‘The first breath of British Columbia’

Revitalizing Chinook Wawa
by Trevor Marc Hughes

*

Hiyu iktas,
                Many things,
hiyu wawa
                 many words.
Elip tillicums, King George man, Pasaiooks,
                  The first people, the English, the French,
China tillicums, Klale tillicums, Kanakas.
                  Chinese people, Black people, Hawaiians.

…

Konaway tillicums klatawa kunamokst
                  Everyone was thrown together
klaska mamook okoke huloima chee illahie.
                  to make this strange new country.

– “Rain Language,” from the book A Voice Great Within Us by Charles Lillard with Terry Glavin (New Star Books, 1998)

*

When Terry Glavin begins his collaborative book with the late Charles Lillard, A Voice Great Within Us, he describes “this lost creole, or jargon, or pidgin, or whatever it was.” He is, of course, getting into the subject of Chinook, “that peculiar form of speech that had developed here.” It was, in short, a trade language, one that incorporated la langue of settlers and Indigenous peoples. Glavin considers it a distinct linguistic tradition. Cultus: worthless; skookum: strong; tillicum: person; relative; friend. Glavin’s chapter “A Chinook Lexicon” is a fascinating reference of the jargon, or creole as he prefers to term it, an English-Chinook dictionary if you will. Imagine taking a course to learn such a trade language, one that I’ve heard more than one person refer to as British Columbian, or the first breath of British Columbia? Well, you could at one time. Jay Powell, who is considered by some to be the last person in BC to speak Chinook Wawa who had picked up the language from Indigenous elders, had developed curriculum at UBC and Langara College for those who wished to learn it. It’s an inclusive form of communication, one he hopes to convey and to continue, as a reminder of BC’s past. One of his students is former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, who on September 10th hosted a lunch event in downtown Vancouver, with Jay Powell and Vickie Jensen in attendance.  Powell and Jensen have collaborated on several books with the intent of preserving and protecting Indigenous languages and Chinook, and there are several Chinook Jargon dictionaries out there. But as attendee Vancouver rare bookseller Bjarne Tokerud admits, getting one for your own bookshelf will cost you a pretty penny, as they are, indeed, rare.

With posters featuring a map of British Columbia adorning the walls of a Terminal City Club meeting room, lunch guests assemble wearing name tags, and introduce themselves over soup and sandwiches. On closer inspection, the posters are titled “Chinook Jargon Place Names in British Columbia.” Guiding lines point out places such as Tillicum Road in Victoria, Skookumchuk Narrows at Egmont, Cultus Lake near Chilliwack, and many others. Some of these words are familiar. It is clear Chinook has had an impact. As Terry Glavin wrote further in A Great Voice Within Us:

It is probably not too bold to say that it was only by an accident of history that English became the language of common speech on Canada’s west coast. Actually it was by a series of accidents that this happened, but if we had been left, somehow, a people to ourselves, our language would have been Chinook, or it would have persisted as a subordinate language west of the Rockies, in the same way that French has persisted in Canada east of the Rockies. It was our own language once, after all.

The Global Civic Policy Society, led by former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, has gathered this group featuring authors, historians, journalists, and those who still remember how to speak some words of what might be termed as British Columbian: Chinook.

Light streams in from Burrard Inlet through tall windows. At the front of the room Sam Sullivan takes to a microphone and greets visitors. He soon brings up Jay Powell and his partner Vickie Jensen, handing them the microphone. Sullivan and Powell struck up a friendship, stemming from Sullivan’s wish to learn about Chinook. Soon both teamed up to try to revive Chinook in the province.

A young man speaks next. Alex Code is an enthusiastic young man from Port Coquitlam who took it upon himself to learn Chinook Wawa [Wawa means ‘word’ or ‘to speak’] and presents the language to us, showing slides demonstrating its complex written forms, and rolls off a few words. A round of applause shows the lunch guests’ appreciation for the young man’s tenacity and motivation.

Michael Audain, real estate mogul and philanthropist, speaks as a descendant of one of the more influential of British Columbians, coal baron Robert Dunsmuir, of his support for Sam Sullivan’s efforts to revitalize what was a vital trade language begun prior to the gold rush of 1858, during the fur trade years, when European and Indigenous peoples needed to communicate in order to work together and trade.

The Chinook Jargon Place Names posters are soon to be presented to the BC Social Studies Teachers Association, in a pitch for building up curriculum surrounding what some are calling “the first breath of BC.” Sullivan has retrieved the Chinook language course materials of Jay Powell’s UBC and Langara courses taking it upon himself to generate materials for Chinook teachings, including “Children of the Northwest Company” and “Can You Speak British Columbian?

Chinook Wawa would also have allowed separate Indigenous groups to communicate with each other. The language would have allowed Hawaiians and Asians to communicate with Indigenous and European peoples in the early development of a trade economy.

Leaving guests to their desserts and coffee, Sam Sullivan encourages the group to mingle, and share what we may remember of Chinook words with eachother. A woman whose grandfather sold saw to lumber mills, a descendant of a builder of salmon canneries over a century before, open up about how words like ‘skookum’ found their way in to their childhoods. They gather around fluent Chinook speaker Jay Powell in, perhaps, a new beginning for ‘British Columbian.’

*

Since this mid-September lunch event hosted by Global Civic Policy Society, Fort Langley historical building recently hosted a gathering of two dozen Chinook speakers, mainly from British Columbia, Washington State, and Oregon, during which learning sessions were held. Sam Sullivan commented “it was wonderful to hear Chinook Jargon being spoken all around.”

On October 24, 2025, the BC Social Studies Teachers Association will hear from Jay Powell, David Robertson, Alex Code, and Sam Sullivan about their Teach Yourself Curriculum.

*

Trevor Marc Hughes is the author of Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925. His newest book is The Final Spire: ‘Mystery Mountain’ Mania in the 1930s. A former arts reporter at CBC Radio, he is currently the non-fiction editor for The British Columbia Review and recently reviewed books by Richard Butler, Wade Davis, David Bird (ed.), Ian Kennedy, John Vaillant, and Peter Rowlands. He recently wrote about the late Andrew Scott, typed up an editorial on the subject of historic British Columbia publisher New Star Books winding down, and reported on the recent BC & Yukon Prize finalists evening at Book Warehouse on Broadway in Vancouver.

*

The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster