262 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



BEYOND THE CLIFF (from the person speaking). There is no doubt, I believe, 

 as to this meaning. 



With the word KAM-SÔK, meaning BEYOND THE CLIFF, thus clear, we 

 turn to examine the applicability of the word to the topography of CANSO. And 

 this is not hard to find. The entire north coast of this part of Nova Scotia, from 

 near Canso westward almost to Guysboro Harbour, is a well-nigh unbroken line of 

 abrupt and striking bluffs and cliffs, making, indeed, almost a single cliff line for that 

 distance. This line of cliffs, I have no question, is the SÔK of KAMSÔK. Now to 

 one approaching, or speaking, from the direction of Guysboro and the Strait of 

 Canso, the Harbour of Canso is the first place of any consequence beyond or on the 

 opposite side of these cliffs, and as all of the evidence we possess would tend to show 

 that Guysboro and the Strait, with the various places accessible therefrom, were the 

 usual places of Indian resort, while the much less favored Canso was a place of oc- 

 casional visit rather than permanent residence, the expression PLACE BEYOND 

 THE CLIFFS would be a most natural and appropriate designation therefor. And 

 this I believe to be the actual origin of this word. As in other cases the name was 

 probably not applied to a particular spot but rather to the vicinity of the Indian 

 camping grounds, which were probably on or near the present town of Canso. 



This analysis of the roots of the name KAMSÔK brings out the fact that the 

 word lacks the locative termination usually borne by aboriginal Micmac names to 

 express the fact that the word applies to a place. We would expect, therefore, to 

 find that the aboriginal form of the word would terminate with K, or CH, and a pre- 

 ceding vowel, in accordance with the usual mode of forming the locative. Now it 

 happens, I believe, that this full locative form does actually survive, in the CAMSO- 

 GOOCH, next considered; and it seems most probable that the locative termination 

 OOCH was dropped in the course of the long use of the word by fishermen and others 

 prior to its appearance in records, although, as will be shown, it is still retained by 

 the Indians. 



Other Explanations of the Name. — Of these I have found four. L'Abbé 

 Laverdière in his great Oeuvres de Champlain, 278, calls attention to a statement of 

 Father F. Martin, in his translation of Father Bressani's Relation, to the effect that 

 Canseau was named for a navigator named Canse. This explanation is given in 

 Brown's Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, 1888, 34, with an addition, — "from the French 

 Navigator Canse, and eau (water)"! But l'Abbé Laverdière shows conclusively 

 that this derivation rests upon a mistaken reading of a passage in Thevet, who is 

 really referring to the West Indies, while moreover the navigator's name is given by 

 Thevet as Cause, not Canse. Again, Haliburton, in his History of Nova Scotia, II, 

 223, speaking of the Strait, has this note, — "It is said that the derivation of the word 

 Canseau, is from the Spanish 'Ganso', a goose, a name given to it on account of the 

 immense flocks of wild geese then seen there." No evidence of any sort is adduced 

 in support of this view, nor do the records supply any; and it is obviously no more 

 than one of those pure guesses based upon a similarity of word forms, such as are 

 sufficiently common in this subject, and of which the most conspicuous example is 

 Acadia (compare the references in the Champlain Society's edition of Denys' De- 

 scription, 126, and a later number of this series). The third of the other explanations 

 is that of Rouillard, in his Noms Géographiques empruntes aux Langues Sauvages, 

 Quebec, 1906, 27. After discussion he rejects an Indian in favour of a French origin, 

 deriving it from Canseau, and he quotes Réveillaud's Histoire du Canada as recalling 

 that this word Canseau, or Chanseau in old French meant "Boundaries or Limits" 

 ("bornes, limites"). No evidence, however, or reason, for such a meaning is offered, 

 and this explanation evidently has no other foundation whatever than a chance 



