The community is on Lama Passage, part of the Inside Passage – a transportation route linking the area, and northern British Columbia as well as Alaska for marine vessels carrying cargo, passengers and recreational boaters from the south coast.

However, the resumption of ferry services by BC Ferries and the introduction of an air link from Vancouver via Port Hardy by Pacific Coastal Airlines have revived Bella Bella.

Heiltsuk's oral history tells of a dispute with the store owner in the original town.

The store owner had acquired the land that had been the old HBC fort and would not allow the community to expand on 'his' land – prompting the entire community to abandon the site and move to a larger site – the present location of the village.

[5] Methodist missionaries played a significant role during this period, functioning as colonial agents, magistrates, ministers, as well as medical doctors.

"The one-room school stood in a clearing beside the church, at the fringe of the dense bush that stubbornly tried to reclaim the half-mile stretch of territory occupied by the village.

At some point, a white trader acquired a 'legal' title to the land that the fort had occupied.

Eventually, this also closed and the postal service was moved to the small non-Aboriginal community of Shearwater.

Called 'Qatuwas – the event was an important milestone in the ongoing renaissance in Northwest Coast Ocean-going canoes.

1997 R. v. Gladstone The Supreme Court of Canada recognized the Heiltsuk have a pre-existing Aboriginal right to herring that entails a commercial component.

[10] The crisis abated when the remainder of the commercial herring fleet departed and the Heiltsuk and Canada agreed to discuss the next season's management.

The dikes are believed to mark the first arrival of the hotspot, although it is now located in central British Columbia at Nazko Cone.