Talk:Pitt River

how waters work.

This subject is on streams and rivers they mayb formed into to make condensation then the water evaporats into the air when the clouds get heavy it starts to percipitation. Thats called rain,sleet,hail or snow.Then the water is stored in the ground and that is called ground water man. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.50.204.186 (talk) 15:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

And your point is?? And as far as your recitation of what condensation is, the Pitt has one hell of a lot of it which is why it's such a big river over such a short distance....pretty simple; for those of us who've seen the clouds darkening the upper Pitt, as seen from the south, it's a self-obvious fact.Skookum1 (talk) 02:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Simon F. and Billy Pitt Jr.

That might have been me who put that in place long ago; I knew it was named for Pitt and supposed he was still PM:

It was named for William Pitt the Younger, who was British Prime Minister when Simon Fraser came down the river now bearing his name in 1808

On the other hand news travels very slowly in this part of timespace, and how long exactly had Simon been on the road and of of contact with centres which would have recieved the news? This was before telegraphs, remember, and signalling networks were not in place in the wilds as they were in some parts of the Old World (and some of the New). If he did know Pitt had died, I'd suppose it must have been in his memory then. AFAIK it was Fraser who named it; if I'm not mistaken his journals are out there in cyberspace somewhere, maybe in a lockdown archive like JSTOR but maybe elsewhere also, let's look around; a great source to quote in Wiki for places he "touched down". Doesn't BCGNIS say anything? I'd think the Akriggs do but I don't have a copy. BTW there's a UBC thesis from the 1930s or 40s, a Masters in Geography, typescript, that's in the UBC stacks that you can either get on interlibrary loan or maybe, in that case because it's a thesis, get a photocopy (it's in a releaseable binder). Goes into the timeframes involved, and how they evolved over the course of the fur trade, colonial and early provincial era; fascinating but short but really gives a great perspective on the different spacetime of the outer world, how slowly things moved; later, when the Expresses were in place and ship travel connected with the fur traders, news from Europe and the Home Isles came much quicker; even then in the days of the godl rush it took six weeks for a letter (or a person) to travel to the Cariboo goldfields; once the Cariboo Road was built that became a few days - under a week anyway - and with airfare-type fares (relative to a working man's income); most who got to the Cariboo did it on foot; stagecoach was for the luxury class, the road was otherwise for freight; but it also sped up the mails....here's a thought for you: communications between Douglas and London or Montreal at a certain point were encrypted, sent through the American telegraph system (at first from San Francisco, after the message being sent down by ship under lock an d key), then relayed to Hew York for relay to Montreal (via HBC headquarters, and then (before the undersea cable of a few years later) by ship to Bristol, and the telegraph to No. 10 or Whitehall or wherever it was the Colonies Office ran out of (Ministry?). I know in the early days there were very late announcements of events in the outside world, especially when revealed to parties who had been long on the road; my guess is that - since on last thoughts I think this is in the Akriggs, i.e' what's quoted above - is because he didn't know yet that Pitt was dead. He was a long way from Montreal, with no runners to bring the news; news which would have taken six weeks, I think it was in that era, to transit from Britain to Montreal; also fo interest and shoudl be a in a Seattle library and I may have mentioned it before, Tools of Empire and I'm sorry I don't know the author; you'll never look at steamboat histories the same again, let me assure you....g'tnie, I've got a 5:30 calltime and it's 11:51 gotta hit the sack.....Skookum1 (talk) 02:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, just saw your added bit - you sure it's not in Fraser somewhere, and that MacMillan's is absolutely the first? What did Fraser call it then, as he certainly noticed it? "Quoite", also - what to you mean "probably equivalent to Kwantlen]]? "Probably" is a suppositive word, also; if you mean language, it's Halkomelem, and could be associated with the Katzie or Kway-quiht-lam whose lands flanks the river. Anyway not sure at all what this setence means:

The river has an alternate name, Quoitle, which is probably equivalent to Kwantlen.

Pleaee explicate.Skookum1 (talk) 02:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh I agree that Fraser might not have known that Pitt had died. But as stated the sentence was false. Everything I added comes from "Pitt River". BC Geographical Names. (interesting that the river's ID is only 80, that's the lowest I've seen). I realize the BCGNIS notes are hardly rock solid, but still it doesn't say anything about Fraser, and mentions that McMillion's journal is the first record of the name (which isn't to say it wasn't long established). It also mentions Quoitle. I paraphrased, but the actual text is just: "The alternate name, Quoitle, seems to be the same as "Kwantlen", the name of the Indian Tribe who inhabit the banks of the Fraser River at this point, and which was formerly often spelled Quantlum or other variations." I can't pretend to know anything about this, just saw that the page had a banner at the top saying there were no citations or references, so I endeavored to add at least one. Those "no citations" banner always feel like a challenge to me. But my knowledge is only as good as the source, which may not be ideal. That's all I can say. Feel free to change as needed! Btw I added a gazillion BC rivers over the last couple days. Maybe if you know more about some of them you could flesh them out when you have more time. I mainly created river pages that didn't exist and also had at least some bit of story in BCGNIS. But again, my BC knowledge in terms of geography and indigenous peoples leaves a bit to be desired. Pfly (talk) 05:13, 31 August 2008 (UTC)