Names of a Sxweyxwiyam: How legendary historian Sonny McHalsie changed the Fraser Valley's understanding of itself

His colleagues say he is a man of integrity whose authenticity and genuine interest made his connections to Stó:lō elders possible. His family says his work was guided by their ancestors, and his acquaintances defer to his understanding of their shared history.

For more than four decades, Albert “Sonny” McHalsie committed himself to learning Stó:lō history and sharing it with both the Stó:lō and Xwelítem (the hungry people, the Halq'eméylem word for white settlers). Now, he is finally retired.

McHalsie gathered stories and names from Halq'eméylem-speaking elders, collected and corroborated hundreds of histories from Stó:lō past. He rebuilt maps of Coast Salish communities, and spent time in the field digging into the physical remains of sqémél (pit houses) from centuries past. He has introduced thousands of Fraser Valley residents to the history of their own communities, and helped many First Nations rediscover their own heritage.

He participated in dozens, if not hundreds, of projects over the years—from naming schools and narrating documentaries to writing books and publishing academic articles. In the process, he earned two honourary degrees and two hereditary names: Naxaxalhts'i and Si:yémiya.

He is a Sxweyxwiyam—a historian—and over the years has become one of the most respected authorities on Stó:lō history and place names.

But it was never foreordained.

McHalsie’s childhood—like that of many Indigenous youth growing up in the ’60s and ’70s—wasn’t easy. His father, the elder Albert McHalsie, was Nlaka’pamux, from Anderson Creek. His mother was Stó:lō, from Chawathil. Both had attended residential school, and although the elder McHalsie shared some cultural teachings, Sonny’s own exposure was limited.

“I think they thought it would be better for us not to learn the culture because we were trying to learn Western society’s education system,” McHalsie wrote in his essay “We have to take care of everything that belongs to us” for the 2007 Coast Salish anthology Be of Good Mind.

“I had limited exposure to our traditional culture when I was younger, but enough to think about the importance of it and to try to understand some of it.”

McHalsie’s father worked on the railway, and moved around from community to community as positions opened up: Spuzzum, Brookmere, Harrison Mills, Spatsum, Shaw Springs, and finally Anderson Creek near Boston Bar.

During his early life, McHalsie discovered a passion for cars: fixing them, playing with them. His older sister Rhoda Peters, a former Chawathil chief and current councillor, remembered his love for automobiles from when they were young. Peters was raised by their grandparents and spent much of her youth in residential school. She saw young Sonny and her other siblings on holidays, during Christmas and Easter breaks.

“Mom would write to me, we’d get letters, and she would tell [me] about what the kids were doing, so that we weren’t strangers growing up,” Peters said.

McHalsie didn’t attend residential school—in 1977 he graduated from Hope Secondary “with little support,” his sister said. He moved down to Vancouver after graduation, participated in an archaeological dig near Hope in the summer of 1978, and then started an automotive mechanic program in Terrace. He finished his automotive program at the top of his class.

But when it came time for McHalsie to begin his apprenticeship as a mechanic, his heart wasn’t in it.

The archeological work he had done in Hope still had a grip on his interest. When a job opened up for an economic development research assistant at the Chawathil First Nation, he applied, becoming the foreman for the nation’s fish farm and its farm co-op. Later, in 1985, a roundabout community network and word of mouth led him to a research assistant job at the Stó:lō Tribal Council.

“Judy Douglas [who called to offer the job] said because of my archaeology background they don’t even need to interview me,” McHalsie remembered in an interview with Chawathil podcaster and councillor Aaron Pete. “They said just show up to work on Tuesday morning at 8 o’clock,”

Tuesday morning was May 20, 1985. McHalsie showed up to work hungover.

“When I realized what an important job this was and how interesting this work was going to be, I said ‘That’s it, I’m not losing this job,’” McHalsie told Pete. “I quit drinking. So actually, my celebration for sobriety and my first day of work is the same day.”

