Dakelh

The Dakelh, also called the Carrier and known to themselves as the Yinka Dene, are a Northern Athabaskan, or Dene, people of central British Columbia, around Stuart and Babine lakes and the upper Fraser River. Their Carrier and Babine-Witsuwit'en languages belong to the Northern Athabaskan family; the Wet'suwet'en and Babine are Dakelh branches. Their name refers to water travel; Carrier came from French explorers.

Life followed a seasonal round of salmon, hunting and berries in family hunting territories called keyoh under hereditary chiefs; Dakelh parties carried coastal goods along the grease trails into the interior.

Simon Fraser reached them in 1806; the North West Company built Fort St. James on Stuart Lake, later run by the Hudson's Bay Company. Chief Kw'eh (born around 1755) received Fraser and in 1828 spared his prisoner, the young trader James Douglas, later first governor of the Colony of British Columbia.