How the term Nootka arose.
Nootka? That's a new word thought of when the explorers tried to explore muwacath, Friendly Cove. We say they explored North America or Vancouver Island. But they didn't. They were led into a shelter, these ships.
West Coast Bndry
They got stuck. They were anchored out in the open Pacific and a bunch of Indian people took off with a whaling canoe, maybe a dozen men, and they directed these ships that couldn't get in,
'cause they didn't know, they were told to come around that point nutksia-nutksia-nutksia where the lighthouses stand today. And maybe the mamalni (white man) standing at the railing of the ship thought, "Ah, that must be Nootka, Nootka," although what they were told was to come around that point and get into the harbour. So that's when that word Nootka came in. And I don't agree with that word, because, you know, it's not right. And we're called Nootkans from Port Renfrew to Kyuquot.
As told by Peter Webster in "nu-tka- Captain Cook and The Spanish Explorers on the Coast", edited by Barbara S. Efrat and W. J. Langois,
Volume VII, No. I, 1978, p. 55.
For the last two centuries, the many tribes on the west coast of Vancouver Island have been collectively known as the Nootka. This name imposed upon the First Nations people though a misunderstanding of Captain James Cook has been perpetuated by historians but has always been resented by the people themselves. These people refer to themselves as the West Coast people.

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