A letter from Salem, in “Champoeg County”, reports on “an exploring tour” by some recently arrived Settlers in Oregon Territory.

There are a number of discoveries in this 9th installment of our look at Alexander Francis Chamberlain’s field documentation of the Northern Dialect of Chinook Jargon.

Today’s post is mainly in the interest of helping folks who read old Pacific NW documents.

Is this “Russellville” the modern neighborhood of Montavilla in Portland, Oregon?

“The Industrial School”, you understand, was the first of the names of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Newspaper editors used to libel each other freely in the USA.

Today’s clipping is Chinook Jargon from the Grand Ronde area, in frontier times, so it’s un-translated by the newspaper editor.

This installment is admittedly from the “Chinook Paper” but not directly in Chinook Jargon — read on to see the humor in it, and for a little lesson in Jargon.

Is this Chinuk Wawa’s ísik ‘paddle’, loaned into the language of the central Washington Coast? 

Take a look at the names of “the first of them to write” Chinook Writing at Kamloops — do they all seem Métis to you?