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Lizzie Kitselas Elizabeth (Lizzie) Lowrie, widow of Kitselas George Ellis, late chief of the Kitselas Canyon band. She came to the Kitselas Canyon in the late 1890s. It is believed she travelled from the Nass River to become the young bride of the Chief of the Kitselas Canyon, a much older man. Her son George was born September of 1899. In 1903 when the Durham family arrived form Vancouver to make their home at the canyon, Lizzie and her three children were returning from a visit to Port Essington on the same sternwheeler, the Hazelton. In Elizabeth Whitlow's memoirs, she wrote. "A young Native woman with three young children also came off the boat at the Landing. I felt that I must follow her into the large shed. She hung up her papoose in its little wooden crib that she had been carrying on her back, fastened to her head and shoulders with a tumpline. This red and yellow tape-like rope had been woven from the inner bark of the cedar tree. She threw the line over a rafter and left the babe there while she attended to other business but not before I could ask his name. "Ennis" she said. It was a long time later that I figured out that the baby's name was Ernest. The other children were Martha and George. The mother was Lizzie, the young wife of Chief George Kitselas." Soon after the Durham's arrival, Chief Kitselas died but Lizzy remained in Kitselas. In 1906 and again in 1908 she was called to assist Margaret Durham with the births of her daughters Irene and Kathleen. While at Kitselas, Lizzy met Richard (Dick) Lowrie, a prospector miner
in the area and four daughters were born. One of Lizzy's daughters, Martha
had 14 children - one of her granddaughters worked in the Terrace school
system. George Kitselas, son of Lizzy, was well known in the area - the
radio station used to get him to give weather predictions. He said he
could tell by the curl of the fish's tail (but he told us he read it in
the almanac). He was the sawyer in an Usk sawmill. |
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BC Museum |
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