Hwlitsum First Nation

[3] Hwlitsum refers to Canoe Pass, near Steveston in Richmond, British Columbia and means “People of the Cattails”.

[15] References and maps verify the Lamalchi living and working on Penelakut Island in the early eighteen-hundreds.

The Lamalchi were one of the subtribes of the Cowichan people and had different histories and cultural practices from their ancestral neighbours on Penelakut Island.

[22] The Lamalcha Nation was not recognized by the British when the international border between Canada and the United States was drawn in 1846.

The Hwlitsum, descendants of the Lamalchi, are working with the Canadian government today to correct this omission in the written records.

[30][31] In September 1828, a European fur-trader counted 550 Cowichan canoes returning with fish along the Lower Fraser River.

[35] Up until contact in 1849 the Lamalchi usually spent November to March at Lamalcha Bay, and April to October at Hwlitsum (Canoe Pass).

[36] The Lamalchi and Penelakut were the only people who regularly hunted sea-lions around the south end of the Georgia Strait.

[38] They fished at xegetinas (long beach) by Deas Island at the mouth of the Fraser River and shared the site with other Hul'qumi'num speaking communities.

[39] During their stay at the winter camp, they harvested “chum salmon, winter springs, oysters, clams, cockles, mussels, crab, cod, rock-cod, halibut, sole, red snapper, prawns, shrimp, cuttlefish (occasionally), sea urchins, kelp, sea weed, octopus, squid, herring, dogfish, and perch from local waters and beaches.”[40] They also hunted deer, elk, black bear, raccoon, mink, seals, otter and grouse.

[42] They hunted “deer, mountain goat, black bear, muskrat, red fox, pheasant, mink, marten, ducks, geese, pigeon, widgeon, otter, seal, brant and snow geese.”[43] Plants harvested were “cedar bark, cascara bark, devil's club, huckleberries, salmonberry, strawberry, salal, alder, maple, squasum berry, cattails, rhubarb, plums, crab apples, and wapato.”[44] In 1824 Francis Annance estimated the population to be approximately 1,000.