Spuzzum's Annie York and ethnologist Andrea Laforet examined how the Nlaka'pamux people developed their separate sense of history, in comparison to non-Aboriginals, in Spuzzum: Fraser Canyon Histories, 1808-1939 (UBC Press, 1998 $75). Born at Spuzzum in 1904, Annie Zetco York was an important 'Nlaka'pamux cultural authority, healer and oral teacher whose explanations of red ochre rock-writings found in the Stein Valley were published in They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever (Talonbooks, 1993), co-authored with Richard Daly and Chris Arnett. York also provided information for books by ethnobotanist Nancy J. Turner and Lytton Indian Band ethnobotanist Darwin Hanna. One of seven brothers and sisters, York was educated in Pitt Meadows and moved to Merritt in 1925 where she served as a translator in courts and hospitals. In 1932 she returned to Spuzzum where she worked with Laurence and Terry Thompson to develop a dictionary of the 'Nlaka'pamux language. She died in 1991. Andrea Laforet, an anthropologist at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, lives in Ottawa.

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
Spuzzum: Fraser Canyon Histories, 1808- 1939

BOOKS:

Laforet, Andrea. Folk History in a Small Canadian Community (University of British Columbia, 1974).

Laforet, Andrea & Annie Zetco York. Spuzzum: Fraser Canyon Histories, 1808-1939 (UBC Press / Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1998). 0-7748-0666-4

[BCBW 2005] "Local History" "First Nations" "Indianology"