Iskit/Secret Island

[Mike Cleven]

>From: terry glavin <transmontanus at GULFISLANDS.COM>

>coquitlam, more closely translated, is "smelly fish slime." two stories
>i've
>heard about that - it denotes the abundance of oolichan spawning at the
>mouth of the coquitlam river (prior to recent stock collapses it was still
>like that - i have drift-gillnetted for oolichan across the mouth of the
>coquitlam by canoe); the other is that the coquitlam people used to work in
>the sockeye oil rendering, for the musqueam, by what is now the seaplane
>dock, which used to be directly in front of the b.c. penitentiary, which is
>now all condos.
>
>jeez i sound like an old man.

We both are, old-timer.  Most kids in Coquitlam wouldn't have a clue what an
oolichan was these days.  The reasoning I'd thought of for it was because
the Port Coquitlam fenland before the area was dyked struck me as likely
stinking of rotting salmon for a couple of months now and then during the
year; the lower Stave was like that in the '60s; so I'd supposed that the
marshes in the Port Coquitlam area might have been the same, hence the name.

_However_, I remember seeing a native reference to this translation of the
name, claiming that it was wrong, colonialist, and intentionally derisive;
yet you (an avowed expert in local native matters; don't blush) say it's
correct.  Is this just more knee-jerky?

MC
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