Colonial Despatches

Squamish is a town and harbour on the Squamish River. The town is located nearly halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. The Squamish River is named after the Squamish First Nation band.1 Squamish has been translated as people of the sacred water.2 The river was first recorded on an 1863 admiralty chart, and many obsolete spellings have been recorded, including Chomes, Whoomis, Skqo’moc and Squohamish.3

Europeans moved into the area in the late 1880s, and a small logging and agricultural community formed.4 The settlement was briefly renamed as Newport; however, in 1912, the government of British Columbia reverted the official name back to Squamish.5 Today, Squamish is a district municipality with a population of 14,000.6

• 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Placenames (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 562.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. Ibid.