Audio Excerpt

Mount Garibaldi is located 15 kilometre’s to the Southeast, in the Southwest corner of Mount Garibaldi Provincial Park.  It overlooks the town of Squamish and is considered sacred, playing an important role in the oral history passed down among the aboriginal Squamish people.  As the story goes, there was a great flood, leaving only two mountain tops uncovered by the water.  It was here, at the peak of Mount Garibaldi that the survivors of the flood latched their canoes and waited for the waters to subside.  It wasn’t called Mount Garibaldi then though, the aboriginals called the mountain Nch’kay, meaning no way I’m telling you this one, take a guess! So does Nch’kay mean, 

A - Pure and Clean, B - Dirty and Grimy, or C - both Clean AND dirty?

If you answered B, take the money and go ya filthy animal! The answer, dirty and grimy, was in reference to the Cheekeye river below!  Nch’kay was also used to predict the weather.  The common belief was that when clouds covered the face of the mountain, it signaled the coming of rain or snow!  The Squamish used Nch’kay for lot’s of thing like cultural ceremonies, hunting and gathering resources.  One of the most important resources was a black volcanic glass called obsidian, only found at higher elevations surrounding the mountain range.  Used to make knives and chisels… and pretty much anything else that needed to be sharp. Obsidian use dates back 10,000 years to protohistoric times!