The Nooksack are a Coast Salish people whose historic lands centered on the Nooksack River drainage basin, from the shore to around Mount Baker in the east. They have their own language, also named Nooksack. On the edges of Nooksack land and in offshore waters, resources were shared with neighboring peoples, to whom the Nooksack were linked by shared descent or marriage ties. The Nooksack were party to the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 and ceded their land in exchange for fishing, hunting, and gathering rights but the Nooksack did not receive a reservation. Many Nooksack refused to leave their homes and in the 1870s, they claimed homesteads on their historic land. The Nooksack tribe received a small reservation in 1970 and was federally recognized in 1973. Today, many of the 2,000 Nooksack tribal members live near their historic lands and continue to fish, both for income and to maintain cultural practices.

"Jim" Yellakanim Seclamatan was a leader of the Nooksack people. He claimed a homestead in the upper Nooksack Valley, just outside the town of Lynden, Washington. Yellakanim died in April 1911 at the age of nearly 100 at the home of his granddaughter, Emily Williams.

Caption on image: "Jim, Chief of the Nooksacks"

Caption information source: "About Us," Nooksack Indian Tribe, retrieved from https://nooksacktribe.org/about/.
Caption information source: "Aged Nooksack chief passes to happy hunting ground," Bellingham Herald, Apr. 27, 1911, p. 1.
Caption information source: "John and Clara Tennant," Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, retrieved from https://west.wwu.edu/cpnws/centennial/people/tennant.html.