“Three thousand of our people lie buried under those lava flows,” says Gary, as he draws heavily on a cigarette. Its cherry flares like the core of a brooding volcano, a brief surge of ember red that mirrors the Earth’s hidden fire. (The history books say it was closer to 2,000 people that were killed in the deadliest volcanic eruption Canada has ever seen, but I know better than to question oral tradition and generational trauma.)

Gary has just pulled up beside me, at the entrance of the Nis a’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park, casually climbing out of his hulking purple pickup truck to stretch his legs, hitch up his blue jeans, and smoke.

My back straightens a little at his arrival. I’m a tourist in these lands and, when Gary appeared, had been reading the information boards and silently trying to pronounce the park’s real name: Anhluut’ukwsim La mihl Angwinga’asankswhl Nis a’a. It’s not the first sign I have lazily given up on, looking instead for its counterpart English translation. I feel like an intruder.

Nevertheless, his welcome is warm. We shake hands and exchange names in the midst of his ancestral cemetery, around which I’m taking a road trip.

“I used to work in enforcement here,” Gary tells me as he paces around the clearing. “People would send back volcanic rocks they’d taken from the park because they had brought them bad luck or ill health,” he says before meticulously stubbing out his cigarette and depositing it in a bear-proof bin. “Hundreds of rocks, making their way home.”

He pauses on his way back to his truck to give me a long, appraising stare. The corners of his lips curl up slightly and his head gently bobs in the affirmative as he tells me, “It’s a sacred place.”

It is. I had already sensed that as I eased my car along arterial highways into the heart of the Nass Valley in British Columbia. As my wheels hummed over immaculate black tarmac, I was enveloped by a ragged landscape, fierce and serene: carved by fire and tempered by time. A place where the land remembers the struggles and scars of those who lived and died here, and where every mountain and river holds secrets in their contours. Here you’ll find alien moonscapes, drowned forests and the arboreal moulds of long-dead trees, preserved in casts of volcanic rock.

In mid-October, the skies are a hard blue. Autumnal trees are lit with a radiant amber glow, as though the valley itself has caught the last rays of summer, reluctant to let go. Beneath the tranquil beauty, however, lies a story of violence and resilience, of earth-shattering upheaval and the enduring spirit of the Nis a’a Nation. More than 250 years ago, this valley bore witness to a cataclysm. Mount Tseax erupted, splitting the ground with molten fury. It ripped through villages, wiped out forests, and devoured the earth as it spewed lava down into Tseax Creek, where it solidified into a dam, flooding the valley in a lake of fire.

It was a catastrophic event that shaped not only the land but also the lives of the Nis a’a people, who had dwelled in this region for thousands of years. The lava flow destroyed three villages on the banks of the Nass River: Laxksiwihlgest, Laxksiluux and Ts’oohlts’ap – names I don’t pretend to be able to pronounce. The volcano claimed thousands of lives with primordial fire and noxious gases, reshaped the floodplain of the Nass River and blackened fertile lands, leaving in its wake a haunting stretch of scorched earth now known as Anhluut’ukwsim La mihl Angwinga’asanskwhl Nisga’a.

The eruption was not just a natural disaster; it was a profound scar on the Nis a’a’s collective memory. A warning, a reckoning, a reminder from the world beneath, or perhaps from the spirits themselves, that the land is sovereign. This volcanic flood became their burden and their badge, a black-rock monument to the kind of strength that is forged in flames.

It was an event, it seems to me, that reflects the subjugation and suffering the Nis a’a would soon face under colonial rule. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Nis a’a endured oppression, displacement and attempts to smother their culture, yet here they remain. Like the slow but persistent regrowth of life over these cooled volcanic rocks, the Nisga’a endured, reclaiming their land and traditions, and asserting their identity with a quiet, resolute strength.

Anhluut’ukwsim La mihl Angwinga’asanskwhl Nisga’a – or Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park, to you and me – is the first provincial park in British Columbia to be jointly managed by First Nations people alongside the provincial government, a testament to the Nisga’a people reclaiming stewardship of their ancestral lands.

Though it covers 69 square miles, exploring the area is easy. A circuitous road connects key sites within the park, on a self-guided ‘auto tour’ along Highway 113, which roughly follows the course of the Nass River to Gingolx, a village where the land meets the sea.

As a one-way trip, it’s a route that must be driven twice, but that is no hardship. At dawn and dusk, roadside telegraph lines catch crepuscular rays like gossamer strands between treetops, while networks of spiders’ webs connect crumbled volcanic rocks on the ground, where the earth still broods over her fiery outburst. Both transmit signals I understand: the telephone wires hum with whispers of iron and industry, while arachnid threads, spun in silence, hold messages for those who listen closely enough. But the land speaks in deeper currents – a cadence I cannot receive, flowing through the rivers and trees and the Nis a’a themselves. Stories woven in patterns I can’t untangle, in truths that defy my language.

