The Esk'etemc are a

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

people A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

in the

Cariboo Regional District {{Infobox settlement , name = Cariboo , official_name = Cariboo Regional District , other_name = , native_name = , native_name_lang = , nickname = , sett ...

of the Canadian province of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. They are a subgroup of the Secwepemc people and reside around the community of Alkali Lake, an unincorporated settlement and Indian Reserve community on the

Cariboo Plateau The Cariboo Plateau is a volcanic plateau in south-central British Columbia, Canada. It is part of the Fraser Plateau that itself is a northward extension of the North American Plateau. The southern limit of the plateau is the Bonaparte River alth ...

south of the city of Williams Lake. Their band government was formerly called the

Alkali Lake Indian Band The Esk'etemc First Nation, also known as the Alkali Lake Indian Band, is a First Nations government of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) people, located at Alkali Lake in the Cariboo region of the Central Interior of the Canadian province of British Colum ...

. The current chief of the Esk'etemc First Nation is Fred Robbins. The Esk'etemc have control over some regional resources through ownsership of companies such as forest management company Alkali Resource Management Ltd. (ARM), which is owned by the Esk'etemc Nation.

Orange Shirt Day The Truth and Reconciliation Day (french: Journée de la vérité et de la réconciliation), originally and still colloquially known as Orange Shirt Day (french: Jour du chandail orange), is a Canadian statutory holiday to recognize the legacy ...

, a day created to raise awareness of the

Canadian Residential School System In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school sys ...

, was started in 2013 after Phyllis Jack Webstad spoke at the St. Joseph Mission (SJM) Residential School Commemoration Project held in Williams Lake. Esk'etemc chief Fred Robbins has been credited with starting the project.

References

External links

Esk'etemc website

British Columbia Assembly of First Nations
Secwepemc {{FirstNations-stub