Description
The Wuikinuxv ("Backbone people"), and also known as the Rivers Inlet people are an Indigenous First Nations people of the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located around Rivers Inlet and Owikeno Lake, to the north of Queen Charlotte Strait. The Wuikinuxv people and their neighbours the Heiltsuk and Haisla peoples were in the past sometimes known incorrectly as the "Northern Kwakiutl". The Wuikinuxv, like other Native groups, suffered greatly from the effects of smallpox and other European diseases.
Language
Oowekyala
Culture
The lifestyle of the people now known as the Wuikinuxv slowly stopped revolving around the hunting and gathering, preserving and trading lifestyle that people knew. Their cycles began to be tied to the commerce built around the logging and commercial fishing industries. At first it was woven in the hunting and fishing lifestyle and the people would leave their fishing plant jobs to go and do their own hunting, fishing, preserving and trading. Since the fishery was seasonal, it left time to continue a modified form of the lifestyle.