A longhouse all on its own, not part of a village, situated on a cliff high above the shore? With only one old man inside? Strange things indeed.

I don’t expect anyone to know this, and it’s not really that important to the story, but chikamin is iron or metal. In this case, I assume, raw, unsmelted iron, possibly meteoric. A rare substance on the Northwest Coast, but not unknown.

And yeah he’s not actually that guy’s grandfather.