The Gispaxlo'ots are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia, Canada, and one of the nine of those tribes making up the "Nine Tribes" of the lower Skeena River resident at Lax Kw'alaams (a.k.a. Port Simpson), B.C. The name Gispaxlo'ots means literally "people of the place of elderberries." Their traditional territory includes an area on the Skeena River between Terrace and Prince Rupert. Since 1834, they have been based at Lax Kw'alaams, when a Hudson's Bay Company fort was established there. Traditionally, the Gispaxlo'ots have been the most powerful of the Tsimshian tribes, due to the exploits and wealth of their great trading chief, Ligeex. Lax Kw'alaams also sits on Gispaxlo'ots territory. Members of the Tsimshian tribe enjoying a tea party near Fort Simpson, British Columbia, c. ... Motto: Splendor Sine Occasu (Latin: Splendour without diminishment) Official languages none stated in law; English is de facto Flower Pacific dogwood Tree Western Redcedar Bird Stellers Jay Capital Victoria Largest city Vancouver Lieutenant-Governor Iona Campagnolo Premier Gordon Campbell (BC Liberal) Parliamentary representation  - House seat  - Senate seats 36 6... The Skeena River is on the north coast of British Columbia, passing through Terrace. ... Lax Kwalaams, usually called Port Simpson, is a First Nations village community in British Columbia, Canada, not far from the city of Prince Rupert. ... Terrace is a forestry dependent community on the Skeena River in British Columbia, Canada. ... for the city in British Columbia, see Prince Rupert, British Columbia Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619-1682), soldier and inventor, was a younger son of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and Elizabeth Stuart, and the nephew of King Charles I of England. ... The Hudsons Bay Company (HBC. TSX: HBC) is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and is one of the oldest in the world. ...

In addition to its leading, royal house, the House of Ligeex, which belongs to the Laxsgiik (Eagle clan), other house-groups (extended matrilineal families) of the Gispaxlo'ots include:

• House of Spooxs -- Laxsgiik (Eagle clan) (this house has members associated today with the Kitsumkalum community)
• House of Suhalaayt -- Gispwudwada (Killerwhale clan) (a totem pole belonging to this house was standing in [[Lax Kw'alaams as recently as the 1930s)
• House of T'amks -- Gispwudwada (headed by Arthur Wellington Clah until his death, 1916)
• House of 'Wiigyet -- Gispwudada (Killerwhale clan)

In 1935 William Beynon recorded that Gispaxlo'ots people in Lax Kw'alaams included 18 members of the Gispwudwada (Killerwhale clan) (2 house-groups), 24 members of the Ganhada (Raven) (1 house-group), and 63 members of the Laxsgiik (Eagle) (6 house-groups). A Gitxsan pole (left) and Kwakwakawakw pole (right) at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, British Columbia Totem Poles are monumental sculptures carved from great trees, typically Western Redcedar, by a number of Native American cultures along the Pacific northwest coast of North America. ... The Ganhada (variously spelled, but often with an underlined initial G -- impossible here for technical reasons) is the name for the Raven clan (phratry) in the language of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, Canada, and southeast Alaska. ...

Prominent Gispaxlo'ots people

• Paul Legaic, hereditary chief and trader
• Rev. William Henry Pierce, missionary and memoirist
• Henry W. Tate, oral historian
• Arthur Wellington Clah, hereditary chief and diarist

Sources

• Barbeau, Marius (1950) Totem Poles. 2 vols. (Anthropology Series 30, National Museum of Canada Bulletin 119.) Ottawa: National Museum of Canada.

• Garfield, Viola E. (1939) "Tsimshian Clan and Society." University of Washington Publications in Anthropology, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 167-340.

• McDonald, James A. (2003) People of the Robin: The Tsimshian of Kitsumkalum. CCI Press.