The bar at the grand opening of the Opera House in Dawson City in the Yukon Territory, July 4, 1899. The famous photograph was taken by Eric Hegg.

HOOTCH, a word for home brew, first popularized in the Yukon during the days of the Klondike gold rush, has spread all across Canada . Hootch is short for hootchinoo which is the mangled English form of a word in the Tlingit language, khutsnuwu, or Grizzly Bear Fort, the name of a people and their village on Admiralty Island, where hootch was first brewed from molasses, yeast, local berries, and other ingredients best left veiled from mortal orbs. So the word originated on American territory but was popularized and introduced into English on Canadian soil. I think we can safely share this boozy synonym.

Tlingit is a member of the Na-dené family of languages. It is spoken by a people inhabiting southern Alaska and some off-shore islands. Approximately 1500 people still spoke Tlingit in 1981. Tlingit in Tlingit means “the people.”

Klondikers in a photograph from 1898 on Porcupine Hill, White Pass Trail, Skagway, Alaska. Pack dogs and horse-drawn sleds are hauling freight over the high mountain passes.

 

revised December 2004

© 2004 William Gordon Casselman