Story-Origin
The Sto:lo First Nations story-origin is based on local mythology:
Long ago there were places in these river waters that were home to little
water babies. These little babies, skw'ikw'iy, were known to be very stingy
with the fish, or kw'o:kw'ekw'iy.
If the kw'o:kw'ekw'iy did not like you, if you were disrespectful of
mother earth (temexw), they would not let you catch any fish, and your
people would starve.
The moral of the story, therefore, is to be respectful of mother earth
and you will be blessed by the kw'o:kw'ekw'iy with fish bounty to feed
your people.
A-la or t-ala means “container”.
Thus, the places or pools in the river containing these stingy little
water people were called Kw'o:kw'e'kw'iya:la.
This was too long and too difficult for the settlers to say, so they
called it ”kokahala” and spelled it ”Coquihalla”.
Hence, the name of our eco retreat denotes that you are “at a special
place in the river home to these stingy little water babies, and to be
respectful of mother earth so you will be blessed with food for your peoples”...
you are “at Kw'o:kw'e:hala”.
A footnote to the above translation is provided by way of a report prepared
by Brian Thom for the Ministry of Forests. He describes that when the
masses of settlers came around too much, the water babies left. He also
notes that the word Coquihalla now names a river, a valley, a highway,
and toll booth, which are considered to be misuses of the word by non-natives
and this in itself, he notes, indicates a lack of respect for Aboriginal
culture.
We use the shortened form of this name with respect for its origins,
with permission from the elders, properly denoting we are ”at” one of
the places, where, we believe, the water babies once resided.
An alternate derivation may come from the word “kueq”, meaning Steelhead
trout, as depicted in “The Salish People: Volume 3 The Mainland Halkomelem
by Charles Hill-Tout”. We understand that the river on which we reside
may also be named for kueqa-a-la, or steelhead container. This story
intuitively gives rise to the name Coquihalla River as it is one of
only two rivers in BC with two spawning runs of Steelhead trout annually.
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