Talk:Strait of Georgia

Fixed link across?
Can anyone add more info on the possible plans of contructing a tunnel and/or bridge across to the other side? I am also quite curious as to whether any steps have been taken to decide to build infrastructure links across the:
 * Strait of Messina
 * Fehmarn Belt
 * Cook Strait
 * Palk Strait
 * Strait of Tartary
 * Irish Sea
 * Strait of Bonifacio
 * Surigao and San Bernardino Straits
 * Hainan Strait
 * Kvarken
 * Chacao Channel bridge
 * Strait of Magellan
 * Bering Strait

Anyone with inside knowledge on any of these? I've posted similar requests elsewhere. Gruesome Twosome! 8v] //Big Adamsky 20:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My guess is that the idea of a bridge or tunnel across the open part of the Georgia Strait is less likely than a year round manned station on Mars. However, there was once a plan, a hundred years ago, to bring make Victoria, British Columbia the pacific terminus of the railway by bringing it out to the coast at Bute Inlet, and then bridging across some of the Discovery Islands and Seymour Narrows to Campbell River, British Columbia.  Fortunes were lost by investors who banked on that plan.  There is some reference to it in E and N Railway amd in the Bute Inlet articles.  Problem with it, is that it would lead to central BC rather than the Lower Mainland.  But at least it isn't a completely ridiculous idea like trying to bridge the Gulf would be.  KenWalker | Talk 08:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Untangling Georgia Depression, Georgia Basin/Salish Sea redirects re MERGE
I'm removing the merge tag, considering it's been there since November 2006. Feel free to re-add it. -- 71.62.82.126 23:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The Salish Sea article I want to put a merge tag on, guess I'll have to do it to this page; this page being about the shores of the Gulf of Georgia (our other name for it, and including other straits and sounds than the Strait itself I think, e.g. Haro/Rosario Straits, Sansum and Trincomali Narrows. Georgia Basin should redirect here, as should Georgia Depression, but they both redirect to Salish Sea, which somewhere along the line got merged with an older article called "Whulge", which seems to be a trendily-pseudo-native name for the Lushootseed-speaking part of these waters and their shores.  Salish Sea, to me, is bogus, and so was Whulge; they may have some currency on the US side of the line, in which case the  tag should be added; but even the title is USA-centric, if it's USA anything.  That's it for now, the main merge discussion will be on Talk:Salish Sea.Skookum1 04:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * My bad, as Salish Sea is apparently an invention of hippie types from Saltspring and Cortes (cf. item in Heritagehouse.ca catalogue) but on the other hand it's also used in Washington schools and brand names. Whatever, it's still a dorky name and the real name, especially in the heritagehouse-cited context (Saturna to Cortes) the REAL and usual name is Strait of Georgia, or at best Gulf of Georgia (since the Strait of Georgia ends somewhat just shy of those islands).  But I think maybe Gulf of Georgia either needs a separate section here, or its own page (as it includes Saltspring, which isn't on the Strait of Georgia).Skookum1 05:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Er, um, well, then again, here's a just-now quote from a friend's letter on this subject; he lived on Mayne Island until a few weeks ago, and lives in Cadboro Bay in Saanich now:
 * '' For the Strait of Georgia, I'd exclude Howe Sound and Haro and Rosario, but the Strait goes all the way up, beyond Texada, to the bottom end of Johnston Strait. The "Gulf" is (or was) considered that body of water we might now call the Southern Strait of Georgia, and the southern part of that is "The Southern Gulf," which is a designation that persists in "the Southern Gulf Islands," which takes in everything south of Saltspring, and also Galiano. Where I'm living now is still disorienting. Parts of the San Juans, like up at Friday Harbour, are almost to the north of me.
 * Sigh. It's like the "Lower Mainland" issue (cf. Talk:Lower Mainland and also Talk:Pacific Northwest; casual/colloquial usages that people don't use with precise definitions; more of a state of mind than a set of parameters....Skookum1 05:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh no no, it is not Courtenay/Comox they are two different places, our town ought not to be lumped in with those hicks

