I introduced our dog Shasta to a Ukrainian family friend today, who had just brought us a wonderful home-cooked meal, with several Ukrainian delights, and she immediately remarked “How nice, to name a dog Happy”.
I was a bit confused, and said that we named the dog after Mt Shasta, because we spend a lot of time in the mountains. “Really?”, she remarked, “because the Ukrainian word щастя (shchastya) means happiness”.
I told the story to my Ukrainian father, who agreed, while clarifying that it also meant “luck” or “success”. He added that it’s similar in Russian – счастье (schast’ye).
Huh? I thought Mt Shasta was named after the local native people, who today call themselves the Shasta Indian Nation.
But, no, that’s the name they were assigned by the US government, not the name they give themselves. They call themselves Ka’hosadi, and they call their land K’ahusarieki.
Mount Shasta, with Shastina on left. By Loco Steve – https://web.archive.org/web/20161023050751/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/68050474
So where did the name Shasta come from?
The first printed reference to a word like “Shasta” was made in 1814 by British explorer and fur trapper Alexander Henry who wrote about the Shastasta tribe of Indians living at the mountain.
In 1827, Hudson’s Bay Co. brigade leader Peter Skene Ogden described “Mt. Sastine,” although he was referring to present-day Mt. McLoughlin, not today’s Mt Shasta. He was creative with his spelling, using “Shasty Forks,” “Sastise River,” and “Mt. Sastise,” as well.
1840 maps relabeled present-day Mt. McLoughlin as “Mt. Shasty.” and the present-day Mt. Shasta as “Mt. Jackson”. Then Charles Wilkes’s men in 1841 mistakenly labeled present-day Mt. Shasta as “Mt. Shaste”, replacing the “Mt. Jackson,” name. At the time, the British called the peak Mount Pitt.
Between 1844 and 1850 the spellings of “Shasty,” “Shasté,” and “Sasty” were by far the most prevalent spellings for present Mt. Shasta., The first time that modern spelling of the name “Shasta,” appeared in print was in 1850, when the California State Legislature adopted the spelling of “Shasta” for the County of Shasta.
Ok, thanks, that tells me how the name was used early on in northern California and southern Oregon.
But it still doesn’t tell me the source of the name…Until I made the Russian connection.
One of the Shasta-like names used during the mid-1800s in the region is “Tsashtl”, with a clear Russian origin. The 1881 “History of Siskiyou County, California” said “The Russians who settled at Bodega could see it from the mountains of the Coast Range, and called it Tchastal, or the white and pure mountain. This name the early Americans adopted, spelling and pronouncing it Chasta, time having made the further change of substituting the soft ‘sh’ for the hard ‘ch’ ” ,
Could the Russians at Bodega really see Mt Shasta? Wouldn’t the Coast Range block? Well, indeed yes, it is just barely possible to see the peak, over 200 miles away, from the 1,500’ high ridge just east of Fort Ross, sighting along a line that passes through a low area between Snow Mountain and the Yolla Bollys.
But more certainly, the Russians were seeing, and naming, the mountain from the southern Sacramento Valley before Alexander Henry did.
In 1803, Russians had already started exploring along the California coast, as far south as San Diego and Baja, looking for profitable hunting grounds for sea otters. This was organized by Alexandr Andreyevich Baranov, with an American sea captain, Joseph O’Cain. They found plentiful sea otter, although the quality of the fur was not as high as that of the Alaskan otter. Baranov appointed Timofei Tarakanov to lead large Native Alaskan hunting parties to California in 1803, 1806 and 1808.
Between 1808 and 1811, Baranov sent his deputy Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov on a series of expeditions to reconnoiter possible settlement sites in California. After establishing a temporary base at Bodega Bay, which became Fort Ross, Russian explorers, scientists, artists were using both the base and Russian ships in San Francisco Bay as springboards for exploration, travel, and scientific research into central California.
By 1818, Russian promyshlenniki (self-employed hunters and trappers) had traveled almost 70 miles up the Sacramento River; later they ascended the American River above what is now Sutter’s Fort. It’s very likely that these hunters were Aleuts from Alaska, who made up the bulk of Russian-funded hunters, and they might have been travelling using their traditional skin kayaks (baidarkas) typically used for hunting.
Sketches of two Baidarkas (skin boats); top shows Aleut man with spear, bottom shows three Aleuts rowing. From: Sarychev, Gavrill Andreevich, Atlas of the Northern Part of the Pacific Ocean compiled in sheets by the Imperial Navy Department from the latest reports and maps, 1826. Alaska State Library Collection, PCA 20-56. From https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/ania/hrs/chap3.htm
These inland hunters were not after sea otters, though. If anything, they would have been hunting river otters or beavers, which occur inland all along the west coast of North America. These hunters were already settling for smaller and smaller animals. Sea otters off Alaska can be up to 100 lbs., but California sea otters are more commonly half that size. River otters rarely get up to 30 lbs.
It would’ve been hard for them to miss Mt Shasta, perhaps their “lucky” totem for successful hunting.
Mt Shasta, with Shastina on the left side of the main peak, from near Red Bluff, Northern Sacramento Valley, by Anthony Dunn https://www.flickr.com/photos/adunnphoto/4480043116/in/photostream/
My father added that the word “Shastina” would be the Russian feminine noun form of щастя (shchastya). That’s the name of the smaller peak next to the summit of Mt Shasta.
Nature-ly Curious 