Skookum Jim; Chinook in the Yukon.

[robsue]

Klahowya,

Skookum Jim, a 'co-discoverer' of Klondike gold, was the same Skookum Jim
(also known as Keish) whose mother lived at Carcross.  I think he lived
there too sometimes, and at Dyea, now Alaska.  A first nations version of
the gold discovery story  is told by his relation, Angela Sidney, in a
fabulous book called Life Lived Like a Story  by Julie Cruikshank in
collaboration with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith and Annie Ned.

Also, Mount Skookum is a prominent mountain in the southern Yukon.  Any
other Yukoners on the Chinook listserve?  I lived in the southern Yukon from
1978 to 84 and that's where I heard my first Chinook  (mostly klahowya,
cheechako, skookum) though at the time I didn't know where these words came
from.  They were used as part of a larger vocabulary very much like what
Charles Lillard calls West Talk ( see A Voice Great Within Us - Terry
Glavin).