The Strait of Georgia is the official name used on all maps and textbooks. If you merged the title to Salish Sea, you would not be using the correct name. Mkdw talk 07:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The "official" name according to the government of BC? The aboriginal caretakers of the land don't count?  That's not a neutral point of view.
 * Besides, the settlers' name was Georgia Strait until they tried to dissociate their name from the underground newspaper with the pun for a name, the Georgia Straight. I don't know if the name was officially changed or not. Korky Day 09:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * More to the point for Wikipedia, "Strait of Georgia" is the most common name by far in English for the body of water in question, with "Georgia Strait" second, and "Salish Sea" a distant third. From what I can tell by online usage, "Salish Sea" is used mainly by tour companies and bloggers, with the exception of one environmental conference held in 2005.  Newspapers, governments, and other widespread publications seem to use "Strait of Georgia" or "Georgia Strait". --Delirium 00:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * And I'm unaware of any First Nations or Native American politician or press person or academic who's chosen to use it; what its name is in Straits Salish or Shishahlhalem or Halkomelem I wouldn't know, if it even has one - perhaps I should know it, but I'm unaware of any campaign to lobby for a change/reversion (different areas of it are more likely to rather than the whole, but I wouldn't know for certain) and there's that awkward issue of the Kwak'wala speakers at its northern end. There's no way the Kwak'wala name for this body of water, if there is a Kwak'wala name for the whole, is going to resemble any possible equivalent in the Salishan languages; except marginally by way of a loanword from Comox (the Island Comox were absorbed into the Southern Kwakiutl, now the Cape Mudge and Campbell River Bands in Indian Act terms) or by way of the Chinook Jargon - in which case "out on the chuck" suffices to mean anywhere on the straits ("hyas saltchuck" for  the wide open sea east of the Island), and "the straits" here generally referring the larger agglomeration; and in the context of "inland waters" roughly synonymous with the Gulf of Georgia, a term which includes inter-island waterways outside the Strait of Georgia.  But "Salish Sea" is a no-go, no-register, invented term that like certain others people insist on trying to supplant other terms with just doesn't work for me.  And to my knowledge has no First Nations/Native American support, either.Skookum1 08:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * A certain Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Gregor Robertson chooses to consistently refer to it as the Salish Sea when speaking in the Legislature. here and here for example (CTL+F for "Salish")). It certainly hasn't been officially formalized/frequently used by any indigenous or settler source that I'm aware of or have spoken with, however.--Keefer | Talk 09:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it just sounds pretentious, as with Whulge (which now, hopefully, is a redirect to somewhere real). Cascadia is similarly a word that's been "pitched" although I grant that it's actually caught on in its own way; but partly because it does have an overt agenda, which these don't; just ethnocultural pretentiousness, being more Indian than the Indians.  Pity about Robertson; I've rather liked him until you told me that.  Strikes me as a p.c. toady then....Skookum1 00:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably "trying to hard" in his case.--Keefer | Talk 08:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I wonder if we can find a Kwak'wala speaker who will say that that's politically incorrect and call Robertson on the carpet about ignoring the Chemakuan and Kwakwaka'wakw with this imperialistic name..."Salish" continues to not be an ethnicity/tribe name, but continues in use by our media (and even our supposedly enlightened leftist politicians) as if it were.....thus are neologisms born.....Next thing you know, white people in the Lower Mainland will be p.c.-correct referred to as hwelitum....Skookum1 15:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * LOL on your suggestion. That'd be fun wouldn't it (the 'imperialism card')? ;)--Keefer | Talk 20:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, all the more convincing if I was actually FN. Think I'll throw this one by OldManRivers, though ;-).  Skookum1 21:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * And Raven stole the sun, flew down the water and shouted to the heavens, "I am the Alpha, the Omega, the Universe, and I name this water way, "Salish Sea"!". Well, that didn't actually happen, but, some touristy hippies might think so. lol.  I'm part Sḵwxwú7mesh and Kwakwaka'wakw.  As far as I know, we never had a name for that entire area (hell, we have three names for Howe Sound, and there's over ten names for Fraiser River from all the different nations on the coast (even as far as the Haida and Nisga'a had a name for the Fraiser Rivers.  I agree, it's quite a settler things to call it Salish Sea, but probably because it's in Coast Salish territory.  My thoughts: never heard it called Salish Sea] before, or even this [[Whuldge (sp?).  But, I'll ask around, but I highly doubt there was one name for this entire water way.  OldManRivers 00:58, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Whulge is the supposedly Lushootseed word for it, although I suspect the original Lushootseed term is for a particular stretch of Puget Sound, not the whole entity, and not the land-basin it sits in, which is the pretense of that word. Puget Sound is really a side-bay of the long strait which encircles Vancouver Island and is broken up variously as Juan de Fuca-Haro/Rosario-Georgia-Johnstone-Queen Charlotte-Hecate, but there's this effort to name the whole basin; we've never come up with a satisfactory one in English, e.g. Georgia-Puget Basin maybe but it's not very poetic is it; at least not as clunky as Georgia Strait-Puget Sound basin; and I think it would have been this way even if the boundary weren't where it is; i.e. if the region hadn't been partitioned; unless you step out "above the map" the notion of a broader basin wasn't something on peoples' minds when the names were being pasted on the landscape around here.  i.e. I think the Gulf of Georgia vs Puget Sound distinction would have remained, and no one word is possible; if it were all one native people spanning the whole region, with one language and not twenty, we might have a place to start; but as you note even within those languages placenames tend to be locality-specific, rather than "big" geographic concepts which, in marine terms, really aren't but look that way to landlubbing peoples.  It would certainly be good to include any Halkomelem or Skwxwu7mesh or Shishalhalem or Nooksack words for the Strait, if any of those languages has a single concept/word - Halkomelem I'd expect it to, because the language spans the Strait, but I think we'd all have heard it by now if there was one.  "Salish" also was originally the particular name of a particular people in Montana (who never got anywhere near the sea..); aka Selisch as it might have a redirect for already; it's an "outside" term generalized far from the Salish people's home turf by linguists and anthropologists...Skookum1 01:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Note re above discussion: thte Salish Sea has in recent weeks become a political/media football in BC. But as I noted in various letters to the editors about it, the conundrum is that the Canadian renaming-effort is only focussed on the Strait of Georgia anddoesn't include Puget Sound or Juan de Fuca Strait, as the American claim/promotion does. The Salish Sea article properly should only be about the politics and media coverage surrounding the name, NOT pretending that it's NOW the name, as some authors of that page have been pretending to (as also pro-namechange reporters in BC who themselves didn't even know the term four months ago...).Skookum1 (talk) 19:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

