the Coast Tsimshian) while to the east the Wetʼsuwetʼen, an Athapaskan people, with whom they have a long and deep relationship and shared political and cultural community.

Each clan consists of a series of independent Houses (Wilp), each with their own High Chief, and traditional territories and fishing sites.

[citation needed] There are approximately 5,000 people British Columbia wide with many living in traditional Gitxsan territory.

Eighty per cent of the people living on the lands surrounding Legate creek to the Skeena headwaters are Gitxsan ('People of the River Mist') and archaeological evidence supports a continuous habitation of at least 10,000 years.

The aboriginal title rights of the Gitxsan and their neighbours, the Wetʼsuwetʼen, were affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 1997 Delgamuukw decision.