Chinuk Wawa shows up in a funny place: American Machinist magazine. (February 2, 1884, page 3.) In the middle of a serious discussion of Root’s new boiler design, they throw in some lighter-weight filler. “What… Continue reading
(Notice how I’m indulging in exclamations this week?!)
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
The Jargon was being reminisced about already in 1904! The Morning Oregonian (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
The Daily Morning Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) Tuesday, March 27, 1888, column 3. I invite your interpretations of this text! Most of it’s quite clear. Some is new to me. — Dave Potlatch Club Ball.… Continue reading
To paraphrase Daniel Johnston, have you been to Metaline? 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
Reader Sharon Seal has contributed more great Chinook Jargon material to share with you all. These are newspaper articles from Kittitas County, WA. (Non-Washingtonians: it’s pronounced KITT-ih-tass.) 1) “Big John Kitsap, Kittitas Indian,… Continue reading
[Final installment. See previous episodes for more info on this fascinating pioneer memoir…life in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State, 1880s-1930s. 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
