Gold Rush Trail- James Teit National Historic Person of Canada

James Teit was the leading ethnographer of the Interior Salish of Southern British Columbia. A Shetlander of Norse ancestry, he came to Spences Bridge in 1884, and married into the Nlaka’pamux Nation. Encouraged by Franz Boas, a German‑American anthropologist who visited the area in 1894, Teit excelled in recording the oral traditions and mythology of the Salish, and also of the Dene and Kootenay. A hunting guide and champion of Native land rights, he was Special Agent for the Allied Tribes of British Columbia. His works helped preserve an Aboriginal world view for posterity.