The Nisga’a people, one of the Indigenous First Nations of British Columbia, have a rich cultural heritage that spans millennia, deeply tied to the land in the Nass Valley. Their traditional ways of life – rooted in complex governance, oral traditions and a spiritual connection to nature – were disrupted from the late 18th century, with the arrival of European settlers. Their eponymous language, Nisg̱a’a, was a central element of this cultural fabric, but colonial policies sought to subjugate and erase Indigenous languages, cultures and ways of life. This would lead to a long and painful struggle for the Nis a’a people to preserve their identity in the face of overwhelming efforts to assimilate them into European norms.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the British Columbian colonial government began enforcing policies that undermined Nis a’a sovereignty. The imposition of residential schools, where Indigenous children were forbidden to speak their native language or practise their cultural traditions, was particularly devastating. For the Nis a’a, these institutions represented an assault on their very way of life, and many children were separated from their families, further alienating them from their heritage.

Yet, even in the face of such deliberate attempts at cultural erasure, the Nis a’a people found ways to covertly preserve their traditions. Elders and knowledge keepers passed down stories, songs and spiritual teachings in secret, ensuring that younger generations were connected to their cultural roots. In this way, the Nis a’a kept their ancestral knowledge alive, even when it was forbidden to be shared publicly.

One of the most significant ways the Nisga’a people resisted cultural subjugation was through the potlatch, a ceremonial gathering that served as a vehicle for expressing social status, cultural values and familial ties. The potlatch included feasting, dancing, storytelling and the distribution of gifts – practices deeply intertwined with Nis a’a spirituality and governance. The Canadian government banned the potlatch in 1885, as part of their broader campaign to suppress Indigenous culture. Despite the legal prohibitions, the Nisga’a continued to hold potlatches in secret, often in remote locations, to avoid detection by colonial authorities. These underground ceremonies allowed them to preserve the social and spiritual practices that defined their identity. Similarly, art, songs and dances were carefully guarded and preserved, often incorporating traditional symbols in subtle ways so that their cultural significance could continue without attracting government attention.

The Nisga’a people’s covert efforts to preserve their heritage laid the foundation for the revitalisation of their culture in the latter half of the 20th century. In 1998, the Nis a’a Treaty was signed, marking a significant victory for the community by recognising their land rights, self-governance, and the protection of their language and cultural practices.

“This totem pole was carved in 1875,” says Kaitlyn Stephens from the Nis a’a Museum in Laxgalts’ap, a village of around 800 people.

“In 1928 it was cut down by Christian missionaries because they believed we were worshipping pagan gods. They chopped totem poles down and some were cut into firewood and house posts. In the 1930s, our people were transitioned from living in traditional longhouses to the modern properties we have today. When people started renovating their homes in the late ’90s, they realised that there were totem poles holding up their houses. They retrieved those posts and tried to piece them back together, return them home and lay them to rest.”

The Nis a’a Museum, Hli Goothl Wilp-Adokshl Nisga’a – or, The Heart of Nis a’a House Crests – today stands as a guardian of culture and memory. It’s not just a collection of artefacts; it’s a repository of spirit, filled with ceremonial regalia, traditional tools, masks and intricate carvings that speak of ancient customs and the pride of the Nis a’a people. The museum is a sanctuary of stories, each piece preserved to protect it from the world’s forgetting. Walking among the artefacts, I feel the weight of history bearing down, not as a burden but as a gift – a reminder that culture, when tended with care, can outlast even the fiercest of fires.

Visiting the four villages in the region – Gitla ̱t’aamiks, or New Aiyansh; Gitwinksihlkw, AKA Canyon City; Gin olx, or Kincolith; and, of course Laxgalts’ap, which outsiders refer to as Greenville – I find unremarkable settlements of modern schools, petrol stations, community centres and houses clad in aluminium siding, but I also spot totem poles standing tall and proud against the autumn sky, unafraid to tell the stories of the Nass Valley’s four ancient tribes: the Wolf, the Eagle, the Frog and the Killer Whale.

At Hlgu Isgwit – a hot spring bubbles up from the earth in a secluded grove – steam rises into the cool autumn air, flowing like smoke between cedar and shadow. Red leaves flitter in the thermals like embers of eruptions past. The hot springs are a sacred place of renewal; a place where wounds, both visible and hidden, can be soothed. They’re a gift from the spirits and the volcanic forces that shaped this land and these people, and a reminder that creation and destruction dwell together.

At Vetter Falls, I watch as steelhead trout, shimmering like quicksilver, arc with sinewed grace against the brunt force of a waterfall, their every leap a faltering crescendo. Adapted to survive in rivers submerged under oppressive lava flows, their scales, twinkling like starshine against the pounding water, have been forged in ancient flames. With each thunderous plunge, the fish hurls itself toward the sky in defiance, rising after falling, again and again. The river is heavy, near impossible, yet the trout swims upward, guided by instinct as primordial as stone, as fierce
as fire.

So, too, are the Nis a’a, sons and daughters of mist-laden valleys and cedar-streaked mountains, bound to the Nass River by bloodline and breath. For centuries, they have surged against currents that sought to pull them from the banks of their own story, from the bedrock of their heritage. Like the steelhead, their persistence is primal, their language is survival. With every claim to the rights long denied them, every step of their journey back home, they rise against the weight of history, leaping toward freedom, carrying within them the pulse of their ancestors. Some spirits will always rise – undeterred, undiminished, ever upstream.