Coast Salish in the context of "British Columbia"

Totem poles (Haida: gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Indigenous Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia.

The word totem derives from the Algonquian word odoodem [oˈtuːtɛm] meaning "(his) kinship group". The carvings may symbolize or commemorate ancestors, cultural beliefs that recount familiar legends, clan lineages, or notable events. The poles may also serve as functional architectural features, welcome signs for village visitors, mortuary vessels for the remains of deceased ancestors, or as a means to publicly ridicule someone. They may embody a historical narrative of significance to the people carving and installing the pole. Given the complexity and symbolic meanings of these various carvings, their placement and importance lies in the observer's knowledge and connection to the meanings of the figures and the culture in which they are embedded. Contrary to common misconception, they are not worshipped or the subject of spiritual practice, nor were they were used by all Indigenous peoples in the Americas.

The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05 million people as of the 2021 Canadian census, the Lower Mainland contains sixteen of the province's 30 most populous municipalities and approximately 60% of the province's total population.

The region was historically occupied by the Sto:lo, a Halkomelem-speaking people of the Coast Salish linguistic and cultural grouping.

The term Cowlitz people covers two culturally and linguistically distinct indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest; the Lower Cowlitz or Cowlitz proper, and the Upper Cowlitz / Cowlitz Klickitat or Taitnapam. Lower Cowlitz refers to a southwestern Coast Salish people, which today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Quinault Indian Nation, and Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation. The Upper Cowlitz or Taitnapam, is a Northwest Sahaptin speaking people, part of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.

Their traditional homelands are in western Washington state in the United States.

Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 55,605 at the 2020 census, while the Olympia metropolitan statistical area has an estimated 300,000 people. Olympia is the county seat of Thurston County and anchors the South Puget Sound region of western Washington, 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Seattle.

The Squaxin and other Coast Salish peoples inhabited the southern Puget Sound region prior to the arrival of European and American settlers in the 19th century. The Treaty of Medicine Creek was signed in 1854 and followed by the Treaty of Olympia in 1856; these two treaties forced the Squaxin to relocate to an Indian reservation. Olympia was declared the capital of the Washington Territory in 1853 and incorporated as a town on January 28, 1859. It became a city in 1882.

The Kitsap Peninsula (/ˈkɪtˌsæp/) lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kitsap County except Bainbridge and Blake islands, in addition to the northeastern part of Mason County and the northwestern part of Pierce County. The highest point on the Kitsap Peninsula is Gold Mountain. The U.S. Navy's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and Naval Base Kitsap (comprising the former NSB Bangor and NS Bremerton) are on the peninsula. Its main city is Bremerton.

The 1841 United States Exploring Expedition, led by Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Navy, named it the Great Peninsula or Indian Peninsula. While "Great Peninsula" remains the official name, the name "Kitsap Peninsula" is more commonly used and is derived from Kitsap County, which occupies most of the peninsula. The county was named for Chief Kitsap, a late 18th- and 19th-century warrior and medicine man of the Suquamish Tribe. The Suquamish were one of the historical fishing tribes belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, and their ancestral grounds were based on the eastern shores of the Kitsap Peninsula. The city of Seattle is named after the tribe's most famous leader, Chief Seattle.

Richmond is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It occupies almost the entirety of Lulu Island (excluding Queensborough), the adjacent Sea Island (where the Vancouver International Airport is located) and several other smaller islands and uninhabited islets to its north and south. Across the two estuarine distributaries of the Fraser River, it neighbours Vancouver and Burnaby on the Burrard Peninsula to the north, New Westminster and Annacis Island to the east, Delta to the south, and the Strait of Georgia to the west.

The indigenous Coast Salish peoples were the first people to inhabit the area of modern-day Richmond, with the Musqueam Band naming the site near Terra Nova "spələkʷəqs" or "boiling point". Today, East Asian Canadians make up a majority of Richmond's population, along with the Continental Asian Canadian population numbering almost three-fourths of the city's population.

British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains. British Columbia borders the province of Alberta to the east; the territories of Yukon and Northwest Territories to the north; the US states of Washington, Idaho and Montana to the south, and Alaska to the northwest. With an estimated population of 5.68 million as of 2025, it is Canada's third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, while the province's largest city is Vancouver. Vancouver and its suburbs together make up the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, with the 2021 census recording 2.6 million people in Metro Vancouver. British Columbia is Canada's third-largest province in terms of total area, after Quebec and Ontario.

The first known human inhabitants of the area settled in British Columbia at least 10,000 years ago. Such groups include the Coast Salish, Tsilhqotʼin, and Haida peoples, among many others. One of the earliest British settlements in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, which gave rise to the city of Victoria, the capital of the Colony of Vancouver Island. The Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) was subsequently founded by Richard Clement Moody, and by the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Moody selected the site for and founded the mainland colony's capital New Westminster. The colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia were incorporated in 1866, subsequent to which Victoria became the united colony's capital. In 1871, British Columbia entered Confederation as the sixth province of Canada, in enactment of the British Columbia Terms of Union.

The Stó꞉lō (/ˈstɔːloʊ/), alternately written as Sto꞉lo, Stó꞉lô, or Stó꞉lõ, historically as Staulo, Stalo or Stahlo, and historically known and commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish, are a group of First Nations peoples inhabiting the Fraser Valley and lower Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada, part of the loose grouping of Coast Salish nations. Stó꞉lō is the Halqemeylem word for "river", so the Stó꞉lō are the river people. The first documented reference to these people as "the Stó꞉lō" occurs in Catholic Oblate missionary records from the 1880s. Prior to this, references were primarily to individual tribal groups such as Matsqui, Ts’elxweyeqw, or Sumas.