Thomas Forsyth McIlwraith was a young Canadian anthropologist who spent eleven months with the Nuxalk First Nation at Bella Coola between 1922 and 1924. His two-volume ethnographic study called The Bella Coola Indians has been touted as the finest work of its kind about a Northwest Coast First Nation. It was selected as one of the one hundred most influential books published by University of Toronto Press in its 100-year history. McIlwraith was one of the few non-Natives who was permitted to participate in winter ceremonials and potlatches that were held at the time. His letters have been collected in At Home with the Bella Coola Indians: T.F. McIlwraith's Field Letters, 1922-4 (UBC Press $95) edited by John Barker and Douglas Cole. Now almost a century later Thomas McIlwraith, who teaches in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Douglas College, has published 'We Are Still Didene': Stories of Hunting and History from Northern British Columbia (UTP $50), in which he details the history of the aboriginal village of Iskut over the past 100 years. He explores how Iskut hunting culture and memories have been maintained orally.

We Are Still: 978-1-4426-4324-6;
At Home With: 9780774809795

[BCBW 2012]