Skookum PS

[Mike Cleven]

Dave Robertson wrote:
>
> PS:  There is or was a mining town in Nevada called Skookum, which circa 1908 had its own newspaper, the _Skookum Times_.

This seems the first citation of anything to do with CJ that we've had
from the gold-digger state ;-) (what's Nevada's official monicker,
anyway?).  Nothing as yet from UT, WY or CO but given the range of
frontiersmen and frontier peoples perhaps only to be expected in the
long run, if only in fragmentary form such as the penetration of a
(significant) CJ word into regional English and/or native language(s).
NV makes sense given the Jargon's usage in NoCal as well as EOr, and the
old range both of the mountain men and of the Company as well as
Jargon-use by natives (e.g. Modoc, Shoshone).

Sounds as if this town of Skookum were maybe up in the state's
north/northwest?  The interesting thing to consider here is that the
word may have come to Nevada not by geographic proximity to
Jargon-speaking (or skookum-using English-speakers) but rather via (a)
returnee(s) from the Klondike Gold Rush.  BTW does anything know if the
Basque ranching culture that converges on Elko NV each year has retained
the ancestral language much, and in what ways it might have adapted to
life in the Great Basin?

This relates to my notion that there's a geographic identity - the
Skookum Illahee - relating to the use of the word "skookum" in local
English; a region in which it is at least immediately understood, even
if the listener themselves does not commonly use it.  As we all know,
it's a real marker of someone raised in the Northwest, of any
extraction, and of people who've "taken to the place" and have gotten
the sense of the word into their own speech, or who take it for granted
in hearing it from others.  The core region is of course BC-WA-OR-AK-YT;
I don't know if it's widely understood in AB or not, except (as anywhere
east of the mountains in Canada) by people relocated from BC or who have
spent time out there.  AB has so much coming-and-going from BC that I'd
expect it's known over there, if not much used.  ID, wMT and nCA
possibly have the word historically and might have it in use today, but
I doubt to the same degree as it's used in BC or WA; anyone know if it
works in Weed or Eureka?  Boise?  Missoula?

>
> PPS:  There is still a First Nations family (Carcross, Yukon Territory) by the name of Skookum.

Also the hometown of Skookum Jim, co-discoverer of Rabbit/Bonanza Creek
of '98; might that be the same family, i.e. his heirs, or kin?  IIRC he
lived in Seattle in his later years (after tearing up New York for a
while, apparently).

--
Mike Cleven
http://www.cayoosh.net (Bridge River Lillooet history)
http://www.hiyu.net (Chinook Jargon phrasebook/history)