Author Archive

Michael Brophy’s series of paintings, “The Chinook Jargon”

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“The Clear Cut Future” book is a collection of visual art, poetry, prose. (Astoria, OR: The Clear Cut Press, 2003.) One of the contributors is the painter Michael Brophy, with selections from his… Continue reading →

1925: BC pioneers banquet

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Chinook was there! The cartoon accompanying the article Past Glimpsed as B.C. Native Sons Banquet Pioneers Tributes Are Paid by “Marks of Appreciation.” YOUTHS OF 80 IN ATTENDANCE Happy Toasts — Some Make… Continue reading →

“Quick willies” in the Okanagan

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I was looking through “BC Then and Now: Okanagan / Kootenay / Cariboo / Volume One” by Roland Morgan (Vancouver, BC: Bodima, 1978).

Lower Chehalis ‘boy baby’ etc. < CW

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A very brief glance at a parallel between Lower Chehalis (Coast Salish) and a language that it helped give birth to, Chinook Jargon…

1881-1882: CW & Métis French on the upper Columbia in Washington

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Both of the Pacific NW Métis languages show up in a couple of later frontier narratives of north-central Washington…

Bella Coola CW song, and more…

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Reader challenge! Has any of you heard the “Chinook Love Song by Pat Schooner” from Bella Coola (Nuxalk country, BC)?

1880s?: Ellensburg, WA area

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A family recollection that I originally shared on the old CHINOOK listserv merits re-posting here…

1858: Jargon humor in California

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One byproduct of the Fraser River gold rush of 1858 was that Oregon gained even greater prominence in the minds of Californians, who found its inhabitants oddballs.

1914: Mamook kopet cultus potlatch

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Everybody knew that the Canadian Settler government had outlawed traditional Native potlatches.

So many Métis words in interior PNW languages (Part 4: St’át’imcets / “Lillooet” Salish)

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I’ve been tracing the linguistic footprints of Canadian Métis people in our Pacific Northwest region.