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19-635: The Lucy Islands (known as Lax Spinna , meaning "on shoulders", in Tsimshian ) are a small archipelago off the North Coast of the province of British Columbia in Canada . The low-lying and heavily forested ( Sitka spruce ) group, named after its largest island, Lucy Island, constitutes a provincially protected conservancy area that contains some of the North Coast's oldest archeological sites,

38-653: A Kaigani Haida chief. Lucy was a "miraculously unfettered Victorian female", according to B.C. memoirist Helen Meilleur. "She was so adaptable that she could occupy the VIP cabin aboard the Labouchere ... and then set off in a canoe for weeks of weather-exposed travel to Indian villages." She married Hamilton Moffatt of the Hudson's Bay Company and resided in Victoria as of 1906. Ancient shell middens and house depressions on

57-634: A child, a young adult female and an older male. With the approval of the Metlakatla First Nation , the remains were analysed by the Canadian Museum of Civilization . A genetic study published in PLOS ONE in 2013 linked the 5,500-year-old female remains to 2,500-year-old remains found on nearby Dodge Island . The groundbreaking study, the first to use new techniques to analyse the complete mitochondrial genome , also found that

76-540: A living Tsimshian woman from the Metlakatla First Nation near Prince Rupert had a matrilineal DNA link to the 5,500-year-old female remains from the Lucy Islands. The study's findings may indicate an enduring occupation of the geographical region by local First Nations. By the 20th century, the sole residents of the Lucy Islands were lighthouse keepers . The original light above their residence

95-683: A nationally significant seabird population, and a prominent 20th-century lighthouse . The Lucy Islands Conservancy is an archipelago located about 15 km west of the North Coast's largest city, the port of Prince Rupert . The archipelago lies in the middle of Chatham Sound , north of the juncture with Hecate Strait , and between the much-larger Melville Island and Digby Island . The islands were named by Captain George Henry Richards of HMS  Hecate circa 1862 to honour Lucy McNeill, daughter of Hudson's Bay Company official William Henry McNeill and his first wife, Mathilda,

114-555: A significant avian population and were cited by the Metlakatla Governing Council as an area of concern in their Joint Review Panel submission that opposed the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines project. The conservancy is a nationally significant breeding site for rhinoceros auklets , that dig long burrows where they make their nests. Lucy Islands is the sixth-largest colony in the province. The 25,300 nesting pairs (1983) also represent about 5.4% of

133-590: Is a First Nations government at Lax Kw'alaams , formerly Port Simpson, close to Prince Rupert in British Columbia , Canada. 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 (HBC) trading post called Fort Simpson , then Port Simpson. The name Fort Simpson derived from Capt. Aemilius Simpson, superintendent of

152-601: Is currently not widely accepted, at least in its full form. The Penutian connections of Tsimshianic have been reevaluated by Marie-Lucie Tarpent , who finds the idea probable, though others hold that the Tsimshianic family is not closely related to any other North American language. Tsimshianic consists of 4 lects : Coast Tsimshian is spoken along the lower Skeena River in Northwestern British Columbia , on some neighbouring islands, and to

171-492: The 28 hectares of land throughout the archipelago as well as 178 hectares of foreshore out to 200 metres from the natural boundary of the sea. The conservancy is collaboratively managed by BC Parks with the Metlakatla and Lax-kw'alaams First Nations . The partnership replaced a rotten and hazardous boardwalk to permit recreational visits while protecting archaeological and bird-nesting features. The islands are home to

190-667: 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 and Hereditary Chief William Jeffrey . Duncan estimated

209-578: The HBC's Marine Department, who had established the first, short lived, Fort Simpson, on the nearby Nass River , in 1830 with Peter Skene Ogden . 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

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228-428: The global population. In 1983, as many as 197 pigeon guillemots (or 1.9% of the estimated national population) were recorded among the islands. By the following year, just 54 pigeon guillemots were recorded. glaucous-winged gulls and black oystercatchers have also been recorded at the site. Tsimshianic languages The Tsimshianic languages were included by Edward Sapir in his Penutian hypothesis, which

247-522: The islands are an indicator of human occupation dating back possibly 6,000 years. Some of the oldest archaeological sites on the North Coast are located on the islands, including the earliest-known use of a rectangular house in the region. Traditionally, the Lucy Islands are included in the territory of the Gitwilgyoots , a Tsimshian -speaking tribe that wintered in the Prince Rupert area at

266-616: The north at New Metlakatla, Alaska . Southern Tsimshian was spoken on an island quite far south of the Skeena River in the village of Klemtu ; however, it became extinct in 2013 with the death of the last speaker. Nisga’a is spoken along the Nass River . Gitksan is spoken along the Upper Skeena River around Hazelton and other areas. Nisga’a and Gitksan are very closely related and are usually considered dialects of

285-493: 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 , 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

304-551: The same language by linguists. However, speakers from both groups consider themselves ethnically separate from each other and from the Tsimshian and thus consider Nisga’a and Gitksan to be separate languages. Coast and Southern Tsimshian are also often regarded as dialects of the same language. As of 2023, Tsimshian courses are available at the University of Alaska Southeast . Consonantal inventory of Proto-Tsimshian: Lax-kw%27alaams First Nation The Lax Kw'alaams Band

323-530: The time of European contact. In late spring, during the seasonal round, the Gitwilgyoots moved to the outer islands west of Prince Rupert for a period of marine fishing, shellfish gathering and sea mammal hunting before returning to the Skeena River in early summer for the salmon runs. In the winter of 1984/5, strong winds felled two trees above a shell midden and exposed ancient human remains of

342-533: 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 church in 1874. The community is still predominantly Methodist (i.e. United Church of Canada ). Crosby's wife, Emma Crosby, founded

361-502: Was replaced by a tower built in 1907 on the east point of the main island. The Canadian Coast Guard destaffed the lighthouse in 1988. In 2008, the provincial government established the new Lucy Islands Conservancy under the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act . It protects critical seabird nesting habitat and supports contemporary marine food harvesting as well as popular recreation opportunities. The conservancy protects

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