Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road about northeast of Pemberton, northwest of Lytton, and west of Kamloops. First Nations A main population centre of the Stʼatʼimc (Lillooet Nation), who comprise just over 50 per cent of the Lillooet area residents, it is one of the southernmost communities in North America where indigenous people form the majority. First Nations communities assert the land is traditional territory, having been continuously inhabited for thousands of years. The confluence of several main streams with the Fraser attracted large seasonal and permanent indigenous populations. Situated in the Lower Fountain, the Bridge River Rapids (Sat' or Setl), which blocked migrating salmon, has remained a popular fishing and fish drying site for centuries. Keatley Creek Archaeological Site, one of the largest ancient pit-house communities in the Pacific Northwest, is one of the many archaeological and heritage sites in the vicinity. Several petroglyph sites have been documented along the Fraser in the vicinity of Lillooet. Name origin The First Nations name of Pap-shil-KWA-KA-meen translates as the "place where the three rivers meet". The former European name of Cayoosh Flat inferred a dead or dying Cayuse horse (namely a decrepit specimen) at the river. In 1859, Governor Douglas granted a petition to change the name to Lillooet. The Lil'wat people lived on the Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lakes Route, which was the main trail from the south. This name, which means "wild onion", appears on Anderson's 1849 map. Roads, ferries and bridges For the fortune seekers of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush (upper canyon) and the Cariboo Gold Rush, the portage-intensive Douglas Road from the south terminated at Lillooet. Across the Fraser, Parsonville was "Mile 0" of the Old Cariboo Road, which stretched about northward to Alexandria. Built as a toll road by Gustavus Blin Wright, the first 20 to 30 kilometres of tortuous canyon-brink grade remained little changed until the 1970s. In 1864, the shorter Cariboo Road, which connected Yale to Barkerville via Ashcroft, bypassed Lillooet. The Fraser was crossed by ferry at Lillooet. Parsonville had faded into obscurity by 1889, when the first bridge at Lillooet opened. Consequently, Lillooet became "Mile 0". The numbered roadhouse names of the Cariboo district became measured