coulee

[Mike Cleven]

"Alan H. Hartley" wrote:
>
> Just got in the mail "Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical
> Principles" (W. S. Avis et al., 1991, Gage, Toronto), and it doesn't
> back up the date of COULEE very much: 1804 in Larocque's "Journal"
> (1911) 302: "At sunset removed a little higher upon the coulee to a
> better place for the feeding of our horses."

He uses it in such a casual sense it must be a familiar word; that's a
pretty authoritative source as far as historical documents go; unless a
lost journal turns up from an earlier year I'd trust that source; they'd
have gone through HBC and New France archives in the process.  Was
Larocque's Journal in French or English BTW?

Beats the other dictionary's earliest date; I think it _is_ much more of
a Canadianism than an Americanism, even though it's used in the border
states.  I don't know if central and maritime Canadians are as aware of
it as much; most BCers who've never been out east know lots of Prairie
people and would know from them.