THE ALKATCHO CARRIER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA 373

trapping, and never has attracted White settlers. To this day,
very few White men have visited Alkatcho. Within recent years
the fertile Bella Coola Valley has been settled by Scandinavian
farmers, and occasionally the Carrier work for the farmers dur-
ing the summer. Cattle ranchers settled mostly in Chilcotin coun-
try, fairly remote from Alkatcho.

We can summarize the nature of White contact for the Al-
katcho Carrier over the past fifty years as follows: With the
early fur-traders contact was brief, intermittent, and experienced
by the adult men for the most part. None of the early traders
settled closer than seventy miles from Alkatcho. Within the past
decade, an independent trading-post operated by a Russian and
a Scotchman, and for some period by a German and his wife,
has been in existence at Alkatcho. But the post is not occupied
more than a few months during the year. The independent trad-
ing activities of the Carrier have brought them in touch with
some of the larger White settlements, mainly at Bella Coola.
None of the White traders was consciously concerned with chang-
ing the native forms of life, beyond attempting to develop in
them a taste for the trade commodities in which they dealt. The
Indians have thus been induced to purchase victrolas, accordions,
and violins as well as the necessities, clothing, arms, tobacco,
flour, tea, sugar, canned milk, etc. To an increasing extent the
Carrier have become more and more dependent upon the Whites
for these commodities. In fact the only item of dress still made
by the Carrier are moccasins, which are the standard foot-gear
even for the Whites in the country. They depend upon the
Whites for all food except for meat and fish. Aside from snares,
the Indians manufacture no other implements, or household
utensils. Even lumber for houses is purchased from the Whites.
Were they to lose touch with the traders, the Carrier would
suffer real privation.

With the Church, relations have been and still are highly tenu-
ous. ‘The missionary attempts to make at least one trip to Alkatcho
a year, but some years pass without his visit. When he does come,
he stays a week or two. More than any other agency the Catholics
have worked hard to transform Carrier culture. A battle has
been waged against the potlatch, against all supernaturalistic