Living on the banks of the turbulent Fraser River, the Nlaka'pamux people of Spuzzum have a long history of contact with non-aboriginal peoples. They watched as Hudson's Bay Company employees hacked a path through the mountains for the fur brigades, and over time they found themselves in the path of the Cariboo road, the CPR, and virtually every commercial and province-building initiative undertaken in the region over the past two centuries. Juxtaposing historical narratives and cultural interpretation from the community of Spuzzum with archival information, this book explores the history of Spuzzum in the light of concepts central to the Nlaka'pamux definition of family, political authority, land, and cosmos.

"This text is lucid and jargon-free, and the photographs interesting and well placed ... Spuzzum will certainly be of interest to anthropologists, local historians, and specialists who have been following the debate on the writing of Native history." - Canadian Book Review Annual 4163

"A sympathetic re-creation of the native side of that history. This is a model ethnohistory and a superb commentary on the complexities of being both historian and anthropologist ... This finely crafted book boasts good maps, numerous illustrations ..." - Choice

"This book stands as part of an ongoing awareness of Native cultural persistence, alongside a long history of adaptation to the Euro-Canadian economy and society." - Western Historical Quarterly