Mount Currie is a small, mostly First Nations, community in
British Columbia, 164 kilometres north-west of
Vancouver and 40 kilometres north-west of
Whistler along
Highway 99. "The Mount Currie settlement and mountain were named after Scottish settler John Currie, who located to Quebec in 1851. After failure as a
gold seeker in California and the
Cariboo, Currie turned to ranching and finally settled near
Pemberton with his
Lillooet Indian wife in 1885." The area is traditional territory of the
Lil'wat, a subgroup of the
St'at'imc people who with the communities of
Skatin, Samahquam and Xa'xtsa (Port Douglas) to the south comprise the Lower St'at'imc or Lower Lillooet. The
Mount Currie Indian Reserve hosts most of the population of Mount Currie, who are known as the
Lil'wat, their name for the spot, but west of the reserve there are non-native farms, industrial sites and tourist resorts, and on the mountain shoulder immediately north of the reserve is Owl Creek, the site of the original Catholic mission school which drew the Lil'wat from their former homebase at
Pemberton Meadows so as to be close to their children. Owl Creek today is the name of a modern subdivision of mostly non-natives, though Owl Creek remains on the rail crossing on the CNR just outside the reserve.