It’s the name of the small town and valley located between Tacoma and Olympia, the name of the Native American tribe whose reservation is between Lacey and Yelm, the name of the much-photographed glacier (shown below) near Paradise on the south side of Mount Rainier, and the name of the river flowing from said glacier to Puget Sound.

Nisqually’s name comes from French explorers, who called the natives nez quarre, meaning “square nose,” and was altered by the natives’ inability to pronounce the letter “r.” The first white settlement on Puget Sound, Hudson’s Bay’s Fort Nisqually, built in 1833, was situated near the mouth of the Nisqually River.

As for Nisqually Glacier, if you go up there now, you’ll discover there is still A LOT of snow on the ground thanks to our stormy winter and early spring.