The Salish Sea

[randy_byers]

State board adds Salish Sea to region's watery lexicon

OLYMPIA — Local tribes called it Whulge. George Vancouver named it for his buddy Peter. And now yet another name for Puget Sound is nearly official: the Salish Sea.

The Washington State Board on Geographic Names Friday voted 5-1 in favor of adding Salish Sea as an approved name for the body of water encompassing Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia and the many watery connections in between.

Salish Sea (Wikipedia)

The term Salish Sea is a neologism for the inland waterway stretching from Tumwater, Washington to Quadra Island, British Columbia. Its first known use was in 1988: marine biologist Bert Webber from Bellingham, Washington, proposed that U.S. and Canadian authorities officially apply this name to what its proponents describe as a large, dilute, estuarial inland sea but is really a series of interconnected straits, sounds and inlets focussed on Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, and adjoining waterbodies, plus the Strait of Juan de Fuca which connects the Georgia-Puget Basin to the Pacific Ocean.

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).