For centuries the Cheslatta T'en hunted, fished and trapped there[3] and were part of an ancient trade network called the Grease Trail.

It was named the Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route, then renamed the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail to honour the guides.

The band office and other community buildings are located on a reserve about two km south of the Southbank ferry dock.

[14] "Carrier is the general term for a complex of Athabaskan dialects in central British Columbia, adjoining (but clearly distinct from) Babine on the northwest and Chilcotin on the south.

To the east, Carrier traditional territory extended as far as the Rocky Mountains.″ Long before contact with Europeans, they fished for trout, char, kokanee and whitefish in the freshwater lakes and traded with neighbouring villages for sockeye and chinook salmon.

In later years many Cheslatta people had large vegetable gardens and herds of cattle and horses for which they grew fields of timothy and clover.

Some worked for local sawmills or ranchers and ran traplines to earn cash to buy supplies they could not produce themselves.

[18] British Columbia "signed over in perpetuity and at a nominal charge a huge area and much of its resource wealth-agricultural and park lands, water, forests and fish.

[12] Alcan sent in a crew to build a stone cairn on the highest ground at the site of the village on Ootsa Lake just before it was flooded, and eventually a plaque was attached.

[6] Due to a smaller dam constructed near the mouth of the Cheslatta, homes and a graveyard of the local Indian community were flooded.

The community was forced to relocate on short notice to a new area and unfamiliar way of life,[19] which led eventually to demands for redress of their losses.

This three-way joint venture partnership was owned by a group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal residents from the Lakes Forest District, including six First Nations.