DCHP-2

snye snyes or snies [< Cdn F chenail channel; cf. Mod.F chenal] DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• 1a n. — Esp. Ottawa Valley

  a side-channel, especially one that bypasses a falls or rapids, rejoining the main river downstream and thus creating an island.

  See also: snye (def. 1c)  

  • 1827  (1829)  At this place, there are numbers of islands formed by snies winding round the Falls.
  • 1833  (1955)  Below some of the other piers there are snies, or channels, into which the water furiously rushes, carrying with it entire trees, which again appear far below, mutilated and stripped of their branches.
  • 1948  The word snye, sny or snie has been used for many years to describe a channel behind an island, with slack current or partly dried, or some similar feature.

• 1b n. — Lumbering, Obs., Esp. Ottawa Valley

  such a side channel used as a route for rafts and cribs of timber.

  See also: dry snye  rafting-channel  timber snye  

  • 1827  (1829)  In this snie, or rafting-channel, we propose to place three locks. . . .

• 1c n. — Esp. Ottawa Valley

  in place names.

  • 1826  (1829)  This channel is called Gloucester Snie, and seems by Nature made to receive the Rideau Canal. . . .
  • 1831  This channel, popularly called the Mississippi Snigh, (chenal) leads from the backwater near its mouth, to the foot of the rapids.
  • 1961  . . . around Bryson and Campbell's Bay [in the Ottawa Valley] . . . one still hears the expression "The Shnye". . . .

• 2a n. — Northwest

  a narrow, meandering, sluggish side-channel of a river, usually shallow and often coming to a dead end.

  See also: back-channel  side-channel  side-chute  slough (DCHP-1) (def. 3)  

  • 1873  (1904)  . . . the snow lay deep and soft in "shnay" and "batture."
  • 1908  Much of [the tracking] is in the water, wading up "snies," or tortuous shallow channels . . . floundering in gumbo slides . . . and finally tottering to the camping-place sweating like horses. . . .
  • 1963  . . . two miles at least of bush and beaver dams, springs and snyes (which are subsidiary channels of the main river), deadfall, potholes and moose meadows.

• 2b n. — Northwest

  See 1923 quote.

  See also: fast snye  

  • 1923  We swung out slowly from the "snye" into the main stream of the Athabasca. The "snye" is the cut-off between two streams at their junction, making an island of what would otherwise be a promontory.
  • 1957  We skidded down the banks and on to the snye . . . the branch of the river encircling the island.

• 2c n. — Northwest

  a river side-channel used by bush pilots for landing aircraft equipped with floats or, in winter, skis.

  See also: landing snye  

  • 1921  The Imperial Oil Company narrowly escaped the loss of their machines, which were lying on the snye at the back of the Fort awaiting favorable weather. . . .
  • 1945  Fullerton saw the trouble and . . . chose a spot some distance away on a nearby snye, where he was able to sit [his plane] down without damage.
  • 1958  In the early days of flying, when the bush pilots and their planes were opening up the north, the snye between the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers became one of the most important landing places.

• 2d n. — Northwest

  in specific names of streams.

  • 1939  Up the narrow channel known as the Snye, the water is sometimes too low to float fully loaded barges.
  • 1955  Fifty feet above the frozen Snye--a tiny tributary of the Mackenzie River--the Rene nosed into the ice.