Chinlac

53°59′59″N 123°33′49″W / 53.9997°N 123.5636°W / 53.9997; -123.5636 Chinlac is the site of a former Dakelh (Carrier) village in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The site is on the west bank of the Stuart River, about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) upstream from its junction with the Nechako River. Oral tradition considers it to have been one of the major Carrier settlements. The site is located at a shallow point in the river where a fishing weir could be used to harvest running salmon.^[1] Remains of the weir can still be seen from the meadow.

Chinlac is an anglicization of the Carrier word Chunlak, itself a contraction of duchun nidulak - "logs customarily float to a point", which describes the way in which driftwood accumulates in the shallows where the weir was built.^[2][3]

According to oral tradition, the village was destroyed around 1745 by Chilcotin raiders from Nazko, on the Nazko River. (Although Nazko is now a Carrier village, it was Chilcotin at the time.)^[4] The meadow contains the traces of 13 lodges. In the surrounding bush are the remains of hundreds of cache pits.

One lodge site was excavated in 1951–1952 by a team led by Charles Edward Borden. Among other things, he found a Chinese coin of Song Dynasty design, indicating trade with the Pacific Coast at an unknown time prior to direct Carrier contact with Europeans or Asians.^[5][6]