1858, BC: Angry water

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Many thanks to Nancy Anderson for sharing this on the Facebook “Chinook Jargon” group!

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Image credit: Medium

Here’s one of the first sightings of Chinuk Wawa in BC inland from the mouth of the Fraser River, early in that region’s gold rush:

I have a phrase for you, which might be Chinook Jargon and might be words from the Lil’wat language. According to one of the Harrison-Lillooet goldminers who was crossing Harrison Lake on his way to the goldfields, the First Nations pilot of the ship, Umatilla, used the words “hiass silux,” which described the lake as “awful, mad, rough) in bad weather. Have fun.

Citation: Victoria [BC] Gazette (newspaper), Wed. July 18, 1858. The Pioneer Steamship trip up Harrison River & Lake. Result of Explorations. New route to the Fraser River. I don’t know page number. This is of course the Harrison Lillooet Trail, and they are just beginning to build it. The quote was

“It (Harrison Lake) has an average depth which would admit the Leviathan to sport on it, could that monster enter its portals. “Shackles,” our pilot, remarked that in a storm the lake was “hiass sulux” (awful, mad, rough), and that small boats would stand no chance in crossing it. We found it tractable enough, and skilled over its glassy surface…”

Shackles was previously described as being the Indian (First Nations) pilot, but Captain Ainsworth was, of course, in charge.

Hiass silux / Hiass sulux = Hayas-sáliks = very-angry, very-hostile, etc. in what would become Northern-Dialect Chinook Jargon.
“Pilot” of course means a guide, a service typically supplied to the ignorant newcomers by an Indigenous person familiar with the territory. So pilots and guides routinely used Chinuk Wawa.

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
What have you learned?

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