Raven plays ball: Lax Kw’alaams Baseball Team, 1923
In the early twentieth century, the Tsimpshian village of Lax Kw’allams (Port Simpson) had two competing athletic clubs - The Port Simpson Athletic Club (PSAC) and the Young Peoples’ Educational Association (YPEA).
The PSAC club (featured in the photograph below) was originally a Methodist Church youth group that split from the church in 1914.
The two teams often competed to see who would send baseball players to the Prince Rupert Fair. Teams from Haida, Nisga'a, Tsimpshian, Gitxaala, Gitxsan, Gitanyow, Haisla, and Wetsuwet'en Nations, and some Alaskan groups, particularly Tsimpshian from New Metlakatla, regularly participated in sports programs with upward of seven soccer teams, six baseball teams, and later three to four softball teams in any given year during the 1920s.
Today the legacy of the PSAC endures and the people of Lax Kw’alaams continue to be avid competitors in the All Native Basketball Tournament held annually in Prince Rupert.
References
"Raven plays ball: situating 'Indian Sports Days' within indigenous and colonial spaces in twentieth-century coastal British Columbia." The Free Library. 2015 University of Toronto Press 05 Aug. 2020 https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Raven+plays+ball%3a+situating+%22Indian+Sports+Days%22+within+indigenous...-a0443457665
Original photo courtesy of Gary’s Locks & Security Shop.