The bus was warm, filled with people sitting two abreast in the seats. McHalsie had a microphone to his lips, and was twisted in his seat to face the passengers.

“This waterfall is called Skw’ikw’ets’tel,” he said, gesturing out the window to a fall that zigzagged down the mountain. It was nearly 40 years after McHalsie was hired for his first research job, and the stories he had learned from the elders came easily from his memory. His audience turned to look, trying to get a glimpse of the waterfall before it sank into the distance. He explained the cascading water was named for the knives used by the Stó:lō, in part because the fall itself was shaped like the cuts in a salmon’s belly.

The warm May afternoon had brought dozens of history buffs together for a condensed version of McHalsie’s Bad Rock Tours, an activity that had become one of his main jobs at the Stó:lō Resource and Research Management Centre. McHalsie gave an average of 80 tours each year: some by boat, others by bus through the Chilliwack River Valley or to the former Semá:th Lake.

This tour was an upriver tour—a usually seven-hour bus ride from Chilliwack to Yale that had been compacted into a four-hour drive. Many of the people in the seats had written books on different elements of British Columbian history. All were eagerly listening to McHalsie’s words as he spoke about the origin of the name Skw’ikw’ets’tel.

“A lot of times, place names have things that give you an idea of what is up there,” he continued.

He talked about how the provincial government planned to allow the logging of old-growth cedar trees from the bottom of the falls roughly 15 years ago. McHalsie and archeologist David Schaepe did an official archeological impact assessment in advance of the government’s decision.

“What we found was, at the foot of falls over there … slate material all the way down. It was like a big quarry for the slate material to make the kw’ets’tel, to make the knives.”

The tours have been informed by McHalsie’s own research over the years, but are also a direct result of his early work at the Stó:lō Tribal Council. (The Stó:lō Tribal Council and the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre are directly linked through time. You can read about their history here.)

In 1985, he was hired to study place names—the language, history, and stories behind them. The leaders wanted to find ways to bring a Stó:lō understanding of the world back into light.

“At the time, [the chiefs] felt—and they were right—that the ones that only spoke fluent Halq'eméylem were the ones that viewed the world in a more traditional sense, whereas people that are influenced by Western society, like myself, [who] never grew up with the language, view the world in the way Western society looks at it,” McHalsie told the Current during a break in his historical society tour last year. “That's why they told me only interview fluent Halq'eméylem speakers, and talk to them about the place names.

“So that's my interest. I'm still learning,” he continued. “I'm still learning, I'm still studying place names.”

His early work helped systematically recover place names and stories that had been hidden during colonization.

The place names were known to elders: Amelia Douglas, Peter Dennis Peters, Roy Point, Elizabeth Herrling, and Tillie Gutierrez were among the many Stó:lō men and women McHalsie interviewed. McHalsie’s work helped bring their teachings together, and record what they knew for future generations who would not get the luxury of learning from them directly.

His work also helped correct errors made by settlers who attempted, but sometimes failed, to use Halq'eméylem to name local landmarks—although some of the corrections have yet to make it onto official maps.

Hatzic Lake, for example, was named by an anthropologist without consulting elders. Although the name was close to the Halq'eméylem original, it wasn’t quite right. McHalsie, through interviews with elders and research into the name, discovered an issue in transliteration had created part of the problem. Hatzic, pronounced as it is written, means “measuring the penis”—not something that was ever done systematically at the site. It should have been Xat’seq, “sacred bullrushes.”

“He was always, always, always concerned with being accurate, being respectful, being rigorous, all of those things together,” UFV professor and historian Keith Carlson said. “All of those things were so important to him: to get it right, do it right, be of good mind and get it right.”

In the early 1990s, almost a decade after McHalsie started at the Stó:lō Tribal Council, a young Xwelítem researcher showed up at the desk beside him. It was ethnohistorian Keith Carlson, hired to do research to bridge settler and Stó:lō history.

