Musqueam have been living continuously at their main winter village, Xwméthkwyiem, at the mouth of the Fraser River, for 4,000 years. Vancouver's ecosystem, with its abundant plant and animal life, provides a wealth of food and materials that have supported the people for over 10,000 years. At the time of first European contact, the recently arrived Squamish people had villages in the areas around present-day Vancouver in places like Stanley Park, Kitsilano and False Creek area, as well as Burrard Inlet. Tsleil-Waututh were said to also be settled on Burrard Inlet at the time of George Vancouver's arrival in 1792. The largest villages were at Xwemelch'stn (sometimes rendered Homulchesan), near the mouth of the Capilano River and roughly beneath where the north foot of the present Lions Gate Bridge is today, and at Musqueam. X̱wáýx̱way was a large village in Stanley Park (in the Lumberman's Arch area). The foundation of a Catholic mission at the village, called Eslha7an, near Mosquito Creek engendered the creation of another large community of Squamish there. Along False Creek, at the south foot of Burrard Bridge, another village called Senakw, existed at one time as a large community, and during colonization was the residence of Squamish historian August Jack Khatsahlano. The Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast had achieved a very high level of cultural complexity for a food gathering base. As Bruce Macdonald notes in Vancouver: a visual history: "Their economic system encouraged hard work, the accumulation of wealth and status and the redistribution of wealth..." Winter villages, in what is now known as Vancouver, were composed of large plank houses made of Western Red Cedar wood. Gatherings called potlatches were common in the summer and winter months when the spirit powers were active. These ceremonies continue to be an important part of the social and spiritual life of the people. European exploration Spanish Captain José María Narváez was the first European to explore the Strait of Georgia in 1791. In the following year, 1792, the British naval Captain George Vancouver (1757–1798) met the Spanish expedition of Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores off Point Grey, and together further explored the Strait of Georgia. Vancouver also explored Puget Sound in the present day Seattle area. Vancouver, surveying in small boats with his officer Peter Puget, arrived at the present city of Vancouver before the Spanish. They first landed at what Vancouver later