Gastineau Channel - proper pronunciation

Listening most days to the Juneau Harbor Webcam stream and on the VHF audio between harbor control and ships or local boats there are two pronunciations for the channel.

Gas-tin-oh (mainly from cruise ships) and gas-ti-now (mainly locals).

I usually opt for the local version when visiting a place but since it and Juneau end the same figured they should rhyme. Probably a to-may-tow to-maht-oh thing but ???

It's always been the second one, for me.

If the word is French based then it would be the first. This hopefully is correct after my 5 years of French classes in HS and College!

Pooh

It is believed that that the channel was named for John Gastineau who was an English engineer and surveyor. It is not unusual for English to share French names so I would go with the "gas-tin-oh"

I would have guessed the first.

But I know an English family with a French surname & they do not use the French Pronunciation...

Boucher - Bow cher not Boo shay

Also there is a sports personality with that name, so that is the pronunciation that sticks in my mind.

We have a lot of French place names in the Northwest. But our pronunciations are not even remotely correct French, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the local, accepted pronunciation is gas-ti-now.

Thanks for the opinions. I think I will submit this to Steve Sauke's web site for NW pronunciation in his Alaska page.

http://www.stevensauke.com/say/northwest.html

Maybe he has access to the correct version. By the way, I heard a third one yesterday - more like Gas-ti-naw than Gas-ti-now - but maybe that person was from an area with a specific local accent like Downeast Maine or Deep South and was trying for the first. So many Alaskans are transplants.

gas' ti no

Accepted local pronunciation has nothing to do with original roots. I grew up where the the indigenous words were spelled by the french but pronounced by the english.

Locally, we have Russian words "Sukoi" pronounced as "sockeye". And a glacier named LeConte (le Cont') but the Alaska ferry (they are all named after glaciers) is pronounced "le Con' tee".

AND i know how to pronounce Sequim, the first place i'd move to from here.

I always think of it as "gas 2 know" but I've been wrong before lol

Listening most days to the Juneau Harbor Webcam stream and on the VHF audio between harbor control and ships or local boats there are two pronunciations for the channel.

 

Gas-tin-oh (mainly from cruise ships) and gas-ti-now (mainly locals).

 

I usually opt for the local version when visiting a place but since it and Juneau end the same figured they should rhyme. Probably a to-may-tow to-maht-oh thing but ???

Perhaps the reception isn't that good? I've never heard 'now' and I'm a local. It is Gast-i-noh which is not one of your options. :) Like Ju-noh.

Since moving back to Washington state from Minnesota last spring I'm now 1,600 miles closer to Sequim. Vague plan has been to retire there.

Thanks for all the local versions - I sort of thought it should rhyme with Juneau.