“I would chat about the work he was doing, and the work I was doing,” Carlson said. “We weren't on the same projects originally, but we just would just connect with each other because of the proximity of our desks, and then … I got to just really value the insight and the perspective that he brought.”

The pair became friends, and eventually collaborators. Although they never formally worked together in their early years, their physical proximity resulted in what Carlson called “sustained conversations” that eventually turned into books and articles, including the incomparable Stó:lō-Coast Salish Historical Atlas, one of the best-regarded books on Stó:lō history.

Their work also went beyond the books: they would often go out into the field together looking for significant landmarks—like the whirlpool that appears only rarely in the Fraser River.

The pair had been doing research about the site and its complicated history, and decided to convince their wives to come along for the hunt. Full of the overconfidence of youth, they climbed into McHalsie’s Zodiak and set off down from Yale.

“We knew roughly where it was,” Carlson remembered. They knew what they were looking for too—a whirlpool that began with a teacup sized swirl of water, grew until it could take down trees, and disappear just as suddenly as it arrived. The crew of four were floating down the river when suddenly, in an otherwise smooth patch of water, McHalsie and Carlson saw a small whirl open up.

“Suddenly it just started to grow,” Carlson remembered. With almost no warning, the boat was at the edge of a whirlpool growing from two, three, four, five feet deep, soon extending to 30 feet wide.

“The Zodiak was being sort of pulled down into this vortex of swirling water. Sonny was gunning his upward motor to crawl us up out of that,” Carlson said. “That was—I'm certain I can say with confidence—the last time either of our wives agreed to go out with us on a boat trip for heritage features on the river. We thought we were gonna die.”

McHalsie’s work wasn’t just taking Zodiak rides, directing bus tours, and asking elders how to pronounce the word for measuring genitalia. It was also about using history to make meaningful change for Coast Salish communities.

Aaron Pete, a Chawathil councillor and podcaster, said McHalsie’s work has allowed his nation to better understand its history. The name Chowéthel is associated with a large gravel bar that protrudes into the river, and the people living on the reserve today were displaced from Ts’qó:ls, a settlement along the river near Hope.

“I've been working alongside others to try and make sure that we Chawathil understand that and really absorb what that means,” Pete said. “Because there's lots of discussions around land, and it's important for us to understand where we actually resided over 150 years ago, and it's not where our band office is today.”

Although there are many individuals that hold pieces of the nation’s history, Pete said McHalsie and his longtime collaborator Carlson are the two historians that have the greatest trust among the community. Their work also informs discussions between first nations and municipalities.

“We're working with the District of Hope right now to discuss land and where we resided,” Pete said. “That information is really important, so that it informs how we discuss the District of Hope and the work that's going on there, and what that relationship looks like moving into the future as we look at wanting to do economic development work.”

History shapes the present. McHalsie’s work over the past four decades has changed the way Stó:lō nations represent themselves. McHalsie also hoped his work will change how the broad public interacts with, and talks about, the land around them.

“A lot of our names of mountains in this area are named for people who were never here,” McHalsie said during the BC Historical Society conference last year. The BC Geographical Names office often changes official names to match the ones people use most often.

“That’s what I’m hoping will happen with my tours,” he continued. “If you ever come on my tour and you don’t know the English names of those mountains, you’re only going to learn the Halq'eméylem name, so you might start using that name. Eventually I’m hoping those names will get changed back to the proper Halq'eméylem name.”

McHalsie’s official last day as cultural advisor and Sxweyxwiyam at the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre was Wednesday, May 21—exactly 40 years and one day after he first started work there.

“May 20 [2025] is going to be 40 years for me,” he told The Current last year. “So if I retire the day after, I can say I worked more than 40 years.”

His sister, Peters, is glad he is retiring. (She had plans of her own to retire from governance at Chawathil, but was encouraged to return to council for another term.)

“We’re very proud of him, and we’re glad that he’s taking time off to enjoy his senior years,” she said. (McHalsie said he plans to buy a camper van to make that time off count.)

