Qualla: Musqueam First Nation

Musqueam First Nation: Introduction

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeremy Board, CC BY 2.0. In Musqueam oral history, the Fraser River is the track of a snake. A double-headed serpent — sʔi:ɬqəy̓ — lived in the bog the Musqueam call xʷməm̓qʷe:m, which maps now label Camosun Bog, and it was so enormous that its winding path through the land carved out the river, stal̕əw̓. Every living thing that crossed the serpent's path died. Then, from the serpent's droppings, new life came up: məθkʷəy̓, the river grass, which grew thick and abundant around its home. That is why the people of this place are xʷməθkʷəy̓əm — the place where the river grass grows. English wore the word down to Musqueam.

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Image: Jeremy Board | CC BY 2.0

Musqueam First Nation: c̓əsnaʔəm

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Spyridon, CC BY-SA 4.0. Roughly 2,500 years ago the largest Musqueam village stood at a site called c̓əsnaʔəm, near where the Fraser meets the sea. Settlers who arrived much later gave the place a different name: the Marpole Midden, or the Great Fraser Midden, describing the metres of accumulated shell ...

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Image: Spyridon | CC BY-SA 4.0

Musqueam First Nation: What Was Taken from the Midden

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. c̓əsnaʔəm is a burial ground, and it was treated as a quarry. Between 1897 and 1900, Harlan Ingersoll Smith, an archaeologist with the American Museum of Natural History working on the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, excavated the site without Musqueam consent and removed the rem...

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Image: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0

Musqueam First Nation: Chief Johnny, 1913

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vancouver 125 - The City of Vancouver, CC BY 2.0. In 1913 Ottawa and Victoria jointly appointed the McKenna–McBride Royal Commission to settle, once and for all, the boundaries of reserve land in British Columbia. Musqueam people appeared before it and used the opportunity to reassert what they had never given up: the right to l...

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Image: Vancouver 125 - The City of Vancouver | CC BY 2.0

Musqueam First Nation: Fifty-Four Street Signs

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 李月文, CC BY-SA 4.0. Musqueam people speak hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, the downriver dialect of Halkomelem. The Kwantlen and Katzie upriver speak the same dialect; the Stó:lō further up the Fraser speak another; the Cowichan, Chemainus, Snuneymuxw and their neighbours on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands spe...

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Image: 李月文 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Musqueam First Nation: Three Reserves, and Buying the Delta Back

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vancouver 125 - The City of Vancouver from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0. The reserve land the band administers amounts to three parcels. Musqueam 2 is 470 acres at the mouth of the Fraser, north of Sea Island. Musqueam 4 covers 142 acres east of Canoe Passage near Westham Island. Sea Island 3 accounts for 16 acres on Sea Island's northwest corner. Set...

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Image: Vancouver 125 - The City of Vancouver from Vancouver, Canada | CC BY 2.0