Pictographs of the Interior Plateau

The earliest published notice of rock paintings in Secwepemc territory is Franz Boas's 1890 report: "A number of rock paintings are found on the shores of Kamloops Lake. I have not seen them, and do not know what they represent." His restraint is itself part of the record: the meanings belonged to the people who made them.

Within Secwepemc territory, Tsutswecw Provincial Park on the Adams River (formerly Roderick Haig-Brown Park) "preserves evidence of thousands of years of Secwepemc habitation, including the remains of kekuli pit houses and pictographs on the exposed rock of the river's gorge."

Neighbouring Interior Salish nations left closely related work. In the Stein Valley, a sacred Nlaka'pamux place, the valley served as "a spiritual and cultural site of practice, particularly used for cultural rock paintings and writings."

For the Upper Similkameen, Parks Canada's Historic Places register documents that "red, orange and yellow ochre taken from the Tulameen Ochre Bluffs was used as a paint to create substantial pictographs, which date from around 4000 years ago." The paintings include "representations of dreams and guardian spirits," and "the rock art images illustrate the role of spirit powers within Upper Similkameen culture." Ochre itself was recognized as "the source of spirit power" and used for "spiritual and ceremonial purposes."

Pictograph sites remain protected heritage places. Locations here are given only at the level already published by parks agencies; site-specific knowledge and interpretation rest with the nations concerned.