KINCOLITH

KINCOLITH

Is a small community in the Nass Valley and near the Alaskan Panhandle, 80 kilometers north of Prince Rupert. It is one of 4 communities that make up the Nisga’a Nation, the others being New Aiyansh, Canyon City, and Greenville. It was founded prominently in 1867 by Christian missionaries, who came from the river by raft to settle in the area and wished to live apart from the other villages upriver. A little over a decade later, a school, church and houses were soon built as a result. In order to ease and prevent power outages and feel isolated from the outside world, a 28-kilometer stretch of road (now Highway #113 AKA the Nisga’a Highway) was built from here to nearby Greenville (Laxqalts’ap) in 2003. Before this road was put in place, Kincolith was only accessible by either boat or plane, which meant helicopters would be flown in to fix the outages and that residents of Kincolith would not have electricity as long as 3 weeks. Kincolith is known in Nisga’a language as Gincolx and means “place of skulls” and legend as it that once natives were attacked by other nearby nations, they fought back and won, they placed and hung their attackers’ skulls on sticks and in the process, lining them up along the riverbank as a warning. Even though, Kincolith is extremely remote and is unincorporated, the forest industry, fishing and tourism are the community’s major mainstays of the economy.

KINCOLITH’S (GINCOLX) POPULATION: 341