History
History
Abstract:
Through the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre, Naxaxalhts'i offers ten different Indigenous placenames tours of the territory from Yale to Surrey along the lower Fraser River (usually by bus, but sometimes by boat, and occasionally by helicopter). Due to the Covid-19 situate he is offering this virtual format tour just for BC Studies conference attendees.
On this virtual tour conference, attendees will learn about Halq’emeylem placenames and the important significance of the names to Stó:lō culture and history. Attendees will learn sxwoxwiyam (original stories) as well as the sqwelqwel (family histories) as he shares accounts of the various sloleqem beings (supernatural creatures) such as the silqey (double-headed serpent) that inhabits the Fraser River between Yale and Vancouver.
Naxaxalhts’i | Albert “Sonny” McHalsie
Dr. Naxaxalhts’i, also known as Albert “Sonny” McHalsie, is currently the Sxweyxweyá:m (Historian)/Cultural Advisor for the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre, and Narrator for Bad Rock Tours affiliated the SRRMC and Stó:lō Tourism in Chilliwack B.C. He shares Stó:lō Halq’eméylem Place Names and how they define Stó:lō Indigenous rights and title and the unique relationship the Stó:lō maintain to their land and resources. He is also the Cultural Advisor for both the Stó:lō Xwexwilmexw Treaty Association as well as the Shxwōwhamel First Nation. His father was Nl’akapmx and his mother was Stó:lō. He is a member of the Shxw’ōwhamel First Nation.
Since 1985 he has interviewed numerous Stó:lō Elders on various aspects of Stó:lō culture and history. Sonny was a contributing author of You Are Asked To Witness: The Stó:lō in Canada’s Pacific Coast History(1996). He was a co-author of the book I am Stó:lō: Katherine Explores Her Heritage (1997) – focusing on his family and his daughter Katherine. He sat on the editorial board and was a contributor to the award-winning publication A Stó:lō Coast Salish Historical Atlas (2001). He also contributed to Bruce G. Miller’s Be of Good Mind (2008) and wrote the Foreword in Keith Thor Carlson’s The Power of Place the Problem of Time (2010). Most recently, he has co-edited Towards a New Ethnohistory; Community Engaged Scholarship among the People of the River (2018). In June 2011 he was given an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Victoria. He is also an Associate Professor at the University of the Fraser Valley.
He is the proud father of two girls and seven boys, and grandfather to eleven grandsons and three granddaughters. He continues to fish at his ancestral fishing ground at Aseláw located within the Stó:lō Fishery in the lower Fraser Canyon above Yale.