Kwantlen First Nation
First Nation band in British Columbia, Canada
Kwantlen First Nation (Halkomelem: q̓ʷa꞉n̓ƛ̓ən̓ or Qwʼó꞉ltlʼel) is a First Nations band government in British Columbia, Canada, located primarily on McMillan Island near Fort Langley. The Kwantlen people traditionally speak hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, the Downriver dialect of Halkomelem, one of the Salishan family languages.
The Kwantlen are a Stó꞉lō people (an ethnicity which includes the nearby Katzie and Kwikwetlem First Nations among many others throughout British Columbia's Lower Mainland region), though as of June 2018, Kwantlen withdrew from the Stó꞉lō Tribal Council and currently operates as an independent Nation.
History
The events and shape of Kwantlen history and culture before and after European contact is inseparable from that of the Sto:lo people as a whole. Prior to European contact, the Kwantlen were one of the most populous First Nations of the Lower Fraser and the leading faction of the Sto:lo people. Kwantlen occupied many significant village sites throughout their territory, including settlements in current day New Westminster, Surrey, Langley, Maple Ridge, and Mission. According to anthropologist Charles Hill-Tout, the main village of the Kwantlen people was sχəyəməɬ in what is now known as New Westminster. Directly across the River on the Surrey side was the summer fishing village known as qəqəyt. Another key area of Kwantlen territory is the Stave River valley that was and continues to be important for hunting, trapping, cedar bark stripping, fishing, and other cultural uses.
After European contact, the Kwantlen moved their main settlement upriver from New Westminster to Fort Langley.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Kwantlen First Nation” as first Nation band in British Columbia, Canada. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6450195. Authority coordinates are 49.169, -122.580. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kwantlen First Nation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.