At one point on the water's edge in Vancouver, B.C., a lofty pinnacle of rock stands like a sentinel on guard. In the language of the Chinook Indians, it is called the Siwash Rock. The native Indians say the rock was once a young chief of their people and that two smaller rock formations below the main pinnacle were one his wife and child.
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| Siwash Rock as it is today. |
They tell the story of how their young chief, perfect in physical form, his skin burnished gold, wedded an Indian maiden of surpassing beauty (what else?). They were very happy together and one day the young wife told her husband that come nightfall she would bear him a son.
Following tribal custom, the wife went into the woods while her husband plunged into the waters of the sea near the point where the great Siwash Rock now stands. He was glad of heart and he swam powerfully, breasting the waves and rejoicing in the strength which helped him master the waves. But there was another and deeper reason for his action for it was a belief of his tribe that when a man first looked upon his new-born son and took him into his arms, he must be perfectly clean, with his skin as nearly fresh as that of the infant as possible.
While the chief was bathing his body in the sea and listening for the cry from the woods which would call him to the shore where his wife would awaiting him, he saw a canoe approaching and manned by humans who he recognized as emissaries of the Great Spirit.
The chief was not afraid but he wondered at the reason for their appearance and where they were going. As he swam nearer the canoe, a voice bade him stop and direct his course to the land. But the young chief refused, explaining that he must stay in the water, clean and undefiled, until the voice for which he was waiting should call him ashore. He continued to swim on.
Suddenly a child's cry sounded from the woods, faint but clear. Eagerly the swimmer made for the shore and the joy which he thought awaited him. However, he never reached land for the spirits, unable to pardon his disobedience, turned him into stone as he drew near to the shoreline.
However, the spirits relented in their judgment and, so that he might not be lonely, changed the wife and child into stone and placed them at the rockened feet of the chieftain father. There all three stand together to this very day.
Further to the history of Siwash Rock...
Siwash Rock, also known by its Squamish name Skalsh or Slhx̱í7lsh, is a famous rock outcropping in Vancouver's Stanley Park. It is between 15 and 18 metres (49 and 59 ft) tall and became known to mariners as Nine Pin Rock for its vague resemblance to a bowling pin.
My interest in Siwash Rock stems back from a one-time only visit to British Columbia in 1985 while working for the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
About 32 million years ago, a volcanic dyke formed in the sedimentary rock that forms the foundation of the park (sandstone and mudstone). Magma was forced to the surface through a fissure in the Earth's crust creating the basalt stack, which is more resistant to erosion than the softer sandstone cliffs. Siwash Rock is the only such sea stack in the Vancouver area.
There is some controversy over the name of the rock. "Siwash" is a Chinook Jargon word for a person of First Nations or Native American heritage. Though the word 'siwash' in the jargon did not necessarily have a negative connotation and was used by native peoples themselves, its etymology can be traced to the French word "sauvage," which means wild or undomesticated. The word is considered by some to be derisive, but remains in use in certain place names and other contexts without derogatory associations, as with Siwash Rock and Siwash Sweater.
Up on the cliffs overlooking Siwash Rock is a lookout point off the Siwash hiking trail. While today it is an ideal spot for park users to admire the scenery, it was known as "Fort Siwash" during the wars. An artillery battery was mounted there in the First World War, as were searchlights in the next war. A runaway mountain goat, according to park board lore, lived free in this area for almost a year in the mid-1960s until he was hit by a car and died in another area in the park. Also residing in this area, until he was arrested shortly after the Second World War, was a man living in a nearby cave for a 17-year period interrupted only by his service overseas to fight in the war.
The small Douglas fir atop Siwash Rock that helped make it such a distinctive landmark for the first generations of Vancouverites did not survive the exceptionally dry summer of 1965. An article on the tree’s passing in the Vancouver Sun reads more like an obituary than news story, quoting former Vancouver MP H. H. Stevens as saying “I’ve known that tree for about 68 years now and I’m sorry the tree has died because it was one of our main attractions in Stanley Park.” A park superintendent felt sure that it was “virtually impossible to establish another fir up on the rock from a young plant.” Less than three years later, however, while park crews were still working to restore the park’s forest from the devastation of Typhoon Freda, persistent efforts were rewarded when new saplings finally began taking root.
In 2017, Vancouver Park Board commissioner Catherine Evans introduced a motion to change the rock's official name to Slhx̱í7lsh. As Siwash is derived etymologically from sauvage (the French word for savage), Evans said: "We shouldn't have a name for any part of our land that is derogatory to the Indigenous people of this land."
About 32 million years ago, a volcanic dyke formed in the sedimentary rock that forms the foundation of the park (sandstone and mudstone). Magma was forced to the surface through a fissure in the Earth's crust creating the basalt stack, which is more resistant to erosion than the softer sandstone cliffs. Siwash Rock is the only such sea stack in the Vancouver area.
There is some controversy over the name of the rock. "Siwash" is a Chinook Jargon word for a person of First Nations or Native American heritage. Though the word 'siwash' in the jargon did not necessarily have a negative connotation and was used by native peoples themselves, its etymology can be traced to the French word "sauvage," which means wild or undomesticated. The word is considered by some to be derisive, but remains in use in certain place names and other contexts without derogatory associations, as with Siwash Rock and Siwash Sweater.
Up on the cliffs overlooking Siwash Rock is a lookout point off the Siwash hiking trail. While today it is an ideal spot for park users to admire the scenery, it was known as "Fort Siwash" during the wars. An artillery battery was mounted there in the First World War, as were searchlights in the next war. A runaway mountain goat, according to park board lore, lived free in this area for almost a year in the mid-1960s until he was hit by a car and died in another area in the park. Also residing in this area, until he was arrested shortly after the Second World War, was a man living in a nearby cave for a 17-year period interrupted only by his service overseas to fight in the war.
The small Douglas fir atop Siwash Rock that helped make it such a distinctive landmark for the first generations of Vancouverites did not survive the exceptionally dry summer of 1965. An article on the tree’s passing in the Vancouver Sun reads more like an obituary than news story, quoting former Vancouver MP H. H. Stevens as saying “I’ve known that tree for about 68 years now and I’m sorry the tree has died because it was one of our main attractions in Stanley Park.” A park superintendent felt sure that it was “virtually impossible to establish another fir up on the rock from a young plant.” Less than three years later, however, while park crews were still working to restore the park’s forest from the devastation of Typhoon Freda, persistent efforts were rewarded when new saplings finally began taking root.
In 2017, Vancouver Park Board commissioner Catherine Evans introduced a motion to change the rock's official name to Slhx̱í7lsh. As Siwash is derived etymologically from sauvage (the French word for savage), Evans said: "We shouldn't have a name for any part of our land that is derogatory to the Indigenous people of this land."
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