| Feature Type: | Hill - Elevation of terrain rising prominently above the surrounding land. |
| Status: | Official |
| Name Authority: | BC Geographical Names Office |
| Relative Location: | SW of Mount Helmcken in Metchosin (municipality), W of Victoria, Goldstream Land District |
| Tags: | Indigenous |
| Latitude-Longitude: | 48°23'54"N, 123°35'51"W at the approximate centre of this feature. |
| Datum: | WGS84 |
| NTS Map: | 92B/5 |
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Origin Notes and History:
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Adopted 2 April 1988 on 92B/5, as submitted by Arthur G. Guppy. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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So-named because of the abundance of wildflowers, including camassia leichtlinii and camassia quamash. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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"Camas" is Chinook jargon, borrowed from the Nootkan "chamas", meaning "sweet" or "pleasant to eat", used by the Coast Salish people to describe the sweet, starchy bulb of an indigenous lily; later the namesake of the botanical genus, camassia (Camas Lily). A dietary staple, the bulbs were dug from meadowlands in the fall, baked in ground ovens and dried for winter use. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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"[Camas lilies] are found in immense quantities in the vicinity of Fort Vancouver [now Vancouver, Washington], and in the spring....present an uninterrupted sheet of bright ultramarine blue." (Paul Kane, fieldnotes 1845-48, published as Wanderings of an Artist, 1859.) Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |