it has a range of positive meanings. The word can mean 'good,' 'strong,' 'best,' 'powerful,' 'ultimate,' or 'brave.' [1] Something can be skookum meaning 'really good' or 'right on! 'excellent!', or it can be skookum meaning 'tough' or 'durable'. A skookum burger is either a big or a really tasty hamburger, or both, but when your Mom's food is skookum, it's delicious but also hearty. When you are skookum, you've got a purpose and you're on solid ground, in good health/spirits etc. When used in reference to another person, e.g. "he's skookum", it's used in respect with connotations of trustworthiness, reliability and honesty as well as (possibly but not necessarily) strength and size.
Being skookum may also mean that someone can be counted on as reliable and hard-working. In a less positive vein, skookum house means jail or prison as the English euphemism "the big house" but on this side of the pond meaning "strong house". Skookum tumtum, lit. "strong heart", is generally translated as "brave" or possibly "good-hearted". In the Chinook language, skookum is a verb auxiliary, used similar to "can" or "to be able".
Ahhhh yes.....I found this wonderful little bottle just two years ago. It is embossed Skookum Root Hair Grower...a 1890's bottle as evidenced by three tiny vent dots....accompanied by that 1890's look....I have very few 1890's bottles. Somehow they have the misfortune of being crowded out by earlier more sexy bottles.....such a problem.
I'm sure this bottle (not this very one) but one like it has been on the bottle forum in the past. I picture mine here with a little story of perseverance & wonder.
The Delta area of California near Sacramento was at one point the fastest way for miners to get to the gold fields of the Sierra Nevadas...the trip North through the valley by foot from San Francisco took several weeks. Early accounts tell of encounters with grisly bear & tule elk....It was said that when startled ducks & geese would black out the sun for hours on end. Imagine that... “black out the sunâ€.
And then there were the Native Americans... how would that go? How could that go? Sometimes fairly well, more often disastrous. A flood of gold seekers. Gold ~ that ticket to wealth. By foot, by wagon, by steamboat ~ California was under siege.
Several people in California chose to make money off the miners rather than mine for gold...These people farmed the rich valley land. The same steamships that carried miners would now stop for bushels of potatoes ( be it one basket or 200) and all other articles needed by the miners.
So along the path to Sacramento a few families built homes...the dump to one of these two story white Victorian’s had been a focal point for several years in the quest for bottles. The dump area was strewn down a levee side. Iron stove parts, brass gaslight parts,the always broken china & broken bottles marked the area....I remember a broken Drakes Plantation bitters laying in plain view.... crushed in place. Despite the abundance of refuse...very little came from this site. On the umpteenth venture to this site I was at the base of the dump working the gravity theory.....I was seeing the same stuff...when out of the corner of my eye I saw the glint of cobalt glass....just a hint....every so slight....just the possibility. I quickly concentrated my attention on this location. Covered by the thinnest layer of earth was the Skookum Root Hair Grower. I had overlooked this bottle several times. Of my 1890's bottles this is a favorite. I be Skookum......[
]
Being skookum may also mean that someone can be counted on as reliable and hard-working. In a less positive vein, skookum house means jail or prison as the English euphemism "the big house" but on this side of the pond meaning "strong house". Skookum tumtum, lit. "strong heart", is generally translated as "brave" or possibly "good-hearted". In the Chinook language, skookum is a verb auxiliary, used similar to "can" or "to be able".
Ahhhh yes.....I found this wonderful little bottle just two years ago. It is embossed Skookum Root Hair Grower...a 1890's bottle as evidenced by three tiny vent dots....accompanied by that 1890's look....I have very few 1890's bottles. Somehow they have the misfortune of being crowded out by earlier more sexy bottles.....such a problem.
I'm sure this bottle (not this very one) but one like it has been on the bottle forum in the past. I picture mine here with a little story of perseverance & wonder.
The Delta area of California near Sacramento was at one point the fastest way for miners to get to the gold fields of the Sierra Nevadas...the trip North through the valley by foot from San Francisco took several weeks. Early accounts tell of encounters with grisly bear & tule elk....It was said that when startled ducks & geese would black out the sun for hours on end. Imagine that... “black out the sunâ€.
And then there were the Native Americans... how would that go? How could that go? Sometimes fairly well, more often disastrous. A flood of gold seekers. Gold ~ that ticket to wealth. By foot, by wagon, by steamboat ~ California was under siege.
Several people in California chose to make money off the miners rather than mine for gold...These people farmed the rich valley land. The same steamships that carried miners would now stop for bushels of potatoes ( be it one basket or 200) and all other articles needed by the miners.
So along the path to Sacramento a few families built homes...the dump to one of these two story white Victorian’s had been a focal point for several years in the quest for bottles. The dump area was strewn down a levee side. Iron stove parts, brass gaslight parts,the always broken china & broken bottles marked the area....I remember a broken Drakes Plantation bitters laying in plain view.... crushed in place. Despite the abundance of refuse...very little came from this site. On the umpteenth venture to this site I was at the base of the dump working the gravity theory.....I was seeing the same stuff...when out of the corner of my eye I saw the glint of cobalt glass....just a hint....every so slight....just the possibility. I quickly concentrated my attention on this location. Covered by the thinnest layer of earth was the Skookum Root Hair Grower. I had overlooked this bottle several times. Of my 1890's bottles this is a favorite. I be Skookum......[
]
