Category talk:Puget Sound

American definition of Puget Sound?

The reason I'm asking this is that the Strait of Juan de Fuca article was placed in this category, but in our rexckoning that's a different body of water. I've gathered that Washingtonians use "Puget Sound" to refer to waters right up through the San Juans to Bellingham Bay and the 49tgh Parallel; but technically to the north of the San Juans it's decidedly Strait of Georgia, and again in our recdkoning Haro Strait isn't part of "the Sound"; I know KVOS-TV in Bellingham uses it to mean the San Juans and the waters northwest of Whidbey; there's a demarcation/defining line from Port Townsend over, the cartographic expression only applies south of that (originally it only meant the Tacoma-Olympia area, apparently). I think, though, that there's a statesiee perception that the Strait of Georgia - and apparently the Strait of Juan de Fuca - are part of Puget Sound. One reason I'm trying to sort this out is because I just created a new series of subregion hierarchires for Category:Coast of British Columbia, and also subdivided Category:Vancouver Island. Within that region one of the main breakdowns in loca lterminology is Category:West Coast of Vancouver Island, which generally means Tofino-Ucluelet (aka "the Pacific Rim") but also is used to refer to Jordan River-Port Renfrew and Bamfield; Quatsino Sound, way up at the end of the Island, is in Category:Northern Vancouver Island (usual usage: "North Island"), likewise Gold River even though like Alberni it's technically "west coast of teh Island" - and Nootka Sound, nearby, is definitely WEst Coast......anyway I'm considering a Category:Strait of Juan de Fuca as a subcat of Category:West Coast of Vancouver Island to take in Renfrew-Jordan-Sooke; Sooke is also in the "Western Communities" a subregion of Category:Victoria, British Columbia and is at the farther west edge of the Western Communities; Victoria/Esquimalt/Metchosin/Colwood are alsoStrait of Juan de Fuca, but it can be a parent cat of Category:Greater Victoria, British Columbia which is in as mentioned the South Island c at as well. Main thrust here is I'd like to sort out the status of thte Strait of Juan de Fuca; there's no reason Victoria or Jordan River should be in a US-geography cat's subcat...i.e. this one. Just trying to coordinate border/cat/hierarchy overlaps before proceeding...Skookum1 (talk) 02:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Heya -- yes it is not uncommon for US people to speak of Puget Sound as extending to the San Juans, Bellingham Bay, etc. But strictly speaking and by all regular definitions Puget Sound's northern boundary is at Admiralty Inlet and Deception Pass, both of which led to Juan de Fuca. I can dig up sources if needed. I've never quite figured out what the eastern and northern boundary of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is -- my sense is that it ends at and amongst the San Juans. Bellingham Bay, for example, doesn't strike me as being part of the Strait of Juan de Fuca or the Strait of Georgia, or Puget Sound. The same might be true for Haro Strait and Rosario Strait. I've long wondered what the strict definitions are. But in any case, yes the term Puget Sound is often applied too broadly. I can see the desire to apply it to Bellingham Bay, but the Strait of Juan de Fuca is going way too far. In fact, I'll just go rm that cat now. Pfly (talk) 05:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

In the old colonial-era conception, the Haro-Rosario Straits are would have been part of the "Gulf of Georgia", although that term has never made it into the official gazette, and its modern usage stops at the international boundary; Saturna and N/S Pender and Saltspring Islands aren't in the Strait of Georgia either, despite a commonly mistaken equivalence between the Strait and the Gulf. There is, indeed, no collective name for the group of inland waters between Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca, or for all three together; which is part of the logic of the Salish Sea nonsense/campaign. This doesn't mean there has to be one. I'd venture that this article should discuss the vernacular usage vs. the formal usage, just to make it clear to readers; how to cite that I wouldn't know. Category:Strait of Juan de Fuca seems worthwhile, and would include the communities/geography of the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula. I know you WPWAers

