Katzie

Katzie country embraces the wetlands of Pitt River, Pitt Lake and the lower Fraser, where wapato beds complemented the salmon harvest. Families cleared and tended patches of this aquatic plant, gathering its starchy tubers in autumn and winter. Wapato also entered exchanges with neighbouring communities, giving the lowland marshes a value quite distinct from the surrounding forests.

The opening of the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Langley in 1827 brought a permanent trading establishment to the Fraser. Indigenous people supplied fish and furs in return for blankets and other imported goods. Company employees' marriages to Indigenous women helped connect the post to established kinship and trading networks. This new market entered an inhabited river landscape with its own food production and exchange relationships; the Pitt wetlands already supported specialised harvesting long before the fort appeared.