On a late summer day, many years ago, a young man set out on a voyage through the mountains. He never reached his destination. When his remains were discovered by three British Columbia hunters, roughly three hundred years after he was caught by a storm or other accident, his story had faded from even the long memory of the region's people. First Nations elders decided to call the discovery Kwäday Dän Ts?ìnchi?Long Ago Person Found.

The discovery of theKwäday Dän Ts?ìnchi man raised many questions. Who was he and how did he die? Where had he come from? Where was he going, and for what purpose? What did his world look like? But his remains, preserved in glacial ice for centuries, offered answers, too?as did the traditional knowledge and experience of the Indigenous peoples in whose territories he lived and died.

In this comprehensive and collaborative account, scientific analysis and cultural knowledge interweave to describe a life that ended just as Europeans were about to arrive in the northwest. What emerges is not only a portrait of an individual and his world, but also a model for how diverse ways of knowing, in both scholarly and oral traditions, can complement each other to provide a new understanding of our complex histories.

Richard J. Hebda is Curator of Botany and Earth History at the Royal BC Museum. He is also a professor of Biology and Earth Science at the University of Victoria. His studies include vegetation and climate history of British Columbia, ethnobotany of BC First Nations, climate change and its impacts, restoration of natural systems and processes, flora of alpine ecosystems and
botany of grasses.

Richard J. Hebda's profile page

Sheila Greer's profile page

Alexander P. Mackie's profile page

"Kwäday Dän Ts?ìnchi: Teachings from Long Ago Person Found is a must read for anybody interested in the Yukon's cultural history, and it also serves as a blueprint for how such projects can succeed in the future."?Michael Gates, Yukon News