This section provides access to some of the most important historical documents in Chinook Jargon. It is written in a learners writing system developed by Dave Robertson partly in response to the needs of the BC Chinook Jargon Initiative. The documents are also foot noted to bring attention to interesting points about the language. Each document is connected to a video that shows actual learners engaging with material under the guidance of Dave Robertson.

Letters written by indigenous people.
These are some of the 200 letters collected by Dave Robertson that were written between the 1890s and the 1920s mostly by indigenous people to other indigenous people.

Stories documented by linguist Melville Jacobs from the 1920s to the 1950s

Kamloops Wawa newspaper articles.

Other Documents.

Joe Peter recordings.

The Snass Sessions are online Chinook Wawa study sessions.

The Snass Sessions were named after dedicated participant Rein Stamm. Rein’s commitment to these online learning sessions made them an established fact.

Eventually the group were able to bring in consulting linguist David Douglas “Chinook Man” Robertson PhD as an expert to help direct their studies. Then in mid-2020, they began to record their study sessions, realizing they would be of value to other Chinook Wawa students and researchers.

Each of the titles below links to a full one-hour video plus related study materials when available.

This page shows available Snass Session videos with the most recent first.

Or click here to see the videos from the oldest date first.