3 
enhanced by their background of rolling foothills and lofty mountain 
peaks at times shrouded in mists and covered with snow most of the year. 
The Gitwinlkul people — -Mountain-pass-tribe — -own twenty-seven poles 
which form the largest cluster in existence; it is also the finest. Gitwinlkul 
is situated 14 miles north of Kitwanga, on the Grease trail to the Nass, 
and it belongs in some ways as much to the Nass as it does to the Skeena. 
The other villages whose poles rank next in age and value, are Kis- 
payaks (Kispiox)^ and Kitwanga. The people of Kispayaks — -or Hiding- 
place — owned twenty-three poles until recently, and the Kitwanga tribe 
— or Rabbit-tribe — ^twenty-six, including house-poles and kindred carvings. 
Kitwanga is the westernmost village of the Gitksan or the lowest on the 
Skeena, and it stands about 150 miles from the coast. Kispayaks is situ- 
ated 35 miles above, at the junction of Skeena and Kispayaks rivers.* 
The Kitwanga poles were recently restored under government and railway 
auspices. Originally they were unpainted, except for incidental touches, 
and most of them stood in a row along the water front. 
There are nineteen poles at Gitsegyiikla, a village on the Skeena 
midway between Kitwanga and Hazelton, that is, about 165 miles from the 
coast. The Gitsegyukla poles are of good quality and in a fair state of 
preservation; but they rather lack the air of antiquity which is so striking 
elsewhere, in particular at Gitwinlkul and Kispayaks. The oldest poles 
burnt down with the village in 1872, and the present ones were erected 
since, a few after the year 1900. Most of them were decorated in the 
new style, with modern paint, which in time has been weathered down. 
Gitenmaks or the Torch-light-fishing-tribe, at the forks of the Skeena 
and the Bulkley — ^now Hazelton — never owned more than a few poles; 
but one of them was among the most ancient. Gitenmaks was a fairly 
small village, near the Carrier frontier 3 miles away, at Bulkley canyon. 
Eight of its poles are described here, and the four that still stand were 
erected after the Indian reserve was established, about the year 1890. 
The other villages of Qaldo and Kisgagas, near the headwaters of the 
Skeena,^ are not, strictly speaking, totem pole villages. We know of 
only three poles formerly standing in each of these places. Hagwelget, 
the Carrier tribe of Bulkley canyon near Hazelton, owns four poles, which 
were erected many years ago in imitation of the Gitksan custom. 
The poles as a rule face the water front, in each of these villages. 
They stand apart from each other, usually in front of the owner's lodge, 
and they dot the whole length of the village, in an irregular row. Their 
height ranges from 10 feet to 60. They were carved from large cedar 
trees carefully selected and sometimes hauled from a long distance, and 
erected in commemoration of the dead, in the course of elaborate ceremon- 
ials. Now that the villagers, to keep up with the times, have moved to 
new quarters, the poles seem forsaken in the old, deserted abodes of the 
past, among cabins where some of the natives casually smoke salmon in 
the summer. Some of the poles have already fallen and decayed, and 
others lean precariously or totter in the wind, soon to come down with a 
crash. 
*The phonetic spelling, Kispayaks, is used throughout the report, not the Geographic Board name, Kispiox. 
*Or 10 miles above Hazelton. 
*Kiagagas, or the Sea-gull-tribe, is situated on Babine river 3 or 4 miles above the junction of the Skeena and 
the Babine (or Kisgagas river), about 225 miles from the coast. Qaldo is the uppermost Gitksan village, on the 
Skeena, about 250 miles from the coast. 
