She was the daughter of Gwayulalas, a Kwagu'l noblewoman from Tsaxis (Fort Rupert, British Columbia) and a European fur trader William Gilbert.
After her mother died, Ga’axstal’as returned to central coast villages and was educated by a missionary couple in 'Yalis (Alert Bay, BC).
She testified before the McKenna–McBride Royal Commission, standing up with chiefs to make land claims and assert rights on their unceded territories in colonial British Columbia.
[1] As someone living at the crossroads of customary ways and the drastic changes that colonial power brought to the people on the coast, Ga’axstal’as negotiated both worlds.
For Kwakwakaʼwakw peoples, the central institution of governance was the potlatch; a ritual site where marriages and diverse exchanges and transfers of symbolic and material property confer social status and other important things.
"[5] In 2012, the University of British Columbia Press published Standing Up with G̲a'ax̱sta'las, (L. Robertson with Gixsam clan) a collaborative, intergenerational biography on her life and impact on future generations.