Just to bring alive for you one of the uses we talk about the Jargon having–a “token of pioneer identity”, a “badge of Northwesternness”–I give you the following correspondence, nine letters that were… Continue reading
Blazing the Way: Or, true stories, songs and sketches of Puget Sound and other pioneers. By Emily Inez Denny. Seattle: Rainier Printing Company, Inc. 1909. I enjoyed noticing on page 33 of this… Continue reading
From the Steilacoom (Washington Territory) Puget Sound Herald, Friday, October 14, 1859, front page I reckon. This one’s what was in early 1960s pop music called an “answer song” š (If you don’t… Continue reading
“LifeĀ at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon, and California, 1865-1881″ Boston: Lee and Shepard / New York: Charles T. Dillingham, 1884 The title and subtitle tell you… Continue reading
“The Land of the Muskeg” by Henry [Charles Augustus] Somers Somerset. Ā London: William Heinemann, 1895. Another in the rip-roaring fun fin-de-siĆØcleĀ genre of gentleman hunters’ nonfiction travel narratives, “Land of the Muskeg” by Hank,… Continue reading
Newspapers have a custom of printing stories from sources far away. In the 21st century, that’s because they get so much from online sources. Ā In the 20th, it was wire services like AP… Continue reading
The Jargon was being reminisced about already in 1904! The Morning OregonianĀ (Portland, Or.), Thursday, June 21, 1904, page 12, columns 3-4 has this report of a typical pioneers’ get-together of the time, at… Continue reading
To paraphrase Daniel Johnston, have you been to Metaline? Ā If you had visited that mining camp on the BC border in Washington’s first year of statehood, you might have found Chinook Jargon useful.… Continue reading
[Final installment. Ā See previous episodes for more info on this fascinating pioneer memoir…life in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State, 1880s-1930s. Ā Most of what I’ve excerpted in this blog happened in the last… Continue reading
Part 1 of a multi-part blog post… “From Copenhagen to Okanogan” by U[lrich] E[nglehardt] Fries, 2nd printing published 1951 by Caxton Printers of Caldwell, Idaho. It’s one of my favorite books for quotations… Continue reading
