Empowering a Nation: The Laxgalts’ap website and app project

Gitga’at First Nation, in Northern British Columbia, has a deep physical, emotional, and spiritual connection to its ancestral lands. Ensuring the continuity of this connection is fundamental to Gitga’at cultural survival. By creating an interactive web site, configured for computers, touch screens, and mobile devices, we will chronicle the rich and ancient history of one important Gitga’at place: Laxgalts’ap (“Old Town”) in the Quaal River watershed. In doing so, we will not only strengthen and support Gitga’at connections to Laxgalts’ap and the Quaal watershed, but will also educate settler communities about these connections.

Based on a beautiful, areal view of the watershed and on-the-ground 360˚ panoramas, the user will be guided through the long-term and place-based history of the Gitga’at in a dynamic coastal river system. Each place has it’s own stories – both from an oral tradition and a western scientific perspective. The user will experience the environmental and cultural history of Laxgalts’ap beginning with the origin stories in the upper watershed – when sea level was ~15-meters higher than today – and continuing to the watershed’s mouth and historic village. Woven throughout will be Sm’algyax language and above all, Gitga’at voices – young and old – talking about Gitga’at past, present, and future.

The Laxgalts’ap website and app project is the final stage of a six-year collaboration that brings together archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnoecological research to document the eco-cultural history of the Quaal watershed. This multi-disciplinary research is an outgrowth of the Nation’s on-going efforts to revitalize title, language, environmental stewardship, and spirituality.