don't have geographic-region categories, your county breakdowns I guess work just fine (our RDs don't, which is why I created the historical-geographic-regions hierarchy), although I guess Category:Cascade Range is in a way a kind of geographic region cat....i.e. there's no call for a Category:Olympic Peninsula is there, i.e. that could suitably overlap with a Juan de Fuca cat. "the Juan de Fuca region" on Vancouver Island is a regular feature of our media English and political geography (at least one riding, for instance, has had it in its name), so while it's "West Coast of Vancouver Island" and also spoken of that way it's still a different subregion of same, and named as such; it's just we never say, nor would it fit with the other region catnames I've created, as Category:Strait of Juan de Fuca region of Vancouver Island or Category:Strait of Juan de Fuca region; easier to leave "region" off but then the category must be crossborder and it would be nice if it meshed with a US hierarchy.....Skookum1 (talk) 16:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I just went through Category:Islands of Washington and added this cat where appropriate; lots else to be added, towns, bodies/passages of water, just didn't want to go there today (unless you'd care to....). I noted Lummi Island is incluce in teh San Juans cat, by the way; and given the vernacular usage if the San JNuans cat isn't already in this cat I guess it should be...having the Puget Sound cat kidn ofpredicates the need for the Juan de Fuca cat and my Category:Gulf of Georgia idea.....16:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Skookum1 (talk)

Looking at the Puget Sound page this afternoon I realized what the problem might be -- and made some edits and a proposal to split the Puget Sound page to address it -- the term "Puget Sound" is of course used for the body of water, but it is also commonly used for the larger region, its cities, history, etc. The "Puget Sound region" is much larger than just the body of water. Pfly (talk) 23:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, we certainly use Gulf of Georgia, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Howe Sound, Clayoquot Sound, Desolation Sound, Queen Charlotte Strait - as region names, not just as bodies of water. In the Inteiror it was easier because terms like Similkameen or Slocan usually come with secondary words (Country often, Valley sometimes, with some like Cariboo or the Kootenay(s) it's optional; but with marine regions, we doln't bother with +region; it would look odd except when capitalized, such that Juan de Fuca Region is probably a department of some government agency/ministry, the way Lower Mainland Region (capital-R) is a Ministry of Environment "Ecozone"-cum-region, even though it includes the Sunshine Coast which ain't part of the Lower Mainland (see Talk:Lower Mainland). Well, what you've said being valid enough maybe Juan de Fuca (geographic region) is needed to get around the waterbodies cat hierarchy; Gulf of Georgia is definteilly a region-name but it's not officially gazetted, so can maybe be gotten around the waterbody hierarchy; Queen Charlotte Strait though is a region, and dropped the "strait" part confuses things with te QCI which it's nowhere near....have to think about this; hopefully a couple of Island editors will weigh in. This is why I only added islands to the Puget Sound cat today, by the way, not sure how to deal with the rest of it; the Hood Canal - I know it's in the region, sort of (more like Olymipc Peninsula I'd think) - but is it a sidwater of the Sound or the STrait of Juan de Fuca?Skookum1 (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't recall hearing "Strait of Juan de Fuca" used as a regional term around here. For the north part of the Olympic Peninsula people seem to just say "Olympic peninsula". I haven't gotten the sense of a great shared regional identity between north Olympic Peninsula and south Vancouver Island, but I dunno. Hood Canal is an arm of Puget Sound as commonly defined. Gotta run! Pfly (talk) 02:11, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't meaning it as a region in the sense of a shared community/identity....it's interesting though the degree to which WA and BC regions differ as a result of the respective geography, i.e. one seems more land-based, the other water-based; "water" in the Interior meaning watersheds/basins. Other than Puget Sound your macro regions are like, the Olympic Peninsula, the Inland Empire/Columbia Plateau, the what-ever-you-guys-call-the-Vancouver-WA area. Our topography breaks us up a lot - valley by valley in the Interior and North, archipelago by archipelago or strait by strait or coastline by coastline. It's always struck me how much the 49th really hit a geographic nerve in terms of what's north of it and what's south of it; the 48th probably would have made things even more clearer. Anyway about the Juan de Fuca region of Vancouv er Island, I'll seee if there's a hyphoenated form for it, otehr than the riding or healthboard or other ministry names which are like "Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca"; with something like that (not that, though) it might be OK to add "region"; definitely a puzzlement. The second main region on the Island after Victoria is around Nanaimo-Courtenay-Campbell River, I've been looking for a proper cat name for it; User:KenWalker who lives in Qualicum Beach says just use Category:Mid Island, which is how we speak about that area; "Mid Vancouver Island" looks/sounds/clunky.....anyway, coffee's done percing or dripping or whatever it's doing.....(I just got up) Skookum1 (talk) 14:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)