Ediziza Forest

Ediziza Forest lies in the interior country around the head of the Portland Canal, where the Alaska–British Columbia boundary then runs. This was Tsetsaut territory: an Athabaskan-speaking people whose Nisga'a and Gitxsan neighbours called them “those of the Interior,” a name tied to traditions of migration from farther inland. No separate fort, battle, or town is attached specifically to this forest cell; its historical setting is the wider Tsetsaut world.

By 1830 the Tsetsaut were estimated at up to 500 people living at Behm Canal, where they were friendly with the Sanya kwaan of the Tlingit and Lakweip, before moving to the Portland Canal. That movement and the population estimate are the clearest dated historical details in the record for their country. Later attacks and disease reduced the group sharply, and surviving remnants came under the protection of a Nisga'a Eagle clan chief. For Ediziza Forest, these regional developments, rather than a local event, define the historical background.