Tla’amin Nation set to reclaim village of tisk?at 151 years after it was taken: `It’s like a long lost relative’

By Abby Francis Local Journalism Initiative Reporter For the Tla’amin Nation, the loss of their village site tisk?at has been like “a missing limb” for the community, according to Dillon Johnson. Their home and salmon fishing site was stolen and sold by “British Columbia” 151 years ago at a time when the community’s population was decimated by disease. For the next seven generations, Tla’amin people were separated from tisk?at. People were moved onto reserves, salmon runs were all but wiped out by construction of a new dam, and a paper mill began operating on the site. “I’ve always heard the Elders speaking about it, how you know, that this is tisk?at and our people lived there,” said Johnson, an executive council member for Tla’amin. “The way I’ve always kind of…

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