DCHP-1 Online

skookumchuck [< Chinook Jargon skookum strong + chuck water] B.C.

• 1 n. white water; swift current; rapids.

  • 1887  (1888)  Accordingly we arranged to meet at Skookumchuck Creek ("the stream of the rapid torrent").
  • 1922  If so, you have listened to the call of the Skookum Chuck, as the Chinook speakers call the rollicking, tumbling streams that sing their way through the canyons with a music so dulcet, so insistent, that for many moons the echo of it lingers in your listening ears. . . .

• 2 n. tidal rapids; tide rip.

  • 1940  Skookum chuck means tidal rapids.
  • 1958  Sometimes as many as six services are held on a Sunday and between any two such services may be miles of stormy water and a couple of skookum chucks. . . .
  • 1958  But eastward across the skookumchuck on the mainland up the Fraser River . . . the . . . tribes watched beside their game trails. . . .