The Nooksack Tribe was unrecognized by the U.S. federal government for more than a century. Only in 1970 did they acquire a small parcel (about one acre) in what is now the village of Deming, Washington — and in 1973 they were formally recognized as the Nooksack Indian Tribe. Since then, through purchases and lands taken into trust, the tribe’s land base has expanded to a few thousand acres, though these lands are scattered rather than contiguous.

Their name in their own language (roughly “Noxwsʼáʔaq” or “Nuxwsá7aq”) has been interpreted to mean something like “always bracken-fern roots,” connecting the people intimately to the land and the plants there.