“He’s a true believer in our ancestors. He’s a true believer in our culture and our way of life. And he’s just continued on with what our ancestors would have brought forward, I’m sure.”

Despite retirement, McHalsie is not done with that mission. A family emergency meant the tour that was scheduled to take place on his official last day has been postponed—so McHalsie will still be getting back on the bus for one more tour, although as a contractor rather than staff. He also still has the keys to the former St. Mary’s Residential School, and has said he’s been asked to come back and assist with projects on a contract basis.

He has other community commitments as well, including speaking as a storyteller at the Selxwi:chel Arts & Culture Day on June 8. And McHalsie has three books that have been waiting for the luxury of retirement to write.

One, he said, will focus on his family history. Another will share some of the stories passed down to him by the elders he’s interviewed over the years. The third is an academic analysis of Brent Galloway’s Dictionary of Upriver Halkomelem, finding Halq'eméylem words that had been lost in the cross-referencing.

There is more work that needs to be done, McHalsie said.

“Our place names are key to understanding our culture, our history, and our relationship and connection to the land,” he explained. Some of that work McHalsie will continue to do during his retirement. But others will also take on the mantle.

Research had already begun before McHalsie’s retirement on the English-language names used by Stó:lō elders, and that will continue in the future. McHalsie’s legacy at the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre will be partially taken over by Ray Douglas, who will be conducting the upriver Bad Rock Tours.

Pete was glad to hear it. When he talked with McHalsie in 2023, it wasn’t clear who would be taking on the tours after McHalsie retired.

“I really think we need to do a good job of honoring and recognizing and hearing these individual stories and recognizing that they did it in a time where it wasn't easy,” Pete said.

“Right now, we're in a time of reconciliation, where Sonny’s work is being appreciated and recognized by yourselves and by First Nation communities … but I think our generation has a lot of work to do in stepping up and building upon the work they did.”

Pete said it goes back to the idea of seven generations, tómiyeqw. McHalsie’s work has looked back to the generations that came before, their histories and their understanding of the world. Now, it’s up to the younger generation to steward that work for seven generations to come.

“Sonny dedicated his life to preserving that culture so that it could be passed on to individuals like myself and others,” Pete said, “so that we can conserve the past and build a better future based on that.”

The bus left just after noon, departing from Coqualeetza and travelling up the valley past Pópqkw’em, Shxw’ōhámél, and Q’ówqéwem. At Th’exelís, the tour paused, and McHalsie had shared stories of salmon, tunnels, transformer stones, and mountain goats. On the return journey, the tour passed by Wolích and Sqémelech, finally arriving back again at Coqualeetza.

Each place has a history, and McHalsie talked without break, blending stories, memories, and landscape together. He explored the underwater people at Kawakwa Lake, warned about the supernatural woman who used to lure men to their deaths before the railway was built near her pool.

When the bus finally rumbled to a stop at the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre, the historians gave McHalsie a round of applause. He got up, left the microphone for someone else to collect, and stepped off the bus.

By the time he retired, McHalsie had conducted hundreds of tours: tours for school children, business owners, Indigenous leaders, community builders, and historians. Although his work touched on universal truths about Indigenous people living in Canada—the impacts of colonialism, the shared traditions of Indigenous cultures—he ultimately grounded his work in Stó:lō history, Stó:lō traditions, and Stó:lō culture.

When he stepped off the bus, he took the stories with him. But he left an imprint of the history on each person who had listened.

There is Cheam, where the wild strawberries grow. There is Soowhalie, where the land is melting away. There is Kw’ik-w’iyá:la, the "stingy container” where water babies pull the fish from spears. There are the elders, dead now, but whose knowledge lives on in story.

And there is McHalsie himself—Naxaxalhts'i, Si:yémiya—whose life’s work is forever tied with S'ólh Téméxw, the land the Stó:lō call home.