Nooksack Place Names: Geography, Culture, and Language

Place names convey a people’s relationship to the land, their sense of place. For indigenous peoples, place names can also help to revive endangered languages. This book takes readers on a voyage into the history, language, and culture of the Nooksack people of Washington State and British Columbia as it documents more than 150 places named by elders and mentioned in key historical texts. Descriptions of Nooksack history and naming patterns -- with maps, photographs, and linguistic analyses of the place names – give life to a nearly extinct language and illuminate the intertwined relationships of place, culture, language, and identity.

To hear audio recordings of the place names in the book, and for additional images of the places, visit the Nooksack Place Names: Audio Recordings and Images website at www.nooksackplacenames.com.

Allan Richardson is a consulting anthropologist, retired from teaching at Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, Washington. Brent Galloway is professor emeritus, First Nations University of Canada, Regina, Saskatchewan.