From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Aboriginals: Tsimshian/Deanna Nyce
The ancient migrations by which this region was populated created a network of communities whose common heritage is commemorated in adawx and the related crests depicted on totem poles and housefronts. It was this network that facilitated the development of a complex system of commodity exchange, a trading system that became one of the most important factors in the sophisticated and thriving economy of the northwest coast. Although community size and location have varied over the era since deglaciation, the present villages remain, for the most part, within a few kilometres of ancient settlements.
When Russian, European, and American fur traders visited the area, beginning in 1790, the coastal groups had direct access to the trade while interior groups traded furs through coastal middlemen. When the sea otter were depleted, inland furs became the main product of exchange, and the Gitksan and Nisga’a communities played a key role in this trade by capitalizing on their direct access to the furs of the Tahltan and Tsetsaut to the north and the Wet’suwet’en in the east, as well as to the markets among the Tsimshian on the coast. This enriched all three groups and provided the wealth that supported a period of artistic productivity. The establishment of Fort St James in 1806, Fort Babine in 1822, Fort Simpson in 1831–34, and the Hagwilget post at Hazelton in 1866 did not undercut their control of the trade since links of kinship and longstanding trading relationships drew trade to native partners resident near the posts and forced the trading companies to deal with Tsimshian, Nisga’a, and Gitskan middlemen.
The impact of the emphasis on land furs, as with the earlier seaotter trade, was an escalation of resource extraction, increased wealth in foreign goods, and a fluorescence of ceremonial and artistic activity. However, as the European and Chinese markets for furs declined and the HBC consolidated its monopoly on the coastal trade at the mouth of the Nass and Skeena rivers and at the interior posts, the enormous profits from the trade in furs were replaced by modest returns, and a status quo developed in which trapping for furs to exchange for European goods, and later for cash, was integrated into the economies of the groups in the area.
The influx of gold prospectors in the 1860s was met in much the same way, by adding profits from prospecting, packing, and guiding to the preexisting economy; the location on the Skeena River of the Coast Tsimshian and the Gitksan made this of particular benefit to them, though prospectors intruded on territories throughout the area without regard for native owners. From this period to the middle of the twentieth century, a steady flow of newcomers, who came to log, pack fish, mine, farm, or establish new communities, forced the Nisga’a, Gitksan, and Coast and Southern Tsimshian peoples to engage in political and legal battles to defend their territories, at great expense in terms of money, time, and lost economic opportunities as resources were extracted by outsiders.
An economic pattern developed in each community involving a mix of seasonal trapping and hunting, salmon harvest and preservation, spring and fall trade, and winter ceremonies. Many families combined this pattern with annual moves to the commercial canneries on the coast to work in the fishing industry, the women in the processing plants and the men as gillnetters and shoreworkers. By the 1950s multinational forestry companies and canneries were the key players in the economy of the northwest, and the way of life of all of the residents was changed. As with the furtrade period, there was a time of increased prosperity followed by consolidation of industries, depletion of resources, softening of foreign markets, and a marked decline, beginning in the early 1980s and nearing crisis proportions by the 1990s. Of the many thriving coastal canneries, only two now remain and their workforces are shrinking. Many native people are still employed in the industry, but much of the labour force resides in Prince Rupert where the surviving canneries are located, and this circumstance weakens the economies of the native villages. Similarly, the smaller sawmills in the interior were shut down in the late 1980s to be replaced by one large highly automated mill employing less than 10 percent of the original workforce. A major molybdenum mine at Kitsault on Alice Arm was closed during the 1970s because of protests, spearheaded by the Nisga’a, about the impact of dumping mine tailings into the sea, but mining has a foothold in the northern part of Nisga’a territory and there is a small nonnative community at Stewart.
In the 1990s the economies of the Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Nisga’a peoples continue to adapt. Forestry, fishing, harvesting of forest products such as pine mushrooms, sale of art, management of resources, government services and a growing tourism industry are the major sources of income. There is a high rate of unemployment in some communities, especially seasonally, related to the cycles of commercial fishing and logging. The cash economy is paralleled by a continuation of ageold patterns of fishing for salmon, halibut and cod, harvesting shellfish and berries, and hunting and trapping, supplemented by some gardening, especially potatoes and berries.
Provision of educational, health and social services to Nisga’a, Gitksan, and Tsimshian communities has been uneven and, on average, well below national norms. While there are increasing numbers of welleducated people from these communities working in the resource-industry, government, and professional sectors, there are also many people who have been marginalized by lack of access to critical services. The movement for self-government has been stimulated by acute awareness of these issues.
Federal and provincial initiatives have been underfunded and sporadic, and it has been difficult to establish long-term community-based responses to local needs. In some communities, the systems of social control that have been in place for many generations have held through the enormous stress of the past century; in others, these have been severely damaged and nothing effective has been put in their place. The results – high levels of substance abuse and family violence, and large numbers of suicides and attempted suicides (in one village of fewer than 1,000 people, there were six suicides or attempted suicides in three months during 1994) – have been tragic and are issues of great concern among native people.
