The 60-mile-long fjord is currently named for a British aristocrat who fought against the United States in the Revolutionary War.

“It's important that our tribe, who did settle the entire Hood Canal drainage in ancestral times, has the opportunity to weigh in on such a significant change,”  Skokomish Chairman and CEO Tom Strong told the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names.

Retired elementary schoolteacher Barbara Stark of Poulsbo is proposing to change the name to Salish Fjord.

“If we would look at [Mount] Rainier, no one would consider calling it a hill. If we looked at the mighty Columbia, no one would call it a stream,” Stark said. “I think it's time that we recognize this marvelous waterway.”

 ”My recommendation is that it be the Salish Fjord in recognition and thanksgiving for all of the tribal communities that have lived along this waterway for hundreds and hundreds of years,” she said.

Hood Canal is not a canal. The natural waterway was carved 13,000 years ago by Pleistocene ice sheets, is home to wild salmon and giant Pacific octopus, and is 600 feet deep in places.

Long before British Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver dubbed it “Hood’s Channel” in 1792 in honor of British Admiral and Lord Samuel Hood, local inhabitants called it “tuwaduq sidaqʷ” [too-wah-duke SEE-dock], or “the Twana people's saltwater.”

Tuwaduq, or Twana, is the language of the Skokomish Tribe. Rivers flowing into Hood Canal, including the Duckabush, Dosewallips, Hamma Hamma, and Skokomish, all bear Twana names, or at least anglicized versions of them.

“Every drop of fresh water that drains to Hood Canal is in Tuwaduq, or Skokomish, territory,” Strong said.

Strong said he agreed that Hood Canal was not a proper name for the area.

“To us, it's tuwaduq sidaqʷ. It's our saltwater, tuwaduq people who settled the area, and we're here since time immemorial,” he said.

Strong said he had no idea the Salish Fjord proposal was being considered until a KUOW reporter informed him of it five minutes before the committee meeting began.

“I implore the board to table this request until the Skokomish Indian Tribe, the primary tribe of Hood Canal, is properly consulted in the process,” Strong said.

“When I started this process three years ago, I reached out to several tribes via email and did not hear back from any of them,” Stark said.

Stark said she did not have any connections with tribal communities in order to get suggestions from them.

After some debate, the committee voted to table the Salish Fjord proposal for initial consideration until its next meeting in May.