The Geography of Memory

In 1956, the Sinixt People were declared “extinct” by the Canadian government. They are, in fact, very muchalive, and The Geography of Memory tells the story of this Interior Salish people whose traditional territory lies along the upper Columbia River in southeastern British Columbia and northeastern Washington State.

Eileen Delehanty Pearkes sees the land as a living museum that teaches us about the people who have inhabited it for thousands of years. Drawing on archaeological sources, she shows the long presence of the Sinixt People in the area. She demonstrates their emphasis on evenly sharing resources by exploring the different ways they use plants, hunt and butcher animals, and prepare and distribute food.

The book also presents stories drawn from oral history. One such story — which can be read as a symbol of larger colonial violence — involves a Sinixt woman named Sophie Green Blanket Feet. Born in 1834, Sophie married a European settler who later abandoned her, taking their two children. In some accounts, he sold her into slavery to another Indigenous person, but she escaped and found her way home. She remarried several times to different settlers, but was killed by her last husband after a visit to one of her estranged children.

Anecdotes involving Elders, Chiefs, activists and researchers that Pearkes has met during more than 30 years of study reveal how the Sinixt continue to maintain their Indigenous identity.