Salish Sea

The Salish Sea is claimed to be the traditional name used by first nations peoples for the inland waterway stretching from Tumwater, Washington to before the Johnstone Strait, British Columbia. Its first known use was in 1988, marine biolgoist Bert Webber from Bellingham, WA propsed that US and Canadian authorities officially apply this name to the large, dilute, estuarial inland sea that includes what is now called Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, and other waterbodies, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca which connects the Georgia-Puget Basin to the Pacific Ocean.cite web | date =2004-08-04, revised | url =http://estuaries.gov/Paddila2.html | title ="Part One: Where in the world is the Salish Sea?" | work =Washington | publisher = [http://estuaries.gov/about.html estuaries.gov] | accessdate =2006-05-21 ]

The waterbody in question was the central resource of the indigenous (First Nations and Native American) Coast Salish peoples who historically and presently inhabit the area, although the basin also includes territory of the Northern Wakashan Kwakwaka'wakw and Southern Wakashan peoples (the Nuu-chah-nulth, Makah, and Ditidaht) and, formerly, that of the Chemakum (who are now extinct).

Name

The Coast Salish are a grouping of indigenous peoples who live in the south western British Columbia, and north western Washington state coast. For most of their collective histories, there was no single term to describe these people who share many cultural and linguistical traits. But after anthropological contact with the Salish of the interior of Washington and Idaho, the rest of the tribes and nations were grouped together as part of the same linguistic grouping and the name "Salish" applied to coastal peoples for the first time. This term was supplemented by the terms Coast Salish and Interior Salish, referring to the two distinct linguistic groupings of the languages within them. The name Salish Sea was coined in recent years despite claims that it is "traditional". In any of the Coast Salish languages, there is no single term for this area.

The waters in question are normally referred to as Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia, the region variously as the Georgia-Puget or Puget-Georgia Basin, or in the singular as the Georgia Depression, the Georgia Basin or Puget Sound "et al". The Canadian half of the region is regularly referred to as the Gulf of Georgia, a term which encompasses the Strait of Georgia and all other waters peripheral to it, as well as to the communities lining its shores or on its islands; like Puget Sound it describes the general region as well as the body of water.

See also

* Pacific Northwest

Notes and references

Bibliography

*
*