In a "dialogic approach to ethnohistory" borrowed from the Russian semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin, University of Wyoming anthropologist Michael E. Harkin claims the Heiltsuks of the Bella Bella-Namu-Ocean Falls area of the coast have been among the least known of Northwest Coast peoples and they experienced perhaps the most rapid historical transformation. He focusses on the 50-year period after 1880 in The Heiltsuks: Dialogues of Culture and History on the Northwest Coast (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Indiana University American Indian Studies Research Institute, 1997). "The Heiltsuks transformed themselves from the most feared First Nation on the British Columbia coast," he claims, "to paragons of the Victorian virtues of hard work, prosperity and progress." Harkin conducted most of his field work in Bella Bella, or Waglisla ('Stream Emptying onto a Sandy Beach'), a village on the eastern shore of Campbell Island with a population of approximately 1300, of which approximately 1000 are status Indians.

Harkin, Michael E. The Heiltsuks: Dialogues of Culture and History on the Northwest Coast (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Indiana University American Indian Studies Research Institute, 1997)

[BCBW 2004] "Anthropology" "First Nations"

Review of author's work by BC Studies:
Coming to Shore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Traditions, and Visions
The Heiltsuks: Dialogues of Culture and History on the Northwest Coast