'aq'am

ʔaq̓am lies in the East Kootenay country near the confluence of the St. Mary and Kootenay rivers. Ktunaxa families have occupied the valleys around the Kootenay and Columbia for more than ten thousand years, moving with the seasons between fishing grounds, hunting ranges and plant-gathering places.

The Ktunaxa language is an isolate with no known close relative. The Kootenay River supplied fish, travel and meeting places, while wooded benches and mountain valleys supported deer, roots and berries. Camas, bitterroot and other plants were managed in open meadows that later observers often mistook for natural grassland. These managed meadows sustained important root foods even when game moved elsewhere.

ʔaq̓am is one of the Ktunaxa communities that inherited responsibility for this land and its laws. Its settlements formed around family groups and shared harvesting places rather than a European-style town. Horses and the fur trade reached the Kootenay country in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, extending mobility while leaving older seasonal routes fundamental.