The Geography of Memory

The Sinixt, or "Arrow Lakes Indians," are the original inhabitants of the Upper Columbia Basin. Decimated by disease, displaced by settlement, and devastated by the dams that flooded their village and burial sites and eliminated ocean salmon from their territory, they were as a final insult declared "extinct" by the Canadian government in 1956. Yet they have steadfastly maintained close cultural and spiritual ties to their homeland. In a quest for understanding, Eileen Delehanty Pearkes set out to find the lost story behind the Sinixt First Nation. With the help of contemporary Sinixt people, Pearkes travelled, researched, and interviewed her way through a course of discovery. Her personal account is imbued with a deep respect for the land and its First Peoples. Part history, part ethnography, and part nature essay, this compact book contains a chart of wild food plants, timeline, maps, illustrations, and rare archival photographs.