Key Selling Points As a public speaker, Eileen focuses on the natural history and human culture of the Columbia River landscape, the fourth largest watershed by volume in North America. The story is timely and likely to continue garnering regional, national, and international attention. With the Columbia River Treaty currently under review, Eileen's extensive knowledge and understanding of the social and ecological losses stemming from these projects provides important information to guide future decisions. Since 1956, and really since colonial settlers arrived in the early 19th century, the Sinixt have survived despite efforts to extinguish them from their homeland. Their language, their diet, their material culture and their spiritual beliefs adapted over thousands of years around the mountain landscape of the upper Columbia River basin. A 1964 treaty between Canada and the U.S. resulted in the construction of three large storage dams in British Columbia to protect U.

S. farmland and urban centers from spring floods. These dams displaced thousands of settlers, inundated archaeological sites of indigenous people and upended the ecosystem. In April, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that the Sinixt/Arrow Lakes tribe are Aboriginal People of Canada. It was the end of a long legal road travelled by this transboundary tribe, to reverse a 1956 Canadian government declaration that they were "extinct." The Sinixt (also known as the Sin-Aikst or Sin Aikst, "Senjextee", "Arrow Lakes Band", or -- less commonly in recent decades -- simply as "The Lakes") are a First Nations People. The Sinixt are descended from Indigenous peoples who have lived primarily in what are today known as the West Kootenay region of British Columbia in Canada and the adjacent regions of Eastern Washington in the United States for at least 10,000 years. The Sinixt are of Salishan linguistic extraction, and speak their own dialect (sn-selxcin) of the Colville-Okanagan language.

Today they live primarily on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, where they form part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is recognized by the United States government as an American Indian Tribe. Many Sinixt continue to live in their traditional territory on the Northern Side of the 49th Parallel, particularly in the Slocan Valley and scattered amongst neighbouring tribes throughout BC, however the Canadian Government declared the Sinixt extinct in 1956. Marketing and Promotion National, regional, and subject-specific print features, excerpts, review coverage, broadcast and television interviews Social media campaigns, blogger outreach, digital collateral for online use Publicity and promotion in conjunction with author's speaking engagements Outreach to subject-specific organizations, markets and festivals Excerpts available Electronic ARCs.