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The Gitanyow (Kitwancool) people are situated in north-western British Columbia and are represented by their eight hereditary chiefs. The Gitanyow are culturally Gitksan and closely related to other Gitksan villages but have always maintained political independence. The G'yet have eight traditional houses with a membership of about 2,000, holding traditional house territories in the mid-Nass River watershed. The Nisga'a are to the west and the Gitksan to the north and east (a detailed history of the Gitanyow houses can be found in Tribal Boundaries in the Nass Watershed 1998, UBC Press/Vancouver).

Historically, the territory was controlled exclusively by the chiefs through strict traditional laws and the feast (potlatch) system. This holds true today as each chief has rights and responsibilities to the land, as does each Wilp (house) member, who is born into the house system through matrilineal lineage. These rights and responsibilities are signified through the feast where chiefs and house members pay "voluntary taxes."

Gitanyow House members come from a number of other Indian Act bands, most notably Gitwangak, Gitsegukla and Aiyansh. Gitanyow houses and their members hold and exercise aboriginal rights and title to approximately 6,500 square miles of traditional territory in the mid-Nass watershed.

Gitanyow means, "people of many numbers." The Gitanyow chiefs and house members have steadfastly defended their land from all incursion, resisting the allotment of reserves until forced to by the incarceration of eight head chiefs at Okalla penitentiary in New Westminster in 1938. With the chiefs "time out of mind", an Order-in-Council created what was then known as Kitwancool, a Reserve. Today Gitanyow is still known as the Okalla Reserve by the locals. The small size of Gitanyow reserves are directly attributable to the G'yet resistance.

The Gitanyow are distinct among the Gitksan and have long pursued resolution of the land question issue on their own. The people have a long history of struggling to hold on to their rights - from the wars with the Ji'tsaawit of the Stikine river to the overlap issue today with the Crown and the Nisga'a. The Chiefs did not relinquish their rights to the Crown - in right of B.C. and Canada - by treaty.

It is known the Gitanyow belong more to the Nass than the Skeena because their traditional territories extended far to the north and in fact included more of the Nass Valley than was held by the Nass tribes themselves. The Gitanyow move through their upper-Nass and upper Kispiox territories hunting, fishing and trapping.

The Gitanyow comprehensive claim to about 6,500 square miles of territory in the mid-Nass watershed was accepted for negotiation by the federal and provincial governments in 1994 under the British Columbia Treaty process.