Qualla: Stz'uminus First Nation

Stz'uminus First Nation: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby, CC BY-SA 2.5. For most of the twentieth century, the Canadian government called them the Chemainus Indian Band. The name was a colonial approximation -- close enough for administrative purposes, wrong enough to erase the Hul'qumi'num language that had named these people and this place long before any European arrived. In 2009, chief and council unanimously passed a resolution to restore their original name: Stz'uminus, rendered in Hul'qumi'num as shcuminus. It was not the only renaming the Stz'uminus would champion. A year earlier, their representative George Harris had proposed something far more ambitious -- renaming the Strait of Georgia itself.

Read more: Stz'uminus First Nation on Qualla

Image: HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby | CC BY-SA 2.5

Stz'uminus First Nation: A Name for the Water

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby, CC BY-SA 2.5. In March 2008, George Harris of the Stz'uminus First Nation proposed calling the Strait of Georgia the Salish Sea, an idea that had been circulating since Bert Webber of Bellingham, Washington first suggested it in 1989. Webber's original proposal was expansive: a single name for...

Read more: Stz'uminus First Nation on Qualla

Image: HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby | CC BY-SA 2.5

Stz'uminus First Nation: Stuart Channel and the Salish Shore

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby, CC BY-SA 2.5. The Stz'uminus First Nation's largest reserve, Chemainus Indian Reserve No. 13, sits on Stuart Channel, one of the countless smaller waterways within the broader Salish Sea. The reserve occupies the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island near the town of Ladysmith, a stretch of s...

Read more: Stz'uminus First Nation on Qualla

Image: HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby | CC BY-SA 2.5

Stz'uminus First Nation: Language as Sovereignty

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby, CC BY-SA 2.5. The decision to change from Chemainus to Stz'uminus was more than administrative housekeeping. Hul'qumi'num, the language from which the name derives, is a Central Coast Salish language spoken by several First Nations on southeastern Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands...

Read more: Stz'uminus First Nation on Qualla

Image: HighInBC Attribute to Ryan Bushby | CC BY-SA 2.5