Our Native Tongue is called Hul'q'umi'num', we are using this dialect amongst varying degrees from the Northern Salish Sea to the Southern end of Puget Sound covering the Coastal Regions of British Columbia, Washington State and Vancouver Island. There have been numerous Language courses implimented in Nanoose to overcome the effects of the past, advancing in cultural aspects they are trying to achieve fluent Hul'q'umi'num' speakers making English the second language.

The ancestors of Nanoose relied on their environment for survival, as such, they developed a very special relationship to their land, with their traditions and oral history linking them into the environmental and seasonal cycle of their territories. On a diet of wild meats such as Deer, Bear, Elk; also with its traditional diets of salmon, clams, oysters. In the traditional territories of Nanoose they became skilled hunters, and exceeded handsomely from its bay, the ocean and its beaches.

Much information about the Nanoose tribe has been obtained from the life of Nanoose Bob who lived to be 108 – the oldest Indian in British Columbia, and possibly the oldest in Canada at that time. He knew that the Nanoose tribe lived here prior to 1800 from the stories of his own people.

About 1823 there was a terrible massacre on Berry Point (Powder Point). The Indians had gone there on a berry picking expedition and were surprised while at rest by a tribe from the north. Alberni Indians have been blamed for this raid but Mr. G. Clutesi of Alberni says “The East-coast and the West-coast Indians were continually at war with each other, but strange as it may seem, the Qualicum-Nanoose tribe were always the allies of the Alberni Indians. That was a recognized fact.”

Nanoose Bob was a small boy of possibly three of four years at the time of the massacre and his nurse or slave was taking him for a walk further along the beach. She managed to keep him hidden and took to a cave in the hills with him, where she remained in hiding until all was well and she could locate others who had not been on the expedition. This was a slave hunting expedition, for all the males were killed and the women and children were taken captive. If it had been a revenge war all would have been killed. In 1912 during the excavation for the power house and oil tanks of the Powder Works between thirty and forty skulls and sets of bones were found. All the skulls were cracked on top and to the side of the eye socket. Death had evidently been caused by a stone of metal hammer-like instrument. The Historical Society put up a plaque at this spot and the bones were re-buried.

In his youth Nanoose Bob was a celebrated hunter. In the 1850’s Mark Bate, Nanaimo’s first Mayor received gifts of skins and elk-horns from Nanoose. Mark Bate wrote about Nanoose saying that he was a very determined person, and would never accept defeat when in the quest of game. He was known to stay in the woods for days when tracking a bear or a deer. A bow and arrow was the only weapon he knew for hunting. When fishing and catching seals, which were plentiful at Nanoose, he used a spear.

For clothing Nanoose kept about a dozen long-haired dogs. These were shorn, and the dogs hair was mixed with swamp grass or shredded cedar to be woven into clothing and bedding. Each family had one bed. Covers were made to fit them 0 some up to fifty feet wide. Nanoose made a fire by rubbing two thin cedar sticks together. He was a remarkable old man. Dried herring, dried in twigs close to a steady fire, was his favorite food. He was very fond of eggs too, and used to trade meat and fish for eggs with Mr. Russel.

He married first at the age of sixteen, but had seven more marriages after that one. He used to claim that all his wives were celebrated beauties. Someone asked him if all his wives died. He replied, laughing “Not all – some died – they were good ones – some get out – leave me – no good. Lots more left” Mary, his last wife was a good one, he said. She lived to be 97.