High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Nicola (1780/1785 — ~1865) (Spokan Hwistesmetxe`qen, Walking Grizzly Bear), also Nkwala or N`kwala, was an important First Nations political figure in the fur trade era of the British Columbia Interior (early 19th century to 1858) as well as into the colonial period (1858–1871). He was grand chief of the Okanagan people and chief of the Nicola Valley peoples, an alliance of Nlaka`pamux and Okanagans and the surviving Nicola Athapaskans, and also of the Kamloops Band of the Shuswap people.