Nechako Lakes.
3 candidates, one seat.

Several of the Nations here are Dakelh, the people also called Carrier, and each describes itself on its own website. Nak’azdli Whut’en says most Carrier call themselves Dakelh, meaning “People Who go Around by Boat.” It describes four clans: Lhts’umusyoo (Beaver), Lusilyoo (Frog), Kwun Ba Whuten (Caribou) and Lohjabou (Bear). It says its reserve is in the town of Fort St James, 152 km from Prince George.

Saik’uz First Nation says it belongs to the greater Dakelh (Carrier) Nation, with its leading community on the east end of Nulki Lake, 14 kilometres south of Vanderhoof. It says its name is the Dakelh word for “on the sand”, after the sandy soil of the main community. The District of Vanderhoof’s community plan acknowledges that the plan area lies within the ancestral lands of the Dakelh people, including the Saik’uz First Nation.

The Stellat’en First Nation says its main office is on the Stellat’en Reserve on the banks of Nadleh Bun (Fraser Lake), near Fort Fraser, and that Stellat’en, “people of Stella”, has existed since time immemorial. BC Geographical Names records that the Nautley River, which drains Fraser Lake into the Nechako River, is named for Nautley Indian Reserve 1. Its record for the Nechako River says the name almost certainly comes from the Carrier word for “big river.”

Tl’azt’en Nation says its Chief and Council represent two communities, Tache and Middle River (Dzit’lain’li). The BC Treaty Commission says the traditional territory of Yekooche First Nation is near Stuart Lake, Cunningham Lake and Lake Babine, and that it overlaps or is shared with Lake Babine, Burns Lake, Nadleh Whut’en, Nak’azdli, Stellat’en, Takla, Tl’azt’en and Treaty 8. The Yekooche Agreement in Principle was signed on 22 August 2005. The Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako lists 14 First Nations communities on its opportunities website, among them Binche Whut’en, Takla and Yekooche.

Lake Babine Nation’s website lists five communities: Woyenne, Donald’s Landing, Tachet, Old Fort (Nedo’ats) and Fort Babine. It says Woyenne is the largest, within the municipal boundaries of the Village of Burns Lake, and that Tachet is near Topley Landing at the mouth of Fulton River. The commission’s report names Wit’at (Fort Babine) inside Nechako Lakes. The BC Treaty Commission says the nation’s territory spans from Burns Lake in the south to the Babine and Nilkitaw rivers in the north, including most of Lake Babine. Its treaty table is at Stage 4, Agreement in Principle negotiations.

The Village of Burns Lake gives Tselh K’iz Bin as the Witsuwit’en name for Burns Lake, and says at least three Witsuwit’en families lived there in 1906, when Barney Mulvany camped nearby. The Office of the Wet’suwet’en says Nee-Tahi-Buhn is the name for Francois Lake and means “it fills at one end and empties at the other.” It says the Nee Tahi Buhn Band speaks the Wet’suwet’en dialect. In 1960 the Decker Lake, Francois Lake, Maxim Lake and Skin Tyee bands merged to form the Omineca Band. The Omineca Band divided in 1984 into the Nee-Tahi-Buhn and Broman Lake bands, and the Skin Tyee Band separated in 2000. The Province lists Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation (Burns Lake Indian Band) as 220 km west of Prince George and a member of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.

Cheslatta Carrier Nation says its office is at Southbank, on the south shore of Francois Lake, 23 kilometres south of Burns Lake. It says its members live on 17 reserves across the area known as the Southside, and that before 1952 its people lived for centuries on the shores of Cheslatta and Murray Lakes. The District of Houston’s website says Houston lies on the traditional and unceded territory of the Wit’suwit’en people.

BC Geographical Names records that Simon Fraser of the North West Company founded the trading post at Fort St. James in August 1806, and that it was called Stuart Lake post until 1822. The same record says Fraser used the Indigenous name Nakazleh for the place in his letters. Parks Canada says the North West Company built the first two permanent fur trade posts west of the Rocky Mountains in 1805 and 1806, and that the second, Fort St. James, became the centre of the northern fur trade district known as New Caledonia. The record for Fort Fraser, at the east end of Fraser Lake, says that place is named after Simon Fraser, who established a trading post there in 1806.

Parks Canada describes Chief Kw’eh as a leader of the Dakelh people at Stuart Lake, in the village of Nak’azdli. It says he became fur trade chief in 1806 when Simon Fraser’s party arrived, and kept that role after the Hudson’s Bay Company took charge in 1821. It gives his years as c.1755 to 1840 and says traders called him “the King.” Parks Canada says the designation of Chief Kw’eh as a person of national historic significance was announced in March 2012, and that the site opened an exhibit with his dagger in the summer of 2012.

Parks Canada says the fur warehouse at Fort St. James was built in 1888 and 1889 and comes from the fourth rebuilding of the fort. The site is restored to the year 1896, and the story it tells ends in 1952, when the Hudson’s Bay Company closed its post on the original site. BC Geographical Names records that the Fort St. James post office opened on 1 May 1899 and was reopened on 1 May 1905. Fort St. James became a village on 19 December 1952 and a district municipality on 1 January 1995.

Surveyors for the Collins Overland Telegraph passed through the Burns Lake area in 1865 and 1866, according to the Village of Burns Lake. The Village says the unknown operator of the telegraph station there was probably the first permanent resident of European descent. Parks Canada says that in 1865 Major Franklin Pope tried to lay out a telegraph line to Siberia, and that he climbed the mountain near Fort St. James that now carries his name. Parks Canada gives the Carrier name of the trail up Mount Pope as Nak’al.

