1894, southern BC: Klonas lazy, klonas halo!

Local readers understood the Chinook tag line on this letter to the editor in the early post-frontier era…

This comes from Midway, a.k.a. Boundary Creek or Boundary City, in the far west Kootenays of British Columbia and right on the US border.

Image credit: Facebook

See if you get it before I tell you:

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the editor of THE ADVANCE:

I notice in your issue of May 24, Mr.
Hynds’ and Nemo’s letters. Lazy or
not, settlers have been refused work or
put off with a promise. Why is not a
gang of men put on from the mouth of
Rock Creek up, and an effort be made
to get the road finished sufficiently
early to be of some use to us this fall?
Then there is Boundary Mountain,
nothing done on it. However, we in-
tend, it possible, to make a road of our
own up Kettle River on the American
side. It[‘]s no use waiting for the Gov-
ernment to do anything. Yours truly,

SETTLER,
(Klonas lazy, klonas halo).

— from the Midway (BC) Advance of May 31, 1894, page 3, column 2

Klonas lazy, klonas halo =
t’ɬúnas lísi, t’ɬúnas hílu =
‘maybe lazy, maybe not’!

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
What have you learned?