The original Gitsegukla village was located below the present day graveyard near the Skeena River. A forest fire destroyed it in 1872, and the community relocated slightly upriver. Archaeologists have dated village and cache sites to be more than six thousand years old.
Archaeologists have dated village and cache sites to be more than six thousand years old. Occupation by the ancestors of the Gitxsan is estimated to predate those findings by thousands of years. The land is maintained according to traditional laws, and overseen by House chiefs who ensure that their House territories and people are treated with respect and balance.
The original Gitsegukla village was located below the present day graveyard near the Skeena River. A forest fire destroyed it in 1872, and the community relocated slightly upriver. Following the building of a church, the village divided along religious lines. Methodists moved to the upriver community of Carnaby, and followers of the Salvation Army to Andimaul, although most later returned to Gitsegukla in the decades that followed. Gitsegukla is located 27km southwest of New Hazelton, BC.’
Gitsegukla has been impacted by flooding of the Skeena River. In 1914, a large flood washed away many of the houses of the second village. And in 1936, another flood washed away the entire second village, and many totem poles, leading to the building of the current site higher above the riverbank.
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