau into the base of the mountains, the largest of which is Chilko Lake. The Tsilhqot’in people live today in Alexandria, north of Williams Lake, British Columbia, and in a string of communities westward from Williams Lake on Highway 20.

Text adapted from Wikipedia’s article on the Tsilhqot’in

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