Qualla: Cowichan Tribes

Cowichan Tribes: Introduction

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sunsonn, CC BY 4.0. Undyed, heavy as a blanket, hip-length, shawl-collared, zipped up the front and banded with eagles or deer or geometric repeats - the Cowichan sweater is one of a very small number of Canadian garments the world recognises on sight. It was not designed. It emerged, in the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island, out of a collision: Coast Salish women who had spun and woven wool for generations were taught European knitting in mission schoolrooms in the 1860s, and what came out the other side belonged entirely to neither tradition. More than a century and a half later, Cowichan Tribes remains the largest First Nation band in British Columbia, with over 3,800 registered members - and it is still arguing, in courtrooms and in shops, about who owns what its people made.

Read more: Cowichan Tribes on Qualla

Image: Sunsonn | CC BY 4.0

Cowichan Tribes: Seven Villages, One Band

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edward S. Curtis, Public domain. Cowichan Tribes is an administrative creation stretched over something older. When the band was constituted under the Indian Act, seven distinct peoples were amalgamated into a single legal entity: Quamichan, the largest, along with Clemclemaluts, Comiaken, Khenipsen, Kilpahlas, ...

Read more: Cowichan Tribes on Qualla

Image: Edward S. Curtis | Public domain

Cowichan Tribes: How the Sweater Happened

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Boas, Dr. Franz, Public domain. In 1858 Sisters of St. Ann travelled from Montreal to Victoria and opened a schoolhouse. Through the 1860s, knitting became part of what Indigenous girls were taught at St. Ann's Academy in Victoria and at St. Ann's School for Indian Girls in Duncan - a colonial curriculum delive...

Read more: Cowichan Tribes on Qualla

Image: Boas, Dr. Franz | Public domain

Cowichan Tribes: Everybody Else's Cowichan Sweater

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Boas, Dr. Franz, Public domain. Imitation started almost immediately. Commercial firms were copying the design by the 1920s, and Mary Maxim, founded in the 1940s, built a mail-order knitting empire partly on patterns encountered during a sales trip through British Columbia. The dispute reached national televisi...

Read more: Cowichan Tribes on Qualla

Image: Boas, Dr. Franz | Public domain

Cowichan Tribes: Lulu Island

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Boas, Dr. Franz, Public domain. The longest-running argument is about land. Cowichan families travelled seasonally to the lower Fraser River for the salmon runs, keeping villages and fishing stations there for generations before the river's mouth became Richmond, British Columbia. In August 2025, the Supreme Co...

Read more: Cowichan Tribes on Qualla

Image: Boas, Dr. Franz | Public domain

Cowichan Tribes: The Valley Now

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Boas, Dr. Franz, Public domain. Cowichan Tribes is governed by an elected chief and a council of twelve, serving a total population of 5,614. Its business arm, the Khowutzun Development Corporation, runs contracting, forest services and a millwork and joinery operation, and the group's combined revenue reached ...

Read more: Cowichan Tribes on Qualla

Image: Boas, Dr. Franz | Public domain