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Our way of life
In the Carrier language, August is called Talook Ooza. That means, “moon of the salmon.” September is Gestlah Ooza, “Moon of the Kokanee.” October is Bet Ooza, “Moon of the char (or lake trout)”, and November is Lhooh Ooza, “Moon of the white fish.” Other villages may have different names for the months. We have our permanent homes at the Stella Village and my parents had 3 different fish camps nearby, with a smoke house at each camp. During spawning season in the late summer and autumn, we would move to be close to the spawning sites of the fish. In August (Talook Ooza) we’d set our nets for salmon in the lagoon near our farm, close to where the Endako River runs into the Stella River, or at Tachek, where the Stella River empties into Fraser Lake.  The char spawn in October, (Bet Ooza) very close to the shores where it is very rocky. My family had a char camp along the rocky shores between the islands on the north side of Fraser Lake. My father would set out nets for the char. Its usually windy when the char are spawning so sometimes my Dad would spear them from the shore or from his canoe as they washed up onto the rocky beach. White fish spawn on the sandy beaches along the south shore of Fraser Lake near Lejac, so they would move to that camp in November (Lhooh Ooza) when the white fish were spawning. Some historians say that the Carrier people are not very artistic, because we did not do the beautiful carvings and paintings like the peoples on the coast. That’s not true. We are artistic too, but in the old days we did not have time for art. For art’s sake, you can see our art in the construction of clothes, baskets, canoes and other articles and tools that are used daily The climate here is very harsh and the winters are long. All our energy was geared just to surviving. All through the summer and fall we were busy gathering food and putting it away for the winter. During the winter we were busy trapping or mending nets and tools and clothes and just staying warm.
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