This textbook offers an overview of the Sto:lo First Nations history from pre-colonization to the present day. The book begins by introducing who the Sto:lo First Nations people are; what does it mean to be a Pacific Coast Sto:lo? It moves on to describe the first encounters between the Sto:lo and the white colonizers. The book details the process of government coercion and then ventures into describing what a ‘Xwelitem’ world looked like after colonization, a Halquemeylem word meaning a world in which a Sto:lo exists alongside white colonizers. The book continues to describe the importance of the Sto:lo land and resources and how the division of these two key components of their culture has been discussed/debated over the years. And finally, the book closes with oral narratives, or first hand accounts of Sto:lo First Nations, outlining the importance of the oral history tradition in the Sto:lo culture. This textbook would be a great resource to use when focusing in depth on one First Nations group or even using the example of the Sto:lo experience as representative of many Pacific Coast First Nations groups.
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