sat image caption
I just revised this; previously it had stated that the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets the Strait of Georgia at the south end of Vancouver Island. This is untrue. The Strait of Georgia does not TOUCH the southern end of Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands are in between. The Haro Strait does meet the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Victoria, but not the Strait of Georgia. The problem seems to be the usual confusion of the terms Gulf of Georgia and Strait of Georgia; they are not synonymous.Skookum1 (talk) 19:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I was never fond of the satellite image -- rather washed out, and it cuts off the northern end of the Strait of Georgia. I found another one that I think is better, so I'm replacing it. Hope no one minds. Pfly (talk) 07:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Indigenous histories
As per all major BC articles, they lack in anything refering to the indigenous people except a few lines then jump right into the European explores. Sometimes they'll go as far as to say "This dude first explored this place and named it so." In any case, I'm wondering if some more indigenous history should be added to the history page, plus Tribal Journeys] (also check here. In any case, just thought I'd throw it out there if anyone wants to help me on this one.  OldManRivers (talk) 07:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. I made the history section a week or two ago because I wanted to add the bit of info I had on the Spanish explorers. I thought of the new section as a "stub" to be added to and fleshed out, by all means! Myself, I have been trying to learn more about the indigenous histories of the Pacific Northwest, but so far am more or less overwhelmed by the complexity. Pfly (talk) 07:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, a good way to learn the ropes ;-0 is to try and do the PacNW/West of t he Rockies timeline/writeup on Indian Wars; see various discussions on Talk:Indian Wars including the rename proposal - OMR please note). I was asked to a long time ago, just not sure enough of events stateside to do it.  Re the Tribal Journeys weblink, it occurred to me looking at it that Canoe (Pacific Northwest) or some such is needed to break up/off Canoe re the big carved/split//steam-pressed canoes of this region; see Dugout (boat) where there's a tidbit, though only one modern-era canoe is named (what was B. Reid's opus?).  War canoe seems a bit cigar-store and would also have to be disambig'd because of Polynesia etc.  BTW on that subject the War Canoe Races in Vancouver harbour were the highlight of Dominion Day festivities in Vancouver until the anti-Potlatch wars (nice pics available in Archives/VPL); they were the real tradition here, in the old days anyway, though the Dragon Boat races now are the big shindig with lots of yak about "tradition" as if it were an actual historical tradition here; I'm all for someone bringing back the tribal canoe races, though ;-).Skookum1 (talk) 15:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Skwxwu7mesh do our canoe races in early July at Ambleside Beach. lol OldManRivers (talk) 16:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I kknow, and I know about the Takaya group at Tseil-saututh, too. What I meant was to restore the pan-coastal races held on what is now Canada Day in the harbour, prob. now have to be in English Bay because of ship traffic.  The pic I saw looked like over a hundred, at least several dozen, canoes....quite the spectacle; I'll see if I can find the image-link someday, if it's in the online collections.16:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Pan-coastal? Were these our cedar sea-going dug out canoes? (Like this? ).  Because we have those too.  OldManRivers (talk) 19:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. The canoes in the shot I saw looked very large; the picture was taken from a distance, on top of a building, not sure which one..  I think the photo was in VPL, there's an earlier one maybe in BC Archives which shows the British fleet and some canoes present for the opening of the CPR in 1885.  You have better access to VPL than I do, since you can actually go over there and look; don't think it's in their online collection, they're pretty stingy with that.  But looking for it, I'm sure the librarians will help you; I'll see if I can find the Archives one, as its caption included the battleship HMS Triumph, I remember.Skookum1 (talk) 19:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Not x-ref'd under the Triumph at BC Arch, but you might want to look through and snitch pictures from this. :-). Gonna search "races" too.Skookum1 (talk) 19:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yahoo!1 Hit the jackpot on pics of canoe races anyway. chek 'em out, I'm sure you'll find something useful here...NB the Alert Bay races.Skookum1 (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh yea, this was a search just for "canoe". 406 entries, not all of them to do with canoes, e.g. Canoe Pass.Skookum1 (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Indian Wars, yea, I banged my head against the Puget Sound War, Yakima War, and related conflicts for a while. I ran into the same problem I had when learning about American southeast history -- the names of tribes and nations used today do not always work so well going back in time. It's become clear to me that in the Pacific Northwest, just as in the American southeast, some so-called tribes were more like confederations or amalgamations of diverse groups, while at the same time there were larger groupings that brought many "tribes" together in one way or another. And all this changed over time, sometimes quite radically. For the southeast I often ended up getting at it via languages -- seeing for example that in early times the Creek "tribe" spoke many languages/dialects in at least two major language families,with the Creek language becoming dominant over time, while the Mikasuki language speakers became the Seminoles, and the Hitchiti language/dialect died out completely. The languages and their history in the Pacific Northwest appear at least as complex as in the southeast, if not more so. I only just learned that there were some pockets of Athabascan languages down among the Chinookan and Salishan areas around the lower Columbia River area. Another bit that I am still vague on is the languages around Vancouver Island. The other day I read (in a book I don't quite trust on this topic) that the western part of the island's peoples spoke the "Wakashan" languages, with "tribes" identified as "Nootka" and "Nitinat", along with the Makah on the Olympic Peninsula. While along the east side of the island people spoke Salishan languages, with some "tribes" listed as Comox, Nanaimo, Cowichan, and Songish. I suspect this is an overly simplified picture, with questionable names that don't always correspond to "tribes" or ethnic identity "nations" very well. But it points out how far I have to go in that I am still unsure about these things. I can't recall having heard of "Wakashan" before. As usual for me, things get hazy looking northward from the Puget Sound area. I ought to take a closer look. I have a book called "Native Seattle" that has a lot of northward leads. Apparently the city once had more connection with natives to the north as far as Alaska, and less with those more local. Anyway, yes, working on it.


