Читать книгу In the Wake of the War Canoe - W. H. Collison - Страница 5

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After over forty years' labour among the Indian tribes of the North-West of British Columbia, including the Queen Charlotte Islands, at the urgent request of many friends I have been induced to write this account of my experiences. The fact that I was privileged to be the pioneer missionary on the Queen Charlotte Islands both at Massett and Skidegate, as also on the Skeena River, and at Giatlaub on the head of Gardiner's Inlet and Tongas in South-Eastern Alaska, and other places, has imparted an additional interest to my record. Many more chapters might have been added, but sufficient has been written to convey an idea of the early history of the country, the Indians, and the Mission.

We are thankful for the measure of success granted to our efforts among the Tsimsheans, Haidas, Nishkas, and Giatiksheans, as well as amongst remnants of other tribes, notably the Zitz-Zaows. And we rejoice to know that all those tribes, as also many others, not only in British Columbia but in Alaska, have been evangelised before the inrush of a new population. In this work we gladly acknowledge the labours and successes of the messengers and missionaries of the several Churches engaged. May the records of what has been achieved in the past prove a stimulus to the yet greater work to be done in the future, so that this northern portion of our Province may not only deserve its new title of the "Garden of British Columbia," but may it prove to be the "field which the Lord hath blessed."

I desire to express my indebtedness to the following publications for extracts and notes, viz. Captain Meares' Voyages of 1788, 1789, from China to the N.W. Coast of America; The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, by the Rev. A. G. Morice, O.M.I., for his delineation of the location of the Dinne Nation of Indians, and also for his description of the "Pe Ne" craze amongst the Indians of the interior about the years 1847–48; also to the late Captain Walbran's volume of British Columbia Place-Names for the description given of the last night of the Hudson's Bay Company at their Fort on the Nass River; and to Lieutenant Emmons, late U.S. Navy, for an illustration from his artistic and exhaustive work on "the Fahltan Indians as published by the University of Pennsylvania"; also for photographs to several friends who have supplied me with same.

W. H. C.