Audio Excerpt

If someone is known as ‘The Chief’, they’re probably a pretty big deal right!? Whatever it is they do, I’m guessing they do it pretty well.  Well ‘The Chief’ I’m going to tell you about, does it’s thing, being an imposing mountain, exceptionally well!. If you look to the East, and look up, wayyy up, you’ll see ‘The Chief’ just sitting there doing it’s thing! It’s official name is Stawamus Chief Mountain, and at over 700 meters tall, it’s claimed to be the second largest granite monolith in the world! Sooo anyone know what a monolith is? Is it,

 

A - A geological feature that consists of a single massive rock, B - a mountain that has only one way to the summit, or, C - a mountain formed from a single layer of igneous rock that, when it was magma, flowed overtop a grassy hill?

 

If you answered A, a single rock.. YOU rock!! A monolith, like The Chief, is really just one big, heavy, huge, rock!  A batholith on the other hand, like Mount Rushmore, looks like a monolith but is actually composed of multiple types of rocks. 

 

 The name Chief comes from the Squamish name Siam, which refers to a social ranking, like the position of chief! Squamish tradition says the great cleft in the mountain's cliff-face was left by the skin of Sinulhka, a giant two-headed serpent! The whole mountain is actually said to be a longhouse turned to stone by the Transformer Brother Xaays.  Giant two-headed serpents and transformers!! Squamish history class must have been waayyyyy better than mine was!