Nooksack Tribe convinces the state to change this creek’s name because it’s offensive

Published 4:30 pm Wednesday, October 30, 2019

By Kie Relyea

The Bellingham Herald

Squaw Creek in north Whatcom County has been renamed at the request of the Nooksack Indian Tribe, which said the word “squaw” was offensive.

Tribal leaders asked the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names to change the name back to Páatstel Creek, which they said was its original name.

The 4.3-mile stream is between Lynden and Sumas.

The committee agreed to the name change on Tuesday, Oct. 29, during its meeting in Olympia.

The creek’s name was one of five name changes that the committee approved.

George Swanaset Jr., the Nooksack Tribe’s cultural/natural resource director, wrote to the Committee on Geographic Names in May and asked for the name change.

“Squaw” is viewed as a derogatory term by the Nooksack people specifically and by native people in general, according to Swanaset Jr.

“The creek known as ‘Squaw Creek’ is located in Nooksack Territory,” he added. “The Nooksack name for this creek was Páatstel, which was associated with a historical Nooksack village near the source.”

He was referring to the village’s location near the creek’s headwaters.

Swanaset Jr. said Páatstel was the name used from “time immemorial to the time the first settlers changed it.”

The Whatcom County Council unanimously supported the name change, approving a resolution to that effect on Oct. 22.

Paul Fetzer, a Nooksack tribal member, identified the creek’s original name in a 1950 interview with Louis George, according to the resolution.

Information about the creek’s name also came from the verbal testimony of Nooksack elders as well as family knowledge and can be found in the book, “Nooksack Place Names Geography, Culture, and Language,” according to Swanaset Jr.