The People of the Skeena: Tsimshian History and the Missions of William Duncan
By Margaret Ellsworth
Length4h 48m
About this audiobook
Among the Tsimshian, a name, a crest or a fishing station did not truly belong to a house until the claim had been witnessed and paid for at a feast. Chiefs held such things in trust for their houses, and the houses belonged to four great clans, Raven, Eagle, Killer Whale and Wolf. The people's name means, roughly, "inside the Skeena River," and for thousands of years they have lived at its mouth and along the coast beside it, where salmon and eulachon run thick in the silty water.
In 1857 a young English lay missionary named William Duncan arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company post of Fort Simpson. Five years later he led Tsimshian converts down the coast to found Metlakatla, a model Christian village with its own church, sawmill, store and rules. He later quarreled with his own church, the quarrel became a fight over who owned the land, and in 1887 some eight hundred Tsimshian followed him north to Annette Island, Alaska. Their story runs on through the potlatch ban, the epidemics, the long road toward aboriginal title in Canada and the return of feast law. The town they built across the border is today the only Indian reservation in Alaska.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 48 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The River and the Sea
2Chapter 2: The Cedar and the Canoe
3Chapter 3: Feasts of Standing
4Chapter 4: Fort Simpson, 1857
5Chapter 5: Metlakatla on the Skeena
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 6: The Schism
7Chapter 7: The Long Canoe Journey
8Chapter 8: Two Metlakatlas
9Chapter 9: The Potlatch Ban and the Law
10Chapter 10: The Great Dying and the Fever
11Chapter 11: The Long Road to Title
12Chapter 12: Feast Law in a New Century
13About the Author
More from Margaret Ellsworth
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m4.6 (2.4K)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The Happy Isles of OceaniaPaul Theroux24h 8m4.1 (8.6K)$53 · $0.00
The Amur RiverColin Thubron10h 13m4.1 (1.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Last Fish TaleMark Kurlansky6h 20m4.0 (1.2K)$14
The BeadworkersBeth Piatote5h 15m4.1 (1.2K)$17 · $0.00
The Pioneers, or, The Sources of the SusquehannaJames Fenimore Cooper18h 48m3.7 (4.4K)$2.40
Life Among the IndiansGeorge Catlin10h 1m4.2 (331)$1 · $0.00
To You We Shall ReturnJoseph M. Marshall III4h 53m4.4 (745)$14
MY LIFE AS AN INDIANJames Willard Schultz14h 16m4.6 (1.7K)$1 · $0.00
Our Southern HighlandersHorace Kephart9h 42m4.2 (1.1K)$1.50 · $0.00
FrostlinesNeil Shea6h 8m4.2 (544)$24 · $0.00
South to AmericaImani Perry16h 33m4.1 (10.7K)$40 · $0.00
All the Agents and SaintsStephanie Elizondo Griest13h 4m4.2 (322)$23
Field Notes from a Waterborne LandParimal Bhattacharya10h 19m4.2 (231)$29 · $0.00
The PondCarl Ewald2h 38m$2 · $0.00
The Whale House of the ChilkatGeorge Thornton Emmons1h 8m$2 · $0.00
Mountain life in AlgeriaEdgar Barclay1h 56m$2 · $0.00
Mother Earth Is Our ElderKatlia (Catherine) Lafferty10h 16m$29 · $0.00
The IowaThomas of Washington D.C. Foster2h 33m$2 · $0.00
Mayflower ChroniclesKathryn Brewster Haueisen11h 26m4.3 (88)$23 · $0.00
Grandma Says: Wake Up, World!Agnes Baker Pilgrim6h 11m4.5 (35)$17