 Fort Simpson), B.C., and his mother was a Tsimshian of the Gispaxlo'ots tribe from Port Simpson who died when he was three weeks old.His maternal grandfather brought him from Fort Rupert to Port Simpson, where he was raised in Tsimshian culture.His "uncle by adoption" was the HBC employee and diarist Arthur Wellington Clah, and young William witnessed the famous event in which Clah intervened and saved the life of the Anglican lay missionary William Duncan, whose life was being threatened by Chief Ligeex of the Gispaxlo'ots, angry that church-bells were tolling on the day of his daughter's initiation into a secret society.