Introduction

It is a commonly held belief that iron was not used by aboriginal peoples of British Columbia before the arrival of Europeans in the late 18^th century. The evidence indicates that this is not the case.

The following is an overview of the evidence for the movement of iron from various directions toward British Columbia in the period before European contact and during the very early contact period. After 1799 the trade market with First Nations of British Columbia was saturated with European iron goods. Accounts of First Nations with metal goods after 1799 would mostly pertain to trade goods received in the previous 10 years - and will therefore not be dealt with here.

This research examines the movement of iron from the 16^th century in eastern Canada as it begins to make its way closer and closer to the interior of British Columbia . It also provides an overview of First Nations and early European observations of iron on the Pacific coast – with an emphasis on British Columbia.

The writing of this paper stems from my Royal B.C. Museum research project on the famous Kwah's dagger, as well as my earlier work (see The Question of Asiatic Objects on the North pacific Coast of America : Historic or Prehistoric?).

The former paper (see Kwah's dagger) outlines the history and the metallurgical analysis of one dagger originally believed to have been acquired before the period of direct European contact. It also presents an overview of the main types of daggers found in museum collections with historical commentary that compliments this paper.