Specifically, the Matsqui First Nation currently reside within the part of the Fraser River downriver of the Sawmill Creek.
The current chief would be Alice McKay who, with other tribe members such as counselor Brenda Morgan and Ryan Bird, form the committee representing the Matsqui Tribe within the Stó:lõ Nation Chiefs Council.
[6] This wouldn’t be surprising as, according to Henry Custer who was a surveyor in 1858 who visited the region currently inhabited by the Matsqui noted that two interconnected lived between the Fraser and the Nooksack rivers.
[10] Pre-Contact History The earliest records within the Fraser river area show that human inhabitance can be clearly confirmed within the area as early as nine thousand years ago and that, by five thousand years ago, when the climate in British Columbia settled, there was the existence of a unique Salish form of cultural expression which is similar to that of today, showing cultural continuity from then till now among the Stó:lõ people which the Matsqui people is a part of.
[6] This tribe also developed a hierarchal society whereby by about 1450ce, a small minority held the majority of the political power, possibly caused by the fact that the Matsqui were known for having a sedentary lifestyle and being very migratory according to latest research.
[13] This led to the Fraser Canyon War which eventually forced Salish natives to roll back their resistance in addition to the fact that with the influx of American miners came smallpox that took out nearly fifty to seventy-five percent of the native population within the area.
[10] Now, the Stó:lõ Nation Chiefs Council focuses on the issue of the discovery of mass graves with 200 unmarked burials close to a former residential school in Kamloops to investigate them and potentially missing children further and to find if similar situations have occurred in other residential schools found within the Fraser river area.
Specifically, for the Matsqui people, their tribe's founder Sk-Elê’yitl, according to their own sxwoxwiyá:m, was transformed to a beaver by Xe:Xá:ls.
[21] The idea that the entire history of a people is only recorded orally means that the Matsqui people uphold a standard of complete honesty when telling such stories that, should a person get it wrong, they could be disgraced and barred from telling a story again as they would've disrespected their own history and that of their community.