The Tsimishian are merely the most numerous single tribe of this nation of people, who also include the Gitxsan and Nisga tribes. When referencing the Tsimishian make a note that all three of these tribes are being referred to collectively.

A people of North America's northwest coast, inhabiting the southern Alaskan panhandle and the north coast of British Columbia. Like other coastal peoples, the Tsimishian fashioned most of their goods out of Western Redcedar, particularly from its bark, which could be fashioned into tools, clothing, roofing, armor, building materials and canoe skins. The Tsimishian had the misfortune of being the nearest and most favored victims of Haida depredations. The Tsimishian and Tlingit shared a common way of life, and while this allowed for a great deal of trade, it also led to the two peoples ferociously battling for the best lands, the best fishing grounds, for slaves and plunder, or revenge for last time.

Like all North Coast peoples, the Tsimishian were fearsome warriors with a deeply heirarchical society. Succession was matrilinear, and one's place in society was determined by their clan. The Tsimishian clans are the Eagle Clan, Orca Clan, Frog Clan and Wolf Clan, with the other clans as branch clans. Marraige in Tsimishian society must take place in an allied clan. The lord of a village was the head of the strongest clan, with the less powerful clan heads forming his council of the nobility.

The Tsimishian were a seafaring people, at home upon the sea as they were upon the land, and as with the Haida, one must picture them as much closer to a Viking than an Apache.

Tsimishian thrived on the plentiful salmon who, prior to modern large-scale commercial fishing, thrived in such numbers that the Tsimishian lived in permanent towns, as they had no need to move. Tsimishian longhouses were very large, and usually housed an entire clan, who lived communally. Cultural taboos centered around women and men eating improper foods during and after childbirth, and marraige was an extremely formal affair, involving several prolonged and sequential ceremonies.

Tsimishian religion centered around the "Lord of Heaven", who aided people in times of need by sending supernatural servants to earth to aid them. The Tsimishian believed that charity and purification of the body (either by cleanliness or fasting) was the route to the afterlife.

As with all north coastal peoples, the Tsimishian engaged in the Potlatch.

The end of the Tsimishian as a force to be reckoned with in the north came in 1860, when smallpox annihilated 80% of the entire Tsimishian population in only three years. Further epidemics would ravage the coast for many years, and a century of poverty and hopelessness would reduce these numbers even further following the European subjugation of the land during the endless greed of the gold rush and the cultural pressures of prolonged Christianization and Europeanization programs. About 10,000 Tsimishian are alive today.

Although a vanquished people, the Tsimishian live on in their art, their culture and their language, which is making a comeback. In a highly contraversial agreement, the Nisga'a people recently gained autonamy from Canada by the government of British Columbia. It appears the history of the Tsimishian is not over quite yet, and a new chapter is unfurling.