Episode 4 of 5

Tsimshian Transmission at Fort Simpson

When: June 1862
Where: Fort Simpson
Part of: Smallpox epidemic spreads from San Francisco to British Columbia

Evicted Tsimshian brought smallpox to Fort Simpson, causing widespread transmission starting in June 1862.

Tsimshian people forced away from Victoria carried the disease to Fort Simpson. From there, smallpox spread widely starting in June 1862, contributing to the high death rates among Indigenous nations along the coast.

Sources

1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-15

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.