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway brought most of the towns on Highway 16. BC Geographical Names records that the railway company named the Vanderhoof station in 1912 or 1913, and that the Vanderhoof post office opened on 1 December 1914. Post offices opened at Fort Fraser on 1 May 1913, at Endako on 7 May 1913, at Frasertown on the Fraser Lake townsite on 15 August 1913 and at Houston on 1 April 1914. The Village of Burns Lake says no community of any size existed there until the railway was completed in 1914. BC Geographical Names records the Burns Lake post office opening on 1 April 1910.

BC Geographical Names gives three accounts of the name Vanderhoof. The most detailed names Herbert Vanderhoof, a Chicago publicity agent whom the Canadian government and three railways hired in 1908 for a campaign in the American press to draw settlers to western Canada. The same office records that the provincial government laid out the Burns Lake townsite in 1917, and that Burns Lake became a village municipality on 6 December 1923. Vanderhoof became a village municipality on 22 January 1926.

Cheslatta Carrier Nation says its people developed a system of roads, trails and paths that linked their villages with Grassy Plains, Fraser Lake and Vanderhoof. It says that in 1950 the British Columbia government granted the Aluminum Company of Canada, known as Alcan, the rights to all the water in Cheslatta traditional territory that flowed into the Nechako River. The Nation describes the start of a hydroelectric project in which Alcan would dam the Nechako River and flood the Ootsa, Tetachuk and Tahtsa rivers, creating the Nechako Reservoir.

A Province of British Columbia release dated 17 April 2019 says the Cheslatta people were evicted from their homes in 1952 on two weeks’ notice and forcibly resettled outside their traditional lands. It says their lands, villages, cultural sites and spiritual sites were flooded as the newly built Kenney Dam filled the Nechako Reservoir. Chief Corrina Leween and two councillors of Cheslatta Nation signed a Settlement Agreement and an Interim Reconciliation Agreement with the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. The release says Cheslatta voters endorsed the Settlement Agreement unanimously in a ratification process that ended on 14 March 2019.

Fort St. James became a village on 19 December 1952, as BC Geographical Names records. Houston became a village on 4 March 1957 and a district municipality on 1 February 1969. Fraser Lake became a village on 27 September 1966. Its boundary was amended in 1975 to add a minesite and in 1976 to add a sawmill site.

A table of porphyry molybdenum resources published by the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines in June 2005 names Thompson Creek Mining as operator of the Endako mine near Fraser Lake. It says the mine had been in continuous operation since 1965, and that molybdenum is used to strengthen steel.

On Babine Lake, the BC Geological Survey’s mineral inventory record for Granisle says Granby Mining Company bought the principal claims in 1955 and soon organized a subsidiary, Granisle Copper. A production decision was made in February 1965, and in mid-November 1966 production began at 4,500 tonnes per day. Mining was suspended in mid-1982, and the record gives production from 1966 to 1982 as 52,273,151 tonnes of ore, with 214,299,455 kilograms of copper. BC Geographical Names records that the Granisle townsite belonged to Granisle Copper Ltd, and that Granisle became a village municipality on 29 June 1971.

An explosion and fire destroyed the Babine Forest Products sawmill on 20 January 2012. The BC Safety Authority’s investigation report puts the mill on Highway 16 East, 20 kilometres east of the town of Burns Lake, and gives the time of the explosion as 8:07 pm. WorkSafeBC’s summary says two workers were killed and 20 others were injured, and that the fire spread through the premises and destroyed the mill.

WorkSafeBC found that wood dust dispersed in the air was dense enough to explode, and that friction inside a motor-reducer belt guard was the source of ignition. It lists an ineffective dust collection system and an ineffective inspection and maintenance system among the underlying factors. It also says low humidity in cold weather and dry beetle-killed wood made the dusts drier and finer.

Lake Babine Nation, Canada and British Columbia signed the Foundation Agreement on 18 September 2020. Canada’s release of 21 February 2024 describes it as a framework that sets out a 20-year pathway for Lake Babine Nation to carry out its constitutional rights, and says British Columbia committed to transfer 20,000 hectares of provincial Crown land and forestry tenures in the first phase. On 21 February 2024 Canada signed a Funding Agreement of $50 million with Lake Babine Nation for priorities of the Wit’at and Tachet communities.

The Province’s page for Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation lists Carrier Sekani reconciliation agreements from 2017 to 2025. It names Nadleh Whut’en, Nak’azdli, Saik’uz, Stellat’en, Takla Nation, Tl’azt’en and Ts’il Kah Noh (Burns Lake Band), with the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, in an environmental stewardship agreement for the Omineca demonstration project.

On 26 February 2024 the Court of Appeal for British Columbia released its decision in Thomas v. Rio Tinto Alcan Inc., 2024 BCCA 62, a case brought on behalf of members of the Saik’uz First Nation and the Stellat’en First Nation about the effect of the Kenney Dam on the Nechako River. Saik’uz and Stellat’en state that the court found the provincial and federal governments have a fiduciary duty to protect the two Nations’ Aboriginal rights from the harm the dam causes, and that Rio Tinto Alcan has always denied any harm. The Supreme Court of Canada’s docket records that an application for leave to appeal from that judgment was dismissed with costs to Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. on 10 October 2024.