 * Wakashan is a language group that includes the "Nootka" (Nuu-chah-nulth)/Ditidah/Makah (really all the same language, just different dialects), the Kwakwaka'wakw ("Kwak'wala-speakers" aka incorrectly as the Kwakiutl, which is from a specific-group name within them), the Haisla, Heiltusk and Wuikinuxv (aka Owekeeno/Rivers Inlet people); those last three were in teh past incorrectly called "Northen Kwakiutl". At least one old map portrays Vancouver Island as the "Wakish Nation", which is no doubt grating to Island Salish.Skookum1 (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

On canoes, my (limited) impression is that "canoe" was/is the most common term. But they are quite different from the birch bark type, and the modern aluminum type too. The very distinctive look and sea-worthy strength (and size!), warrant something like a new page or expanded section somewhere, I figure. Pfly (talk) 16:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * As noted Dugout (boat) partly covers them, and shows a similar Polynesian method of making them; still "canoe" is what we call 'em in these parts; a dugout is more humble affair in local terminology, and making them doesn't involve the steam-press method for the big ocean-going canoes.Skookum1 (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Gulf of Georgia
I'm in no mood to tweak this right now, and BCGNIS doesn't get it quite right, but "Gulf of Georgia", though not an official name, is in wide use and doesn't mean exactly the same thing as "Strait of Georgia" or "Georgia Strait"; for an example of historical use see here and the subsequent page where the geo-idiom is closed....the author is referring to the waters from the San Juans northward; i.e. the inter-island waterways are included, as are (in British colonial and latter usage) also the SAn Juans; in fact, there is wide mis-use of "Georgia Strait" in referring to locations (such as Chemainus) not actually on the Strait of GEorgia, but which ARE part of the "Gulf of Georgia". "Towns around the Gulf" or "boaters out on the Gulf" has explicit meaning; but if say a weather forecaster said "vessels on the Strait of Georgia can look forward to 15 knot winds" or some such, he/she is not talking about Ganges Harbour, Haro Strait, Desolation Sound etc etc....anyway "Gulf of Georgia" is an issue I'll take up with my contacts at BCGNIS, but just noting here that the wording of the lede needs adjusting to reflect the reality of that term; which includes waters off of Victoria and Saanich were are NOT part of the "STrait of Georgia" (though often misapplied that way).Skookum1 (talk) 06:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Also see page 28 of the same book....Skookum1 (talk) 06:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

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