The Lax Kw'alaams Band is a First Nations government at

Lax Kw'alaams Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the We ...

, formerly Port Simpson, close to

Prince Rupert Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 (O.S.) / 27 December (N.S.) – 29 November 1682 (O.S.)) was an English army officer, admiral, scientist and colonial governor. He first came to prominence as a Royalist cava ...

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

, Canada.

Member governments

Treaty Process

History

Lax Kw'alaams derives from ''Laxłgu'alaams,'' which means "place of the wild roses." It is an ancient camping spot of the Gispaxlo'ots tribe and in 1834 became the site of a

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...

(HBC) trading post called

Fort Simpson Fort Simpson (Slavey language: ''Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́'' "place where rivers come together") is a village, the only one in the entire territory, in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. The community is located on an ...

, then Port Simpson. The name Fort Simpson derived from Capt. Aemilius Simpson, superintendent of the HBC's Marine Department, who had established the first, short lived, Fort Simpson, on the nearby

Nass River The Nass River is a river in northern British Columbia, Canada. It flows from the Coast Mountains southwest to Nass Bay, a sidewater of Portland Inlet, which connects to the North Pacific Ocean via the Dixon Entrance. Nass Bay joins Portland In ...

, in 1830 with

Peter Skene Ogden Peter Skene Ogden (alternately Skeene, Skein, or Skeen; baptised 12 February 1790 – 27 September 1854) was a British-Canadian fur trader and an early explorer of what is now British Columbia and the Western United States. During his many expedi ...

. The first HBC factor at the new Fort Simpson was Dr. John Frederick Kennedy, who married the daughter of the Gispaxlo'ots chief Ligeex as part of the diplomacy which established the fort on Gispaxlo'ots territory. Kennedy served at Fort Simpson until 1856. In 1857 an Anglican lay missionary named William Duncan brought Christianity to Lax Kw'alaams, but, feeling that he was competing in vain with the dissipated fort atmosphere for Tsimshian souls, he relocated about 350 of his flock to Metlakatla, at Metlakatla Pass just to the south. There was no further missionary presence at Lax Kw'alaams until the arrival of the Rev. Thomas Crosby of the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

church in 1874. The community is still predominantly Methodist (i.e.

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada (french: link=no, Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catho ...

). Crosby's wife, Emma Crosby, founded the Crosby Girls' Home in the community in the 1880s. It became part of B.C.'s residential school system in 1893 and was closed in 1948. It was in Port Simpson in 1931 that the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia was founded as the province's first Native-run rights organization. Its four founders included the Tsimshian ethnologist

William Beynon William Beynon (1888–1958) was a Canadian hereditary chief of the Tsimshian Nation and an oral historian; he served as ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists who studied his people. Early life and educati ...

and Hereditary Chief William Jeffrey. Duncan estimated the population of Lax Kw'alaams in 1857 as 2,300, living in 140 houses. Approximately 500 died in the

1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic Year 186 ( CLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aurelius and Glabrio (or, less frequently, year 939 ''Ab urbe co ...

, shortly after Duncan's departure. Today Lax Kw'alaams is the largest of the seven Tsimshian village communities in Canada. Its population in 1983 was 882. The legal and political interests of the people of Lax Kw'alaams ''vis à vis'' the provincial and federal governments are represented by the

Allied Tsimshian Tribes Association An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

, which represents the hereditary chiefs of the Nine Tribes.

Demographics

INAC number, 674 the Lax-kw'alaams has 3,219 members.

Economic Development

Social, Educational and Cultural Programs and Facilities

References

Tsimshian governments {{Canada-poli-stub