Ancient Ditidaht Village open to hikers

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The ancient village of Tsuxwkwaada has recently been opened to people hiking the West Coast Trail through the efforts of the Ditidaht Nation and the Quuas West Coast Trail Group. Hidden for almost a century by thick undergrowth, the site located a mile northwest of Nitinat Narrows was the main village for Ditidaht's warriors.

Five houses once lined the small bay, whose name means 'where a small coho stream enters the ocean on a beach.' For more than 5,000 years, Tsuxwkwaada was one of Ditidaht's main villages until government-forced relocation programs moved the Ditidaht Nation to their current village of Malachan at the head of Nitinat Lake.

As Quuas West Coast Trail employee Dartwin Jeffrey tours people through the site along a network of recently built boardwalks, he points out the numerous support beams and cross beams that mark the site and size of this once powerful village.

"When the West Coast Trail first opened in the 1970s, the hand-cut planks that once covered these longhouses were being cut up by hikers who didn't know any better, and used as firewood," said Dartwin. "We had the area closed off until a few years ago, when we started working at making the site an interpretive centre."

Today, Tsuxwkwaada is a temporary home for two interpreters and two maintenance workers who look after the trail from Carmannah Creek to the Klanawa River.

According to Ditidaht archaeologist Fred Seiber, Parks Canada is raising money through trail fees so that more archaeological work can be done at Tsuxwkwaada, which is being considered for national historic site designation.